Plant Haul From Garden Heights Nursery

All right, so here's the deal. I was out shopping with Bae. I remembered that I've been trying to find some little terrarium style plants, and I was hoping to find some orchids. We're at that time of year where nurseries might get something in other than just the phalaenopsis types. We went past this nursery, filmed there before. It's called Garden Heights. Didn't film much while I was in there, like very, very, very little, because there weren't a ton of people there. Oh, it just gets weird and it gets awkward. But I did pick up some nice stuff, so I'm gonna show you what I got. And, uh, well, here's the footage of while I was there. I might have to do music over some of it, because I told Bae, like, just talk and I'll voice over it, and then I didn't. I didn't plan on actually doing the voiceover, so I don't know. Here's all that. I think it's sad when there's no plants. These are cute. Oh, it's just a little tiny blue spurs. Yeah. Oh, it's, uh, it's jasmine. Madagascar jasmine. Smells so good. Fed off. Whole side of one of those tables with clearance plants, and most of them looked okay. I like that when the nurseries say, all right, this one's not quite up to par, so let's mark it down and get it out of here. Maybe it just needs to go live somewhere else. That happens sometimes. Sometimes the plant just needs a change of environment. So, here's what I got. Oh, well, hold on. Let me back it up first. What a beautiful nursery, right? They're right off of Big Bend, here in St. Louis. They've been there for a while. Been shopping there for several years, and during the winter months, I just love going in there. They're greenhouse. It's not huge, but it's very clean. The plants always look really nice, and it's just a refreshing place to be. Everybody there is very friendly, too. There's usually a cat running around. That's fun, unless you don't like cats, but I enjoy the cats. Look at how they package everything up for me. Very kind of them, because it was very cold outside. I'm trying to do this far away from my microphone, so it won't be too obnoxious. I left the car running, but, you know, I didn't bore them with all those details, so I had to walk it from the store into the car. They package everything up very, very, very nicely, which they really didn't have to do. I feel like it's kind of like, you know, shop at your own risk. It was 17, something like that, outside when I was in there. It was pretty dang chilly. Look at that. Such a nice job. Very nice people in there. Just banging the camera around with my boxes here. Okay. I might be a little surprised by some of what's in here, too, because I picked all this up yesterday, and it had to sit at Bae's house overnight until I was able to bring it home today. Oh, these are pretty. Yeah. I remember all this, of course. How could you forget? This one back here, crocodile fern. Awesome fern for terrariums. Look at that foliage. These are Microsorum, right? They are. Microsorum Mucifolium. Oh, yeah. I did a video on these many, many, many years ago. That Microsorum, if you don't know, a lot of the aquatic type ferns, Java ferns, it's a rhizomatic epiphytic fern that grows in fish tanks as a Microsorum, and you can see that when you look at this, if we were to compare the two. Very, very, very similar. And I wanted to play around with a crocodile fern in a more semi-aquatic way for several years. I thought, well, hey, it's $4.99, and it looks pretty good. There's a few little pieces that need to come off, but it has some blemishes, but this is fine. This is totally fine. It's a nice looking plant. These make a good houseplant as long as you're good at keeping things moist, right? They don't really like to dry out for very long, and they do want a nice bright location, but not the direct sun. You put these under a dome or in a terrarium, really great. They're very, very, very lush, and their foliage will darken up over time. I think this is a lighter color probably from being in the greenhouse or shipping. Who knows? But they are typically a little bit darker green than this, and, well, they get their name because of the veining. See that? I guess the thought is that looks like crocodile skin, I suppose. I don't know. I don't like to think of it that way. Sounds gross, even though I like crocodiles. I want to think about their skin being on my plants. Another great, fantastic plant for small applications indoors and for terrariums. This is one of my favorites. It's a heart fern, if you couldn't tell. By the way, I've had the tag sitting up here in your faces for, what, the last 15 seconds. Really nice fern. It's a, well, not always a low-growing fern, but compared to, I guess, most ferns, you know, like