The golden rule: If a thing ain't broke, don't fix it. Nobody who is happy with their plants should change anything. Sometimes people decide their thing is broke after gathering more info and spending more time with a plant. Tastes and goals can migrate over time. Hacking, I couldn't agree more with the angle of choosing your own way to do things. So much info is out there, much of it conflicting. Each grower gleans what they can from it, trying to determine which are the real pearls of wisdom, and puts it into practice in their own way, according to their budget, schedule, personal taste, so many variables. Over time, you get to know each plant and the right thing for you and your plants becomes more obvious. Believing a thing will work is at least 51% of the recipe for success with plants, so definitely ask questions when something doesn't jive for you. I know I've had to have some things explained to me several times until they made sense to me and what I'm doing in my own little world. From what you said in your last, yes, we are approaching things differently. Nothing at all wrong with that, but an excellent point to make. For almost 20 years, I had my Sans packed tightly in pots, (the house plant books say that's what they prefer, right?) Much of the time they were in some darkish corner somewhere, rarely given any thought. After reading more anecdotes about them, I wondered why my plants weren't offering the same excitement. They grow faster with more light and space? I had no idea, I'd never tried that. Time to experiment. First with much larger pots. Then with putting plants in the ground for summer vacation. Both venues yielded more pups than I had room to keep in the house the following winter. Those who don't like to repot annually, or who don't want their plant to change that fast, wouldn't appreciate that at all. If one just likes the appearance as-is, there's definitely no reason to do anything to make it change faster. IME, a 5-gallon bucket is a smallish pot for Sans, but that's not what most people want from their house plants - some giant thing that's constantly growing out of control, outgrowing the space one is willing to devote to it. With all of the hullabaloo about Sans being slow-growing, perfect for low-light, yada yada, that's usually the reason for which they are acquired. So the small pot that constricts the roots and keeps the growth at a crawl is perfect for them, it fits the purpose for which the plant is intended. There is indeed a time/place/purpose in *not* having a plant performing at its' ideal, limits of its' potential. The malleable Sans will put up with about anything, except being cold while moist, or simply rotting the roots in any weather as described above. Those who don't kill their plants in these ways should enjoy them well, and hopefully be able to find what works for them to have it growing at their desired pace. One more thing about small pots...

You're right, they are pretty tough plants. This time of year I give them very little water,maybe once a month or less. I keep them in as much light as possible during the winter while they are inside. When the warmer weather returns, I move them outside and they do well with alot of sun but only after acclimating them to it gradually so as not to burn the leaves that have gotten tender from being inside. During the warmer weather they can take alot more water , maybe once a week or more depending on how much sun they are in. They can also do well with much less light if that is necessary, which is why they are often used as houseplants for lowlight situatons. I find they like more light but can do with less. The only thing they really seem unable to take is too much water during cooler weather. I will leave the fertilizer question for others because I am not real big on them...I may give my plants a little timed release all purpose fertilizer once in the summer but that is about it. Enjoy your new plants. logan

