Windowsill gardening indoors

[Hristo]

edit by maggi : This thread has been formed from a previous thread in the Bulb Section, moved here and renamed to open it to a wider discussion of just what can be grown on a windowsill


Relative to many other benchmarks for the cost of living electricity in Bulgaria is expensive. With ( normally ) long cold winter months the heating of a greenhouse would be ridiculously expensive and a profligate waste of resources. Undertaking the renovation of a house allowed a degree of flexability in design leading to windowsills somewhat deeper than UK standard and the creation of an East facing plant room ideal for keeping coloer growing summer plants in. In the attached pics pretty much every pot represents a species, most of the black pots are South African species from Silverhill Seeds in their second year, the brown pots are mainly flowering sized bulbs plus a few non-bulbous species.

[Hristo]

The last lot of windowsills! By Summer the windowsills will be largely clear of plants, though there is a slight change over in March between SA bulbs and Pleiones, the earlier Pleiones start into growth indoors until the threat of frosts has passed!

[cohan]

thanks for these, chris..interesting to see...
i think growth in aug/sept would indeed be quite different than mid-winter--i have an eriospermum which in 08 grew a leaf in late aug, which persisted through mid summer;it sat there looking the same, nice and compact, all winter;
 it started a new one again in late aug 09, then aborted for some reason, and only re-tried the leaf a few weeks ago; this midwinter leaf seems to have a rather etiolated leaf stem, as do a couple of massonia leaves from november or so...
i will be trying to put up some lights in a cool room for these plants, but havent done it yet..

[Hristo]

On the whole starting these bulbs into growth in later summer / early autumn has resulted in less etiolated leaves and more prolific flowering, Moraea polystachea, always pretty but a little shy flowering for me has flowered non-stop for 2 months!
This coming Autumn I may start them off in a covered bed in the nursery and only move them into the house in November, tried this out on Ismene and Veltheimia species and this reulted in the best leaves I've ever had off these two plants, I would love to see the effect this treatment might have on Lachenalia and Ferraria amongst others!
Would love to hear how the lighting works out for you, only lights here are a set of LED grow lights running off a solar pannel, just gives a little extra for some orchids, gesneriads and stapeliads in the plant room.

[Susan Band]

It looks as if you have been doing a lot of hard landscaping around the outside of the house.
Susan

[cohan]

i'll let you know how it goes; right now i have one set of lights(just a double set of T12-or 8s, forget now), but its been mainly for seeds and longer hours/warmer spot than i think the winter growers would like;
i do have some haemanthus coming along there, and they look really good (to me,that is, they dont look weak, but its my first time with them, likely to someone who grows them outdoors they'd seem weak!) as well as some cyclamen purp and a couple townsendia started in the fall

[Hristo]

Hi Susan,
You know how it is, there is always something to be done! The rock garden area has doubled since last year, and is slowly eating into my orchid meadow!! There are 9 extra bulb stock beds in the nursery plus 3 alpine habitat beds below the barn.
A newly dug pond and the Pergola thing is actually a fancy lid for a 5 cubic meter water storage tank!

Cohan, we have adult H.albifloss here and they seem very happy with quite low light levels on an East facing window, also have another unidentified Haemanthus species that seems equally happy. As you say the form may not be quite right but then if we were really all about that we'd be bringing in sucking insects and grazing animals to help develop a true leaf form!!

[Paul T]

Chris,

Fascinating setup.  I think your windowsill species live better than mine (at least they don't bake in 39^oC temps  ).  Brilliant way to grow the things you otherwise couldn't.  The wide windowsills are just perfect.  Thanks for showing us.

[David Nicholson]

Very interesting Chris, can't see me getting away with it though!

[Hristo]

A pleasure Paul, but as with you guys in Australia this would not work so well in the summer months, the South and West facing windows are punishing in the summer months.
David, little by little, a pot one day, two the next week and so on! Maybe the boss won't notice!

[Regelian]

Chris,

thanks for posting the fotos.  I, too, bring quite a few plants in, now that I do not heat the garden house.  With the very cold Winter last year and this year possibly the same, it may be the wave of the future.  Luckily, I have quite a few south-facing windows, but they have heating units under them, so I must be careful not to cook the plants!  I have found moving them inside earlier than Novembre allows them more time to adapt to the driier atmosphere of the house.  I used to bring them in just at the first threat of frost and many plants simply defoliated, such as my Lychis, which I grow for their simple foliage.  This Spring I made the mistake of moving some plants (such as my beloved Veltheimia) outside too soon and they got hit by a very late frost/freeze.  The current global weather changes are making tender plants an incredible amount of guess work.

Ciao,

[Hristo]

Jamie, I agree, windowsill growing is a sensible economy. We even have different temperature zones as the house is heated by a wood burning stove in the kitchen ( no central heating ) The kitchen can be 30c in the evening dropping back to 15c by the following morning after the fire has gone out. The plant room upstairs varies between 8c and 10c, the living room between 25c and 15c. The kitchen is turning out to be a great location to initiate flowering cycles in Phalaenopsis whilst Romuleas and Sparaxis sp. seem to love the West facing bathroom wondowsill!

[Lesley Cox]

The windowsill plantings look very happy and healthy with no obvious etoliation Chris. It's a revelation to see so many species growing happily in such a way.

So far as the summer months are concerned, do you maybe use the sills for the ripening of some such as onco irises and Cyclamen rholfsianum?

And what about the bottles? Are they your secret formula liquid formula fertilizer or something more akin to home brew?

[Hristo]

Hi Lesley,
We are lucky to have large windows!
The windowsills are little used in summer, ripening is not a problem, the oncos cope quite well in bulb frames and in the open garden. Summer usually sees a solid 8 to 12 weeks with temperatures generally above 30c.
The bottles are home brew, plum wine, greenguage wine, mead and dandilion wine....hic...hic...

P.s.. you may recognise a 'friend' in the west facing window 2 picture!

[Lesley Cox]

Oh yes, possibly, approx in the middle?

All that lovely alcohol. Cheers.