a true fern with the big pinnate style of leaf on it, then yes. Does it say what type? There are other types of heart ferns. Doesn't say. Does this place in bright light? Avoid direct light? Yeah. Water thoroughly. Let extra water drain out. Slight drought between watering. I mean, yeah. Just to spray the foliage. I wouldn't do that. Maybe if you're using really clean water. The heart ferns, in general, it's not always a great idea to spray the foliage. Just, you know, in general. But the heart ferns, you can see very tiny hairs, trichomes, what we call those, on the foliage and down along that stem and water can collect on those and it will sit for a while and that can lead to discoloration on the foliage and maybe fungal problems. That's just with whatever's in your tap water. If you're using really clean, low TDS water, meaning that there's not a lot of minerals and things dissolved in your water, so saying you don't have hard water, sure, maybe, you know, mist at your own risk is what I tend to say these days. I really like these in a terrarium application. Outside of these being under some sort of glass structure, I cannot keep these alive. They're not that forgiving. It says to allow some drought. That's never worked for me unless, well, I guess in the house, yes. Out here in the grow space, I need to hold this still. Poor thing. Much more complicated because it gets pretty warm out here and there's a lot of moving air. So out here, yeah, they really need to be in a terrarium type setting, which is what I plan on doing with it. I would like to keep them under glass, under a bell of some kind. In fact, I thought I had one ready to go for it. I'm looking around, I don't see it. Okay, well, it's not ready to go for it. I need to clean it up and I'm not sure if that's even going to be large enough. Eh, just barely. That's just barely big enough, but that's what I have to do with those. It's got to stay under glass or else it's just not going to thrive. Out here, that is. They're good for a few days, but once they dry out, there's no forgiveness here in this grow space with all that circulating air and everything. I think you get it in the house. You don't have as much air moving around. It's not as warm. Yeah. And these are, depending on your type of heart farm, some of them are perennial, depending on where you live. They can be quite cold hardy. Now let's have a look at this beauty. Oh, it's so nice. It's a Cryptanthus. Does it say what kind? Oh, Absolute Zero. That's it right there. 18. Oh, I thought it was $8.99. Oh, all right. I still would have paid it because it's a beautiful plant. Absolute Zero is the name of that one. And it just has the most beautiful plumage. Foliage. It has the most beautiful foliage. Apparently have birds on my mind for some reason. Yeah, that's it. I mean, you just look at it. It's pretty. I don't really need to say much else, do I? Look at that. It definitely has a sheen and a shimmer to it in person. I guess it is a little different in person, so I should probably describe what I'm seeing. What is coming through on your screen is probably just a smidge more silver than what I'm seeing in person. And depending on the angle I have it at when I turn it, especially on this leaf, you can see it on the camera. Watch right there. You see a coppery tone that shifts in and out along the leaf edge. Can you see it right there? It's that coppery tone. Yeah, that's in there. It just depends on the angle you're looking at it from. I think that that is so much fun. I love plants where depending on what angle you're looking at them from, you get a different perspective of their foliage. And Cryptanthus, these are some really tough, sturdy plants. Highly recommend Cryptanthus as far as the bromeliads are concerned. It doesn't get much more tough than these guys. You can grow them as a succulent if you want to. I personally think that they will do better with a more moist environment as long as you have the airflow for them. But yeah, they're sturdy. I have one that's over in my Eureka palm that I just stuck there many years ago. Let me pop you up the tripod so I can show you. See? Okay, well you can kind of see it. You see it? See it hanging out in there? Those stripes? Probably not. It's hard to get over there with all the lights set up. I gotta move a bunch of stuff around. There we go. Let's come down in here and see if we can get a look at this guy. Isn't that just beautiful? I set this here several years ago after I filmed a video on keeping Cryptanthus. And there it has sat ever since. I have done nothing. Absolutely nothing with it. It's in here in the winter time. Goes out with the big Eureka palm here during the summer time where it gets an awful lot of sun. And