MsGreenFinger GW(8 Ireland) I didn't base my post on scientific research. But I did look up articles about 'air purifying plants based on a NASA research' which are actually the most common house plants. (Palm, spider plant, Sans., english ivy, peace lily, boston fern etc) Maybe it does matter what kind of plant one has, how many, what size and how fast they grow. But I am sure, having a dozen large specimens in your home will make the air quality better, just as they make the life quality better. You also can read this interesting aticle: Can House Plants Solve IAQ Problems? The idea of common plants solving IAQ problems is attractive. Most people like having plants in their homes and offices and in the hotels, stores, and public buildings they visit. However, important questions exist as to whether plants can actually affect indoor air sufficiently to warrant their use as air cleaners. Can House Plants Solve IAQ Problems-2.pdf (PDF document 38Kb) This is from this article: To date, advocates have not reported the results from actual field tests. One field study was begun and failed, according to a strong advocate of the interiorscape approach to IAQ control. Stuart Snyder is the president of Aqua/Trends of Boca Raton, Florida, a firm that sells irrigation systems for interiorscapes. He offered his explanation as part of a 13-page letter to Robert Axelrad, Director of EPA's Indoor Air Division. Responding to what he calls EPA's criticism of the NASA work, Snyder wrote, “In many ways small systems are better able to isolate factors, and more clearly define mechanisms at work.... Larger environments are too subject to conflicting variables. Real life, field studies with their complex dynamics are also valuable, and should be implemented at later stages of research -- they are however, more difficult to accurately stage and evaluate” Snyder continued, “Scaled up studies must be made at some point. Associated Landscape Contractors of America have already attempted a controlled study in an office building. It failed as a study because of these difficulties.” The office-building study was done for over a year under realistic conditions and with as much control as can be achieved in a field study, There was no indication that the presence of plants had any measurable effect. HBI Inc., which conducted the study, reported virtually no effect of plants on the VOC concentrations. John R. Girman (Chief of the Analysis Branch at EPA's Indoor Air Division) has prepared a memo that details some shortcomings of the NASA study's claims for the efficacy of plants. The memo was included in correspondence between Axelrad and Snyder. Girman's memo responds to some of the technical issues presented by Snyder and other advocates of IAQ control with house plants. The memo's title is “Comment on the Use of Plants as a Means to Control Indoor Air Pollution,” (undated.) Girman analyzes the notion that NASA research shows plants are effective at removing indoor air pollutants at realistic concentrations and time frames. He calculates that at the most favorable conditions, it would take 680 plants in a typical house to achieve the same pollutant removal rate Wolverton and his colleagues reported they achieved in the test chamber. However, scale-up considerations are also important. It appears that the average chamber volume used in Wolverton's tests was 0.5 m3. This means the results must be appropriately scaled-up for use in a larger environment to allow for differences in volumetric loading (the number of plants per volume of space). This does not appear to have been done. The volume of a typical house in the U.S. is 340 m3 with a floor area of 139 m2 (1500 ft2). Thus, the recommendation that one plant be used per 100 ft2 implies the use of 15 plants in a typical house. [ALCA recommends 1 plant per 100 ft2. Wolverton recently told us he now recommends 2 or 3 plants/100 ft2, but he says “he is “just throwing a dart."] This would provide for 340 m3/15 plants or 23 m3 per plant, not 0.5 m3 per plant as in the chamber. This means that each plant would have to clean 46 times more volume than it did in the test chamber or, as would actually happen, it will clean the larger volume less effectively. To be more precise, each plant will have a pollutant removal rate which is only 1/46 of the rate it would have in the chamber, i.e., only 0.002 h-1. Thus, plants at the volumetric loading recommended would be expected to contribute relatively little to pollutant removal in any indoor environment with typical ventilation To achieve the same pollutant removal rate as realized in the test chamber, one would need to have the same volumetric loading, i.e., 680 plants in a typical house (340 m3 divided by 0.5 m3 per plant). This does not seem practical and this forms the basis for concern that adequate and realistic scale-up considerations are necessary before the use of plants can be recommended as a means to control IAQ. Similar concerns apply to the use of plants to control IAQ in office environments. It is hardly surprising that the attempt to validate the test chamber results by Associated Landscape Contractors of America did not provide measurable success ellenr22 - NJ - Zone 6b/7a(6b/7a) another option would be to not pollute the earth, the air. I agree with you but people need to vote for the right people in the elections to do that.

Is there a drain hole in the pot, if not you should put one in or repot into something with drainage. If it does drain, let it dry out completely before you water, use a dowel stuck into the soil to test, and then water thoroughly (until a bit of water runs out of the bottom of the pot). If it's not getting overwatered then it might just want a bit more light, maybe move it closer to the window. I used to have a couple in my office that got virtually no natural light and they grew very tall and eventually fell over. Also they might appreciate a bit of fertilizer....