“What is the point, dear Carol, of browsing through old gardening books and reading all those yellowed newspaper articles written by Lost Ladies of Garden Writing?”
Thank you for your question!
But must there be a point to everything we do?
Skipping over that rhetorical question which is not really an answer to the first question…
The point is I enjoy doing little gardening projects inspired by those old garden writing women, just because.
Like last spring, when I got the idea to grow all the old vegetable varieties listed by Dorothy Giles in her book The Little Kitchen Garden. And then there was that one time I tried to use Japanese iris leaves as twine. That idea came from Ella Porter McKinney, who wrote Iris in the Little Garden.
Today, we’ll add a new idea from a Lost Lady of Garden Writing. Bea Jones didn’t write a book but she published hundreds (perhaps thousands) of articles in Newsday for 24 years.
And one of those articles Bea wrote was about bottle gardens!
At this point, I imagine stunned silence as everyone says in unison, “Oh, Carol, didn’t you know about rooting plants in water.?”
Of course, I know about that!
What makes this unique is Bea is suggesting in her article that this is a great way to grow houseplants, regardless. All you need is clean jars or vases, clean water, and clean cuttings. See above how I made mine in a row of vases in a rack that normally sits empty unless I remember to put some cut flowers in it.
No more empty vases. Now it’s my bottle garden. And it is special!
The two pothos in the middle are from a pothos that was in a planter given to us at my dad’s funeral in 1987. Do that math and you can see I’ve had that plant for 38 years. Of course, I’ve cut it back numerous times, shared pieces of it with others, but now it’s a centerpiece of my new bottle garden!
The two philodendrons on each side of the pothos were the other inspiration for the bottle garden, besides Bea’s article. I originally bought the plant, which is the variety ‘Minima,’ at the local greenhouse about four years ago. It’s been growing slowly and steadily until a few weeks ago when I noticed the stems turning black near the base. I decided it didn’t have much time before it was going to be dead and sent “off to the compost pile,” but then I remembered Bea Jones’ article about bottle gardening and thought it would be a perfect plant for such a thing.
Finally, the two philodendrons on the ends are from cuttings I made from a plant I started when my sister brought over cuttings of it that her daughter-in-law had rooted. (I helped her pot up the cuttings. I am her potting service.) They’ll do nicely now that they’ve again grown long enough to take cuttings from. Plus, their reddish leaves look good next to the variegated pothos next to the plain green philodendrons.
And there you have it! A bottle garden. Or as Bea would say Gardening in a Bottle!
If you want to know more, here is Bea’s very own article from 1972!
And some pictures
And you are welcome!
Happy Bottle Gardening!
Carol
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