then it comes in here in the winter and it just like chills out with very little light. No fuss, nothing. Just an easy going plant. I also have a rabbit foot fern in here. Same situation. And there's even an orchid in here that I tried to remove but it has rooted itself onto part of the trunk. And it's a papillote. Man, it's a vandacious type. They just like living inside the Eureka palm so they can stay there. But that is just a testament, hopefully, to what great plants these are. On second thought, do I not have audio? There we go. My mic took a moment to jump on the screen. That's weird. I think the one that's over there is probably from the year after that video because that's an Elaine is the variety of the one I just showed you over there in the Eureka palm. I think the one I did the video on was something called like Red Star, something like that. But I mean, potato podato, 2019 or 2020. It was one of those years and it's where they're doing great. I expect the same from this one. Well-drained soil, really important. As far as bromeliads are concerned, which are typically considered epithytes, these are more terrestrial. So you do want to plant them up into a soil that drains pretty sharply. It doesn't need to hold on to moisture for too terribly long. And they do, they tend to be less fussy than a lot of other bromeliads are. So I highly recommend them give a nice bright indirect light. They can take a good amount of soil, but you need to acclimate them to it. It needs to be a slow transition. It's really, really, really pretty foliage. I have found these not to be as big a diva when it comes to their humidity requirements as other bromeliads. So that's something to keep in mind. I think that that's just because, oh, I don't know. I don't really know. Maybe they'd get more humidity because they're more terrestrial now. Now, I don't know why. They're from Brazil, must have something to do with where they come from in Brazil. Brazil, you know, your rainforest and desert. I mean, they have just about everything you could think of climate-wise over there. Although I'm pretty sure these come from a more moist tropical. Regardless, tough plant. Highly, highly, highly suggest them. If you can find them, they're worth it. Now, the next plants, what do I have left? I'm looking at my bag. I think I have three left. Yeah, three more. And why I hit record before I actually had them out of the bag. That wasn't a good idea. Let me come back. All right, here we go. The next two, this one and the one after, orchids. And then there's the last one, which is frickin' adorable. I'm of course saving it for last, not in orchids. These are Oncidium-type orchids. They have really cute growth on them. They produce a pseudobulb. This is a new growth right here. So it starts off, almost looks the way, well, really a bulbous plant like an iris or gladiola. Kind of similar to how those look when they're emerging from the ground. But then they fatten up with these chonky things right there. They have nice, fine roots, kind of like an angel hair pasta. And their bloom time can vary. Usually the types that I buy will give me two sets of blooms a year. They come up on a really long green spike and they have smaller flowers on them. The Oncidiums do like a good amount of moisture and they can be tricky because of that. But I have been getting better and using a different type of container and a different mix with them. And that's helping to keep them looking really, really nice. I have other Oncidiums that have just been growing and doing their thing for many, many, many years, but they don't look as good. Their pseudobulbs are more shriveled and everything. And those are going to get moved into a more moisture-attentive potting mix this year. The variety on this one is called Volcano Midnight Volcano Queen Orchid Farm. Yeah. I believe that they get their orchids in from Hawaii, if I'm remembering right. And from what I remember about the flower on this one is that, well, it's, I think it's red and brown. I think it was red and orange, but I don't think that's this one. I can't remember for sure. And that's part of the fun was I don't fully know. And I don't like to do that with my plants, especially orchids anymore. I like to only buy them with intent. However, it is so rare that I find orchids for sale locally that aren't a Phalaenopsis and, or actually have a label. So I can find Oncidium type orchids like this for sale every now and then, but they're very rarely labeled. And so I just don't buy them. Whereas this one was labeled, but I don't remember for sure what that's going to look like. It was just so full and happy. This is a very nice, full, and healthy, healthy plant. Lots of good growth on this guy. So I had to get it because usually this is, that's about what they usually cost around here, but there's normally maybe a third of this in the container, if even. I just think that they have such pretty foliage. I like the foliage on orchids. I don't thought for everybody, for me, I like it. This has one or two spikes on it. That was the one thing is that because I was there with somebody else with May, I was kind of rushing through things because they're not necessarily into the plants. And so I try to be considerate and sometimes I might spend a lot longer really focusing on making sure that I'm getting the best one of the bunch. Whereas with this, I was like, all right, yeah, this is pretty good. Those pseudobulbs are nice and big. I don't see anything that indicates any sort of root rot. It has a flower spike, but I'm pretty sure there are others that had two or three flower spikes and I passed them up for one that was really full and had nice, stiff, healthy foliage on it. Beautiful plants. I don't know about the fragrance on that one. I'm going to guess probably not much of anything. This one right here though, oh, look at that. Look at that fat, happy pseudobulb. I just think that roundness is so stinking cute. Got a flower right there. It's probably going to be a new growth judging by it, but right here, another spike. So see, that's the spike that comes up from right there. So that's very similar to what that one's going to look like here in probably a week or so. I like that. And then it turns into this, depending on the type that you have. So this is a really common one. I already have one, but I wanted another. It's an Unstidium called Sherry Baby, except, well, actually this is the Sweet Memory of the Sherry Baby. That's what it's labeled as. We'll talk about that tomorrow in a minute. The Sweet Memory is supposed to be just a more compact, so the heaven scent. Oh, Sweet Baby. I'm sorry. I didn't even have that right. Well, that's even better. I wanted a Sweet Baby. I thought I was getting a Sweet Memory. It smells amazing. It's a chocolatey, fruity kind of smell. That one is usually called Unstidium Sherry Baby, sometimes called Unstidium Sherry Baby Sweet Fragrance, because I believe that's another type. And there's a Sherry Baby Redolence. And then there's Unstidium Heaven Scent, which is supposed to be a smaller Sherry Baby. Right. So let me get in closer on the flowers so you can get a closer look at them. Turn it around here so you can actually see them. Very, very pretty flowers on this orchid. And the fragrance is just wonderful. It's very sweet and very fruity. It doesn't seem as strong as the parent plant to me, but it's also probably not the right time of day to be sniffing it. Yeah, it's very, very faint right now. I went in and gave it another sniff. So this is something we're typically going to have the best fragrance in the morning and then usually around sunset in the evening. But the Sherry Baby, I feel like I can smell that whenever, like if I stick my face up to it, I can usually smell it. But depending on the age of that flower spike, that can also influence the scent, too. Sometimes that dies off over time and sometimes it takes time to even kick in. Regardless, it doesn't matter. It's a beautiful plant. I really like the growth on it. Very, very healthy growth. And it has another spike of flowers coming up right there. So that's why you notice I said, well, these were packed up yesterday and I just left them in those bags, brought them into the house and everything, kept them out of the sun, away from any drafts or any vents. My main goal with these was just to leave them be and to not expose them to any extremes, whether extreme cold or extreme heat, because I don't want to bust those spikes. I don't want them to blast. That can happen sometimes if things get really wonky and irregular, then sometimes you'll lose your flower spikes. OK, moving on from the orchids. This one right here is just stinking cute and I think you're going to love it. Oh, oops. A little embarrassing. I didn't even realize that its pants had fallen off when I pulled it out of the bag. Look at that foliage. Isn't that just beautiful? Sorry, that was a lot of camera movement. Really, really pretty foliage on this Cyclamen. Absolutely love it. Is there a name on it? Yeah. Persicum. Good variegation. Nice colored flowers. They aren't overextended. Growth looks pretty good in here. Cyclamen are a, uh, I don't know how to put it, a pain in the butt plant. They're fine right when you bring them home, usually for a few weeks. And as long as you're good about maintaining their moisture and recognizing the signs for when they want a dormancy, then they'll make a great plant. But if you miss the sign that they're ready for a dormancy, then they tend to rot and die. Good news about the Cyclamen though, is that if they just start to wilt back because you forgot to water them, it's not necessarily that they're being pushed to a dormancy. Because a lot of the floral Cyclamen don't necessarily even need a true dormancy like a lot of the other types, the heterotholiums. Heterotholium. The perennial types. These right here, sometimes they just yellow and go back because they've had too much drought. And when that happens, I just, that's between they're dry too. If they yellow and they're dry, it means they had too much drought. Then I just let them do their thing. I still, you know, give them a little bit of water. Not a lot. And then I usually take these and I stick them under my sink for like, I don't know, two months. Pull them back out. I resume watering and boom, they flush back out and look really, really nice. I just really thought that this would be a plant that would look really nice on my counters inside. I'll probably pot it up in this container right here. I think that would just go really well inside. Isn't that foliage amazing? You see that shimmer, right? That silvery hue that it has on it. Absolutely beautiful. Really nice looking plant. And I can tell that it does need some water. I'm going to water this in when I bring it inside. That's pretty much it. There's not a lot else to say about the Cyclamen. I need to seal this. Maybe I should seal it. I don't know. To think about that. Not a lot to it. Bright indirect light and you know, they can be finicky. If you buy a Cyclamen and it doesn't do well for you, then you know, welcome to the gardener's club. We all tend to buy them at some point out of impulse and then it doesn't go exactly how we think it would. And then there are others where, I know my aunt lives in the Pacific Northwest and hers just flourish inside. They don't have AC and the air doesn't really dry out much in their home pretty much ever. It's just a humid environment and it tends to be more on the cool side and they do great. Whereas here, they have to struggle with just lots of fluctuations and everything. So the main thing with the Cyclamen for me is getting them through until summertime. And then once summertime is here, I can usually move them outside. They do much better for me in a shaded spot. Maybe a little bit of morning sun, but then and when it gets really warm out, that's when they'll usually go into a dormancy and want to chill for a few months. And then I, you know, do everything I just talked about. Let them sink, let them dry out, bring them back out, water and boom. They're full of growth again. Yeah, there it is. Just some fun new plants to work with. I was pretty excited about all of these because none of these are plants that I see for sale very often. I see the heart ferns every now and then. You don't see those at big box stores. I don't see any of these at big box stores where I live. I'll see Cyclamen, but not this, not whatever the heck this one is. Never see that one. Actually, I'm pretty sure I do see these sometimes even at the grocery store, but usually they have a red flower on them. There's something I can't remember what it is. There's something about them that makes me not like them. But this one, I was like, you know, we're going to bring that home. This is coming home. That's too pretty to leave behind. Hey, thanks for hanging out. Not a ton to look at here, but it's all stuff that I just thought was fun and different from the same old, same old, oh, some people, Walmart, you know, here's a Dressena, here's a Costa Farms, some kind of trending tropical thing, which those are all fun plants. Don't get me wrong. It's just nice to have gone to a local nursery that had something better to offer and some very nice, healthy plants. I really like Garden Heights. If you're in the St. Louis area, I highly recommend you check them out, especially if you have the winter blues and you just want to go see some houseplants. They've got a good selection. I also really like their pottery. I got this pot there too. They had it set up with this. I didn't create that. I thought, and I said, yep, yep, that's perfect. I got to take that home. So I got the pot too, which I don't always do, but I don't have a ton of pots this size that are quite this sturdy. That's a nice, hefty pot. I'm not sure. It's a 12 Simona made in Italy, the birds. That's, I don't know. That's what it's called. Comment down below what's going on in your gardens or in your house. What's your house, what's your, what is my, oh my gosh, I'm done. Rain's done. What's going on with your houseplants? Some of your experiences with the cyclamen, some of these orchids, your cryptanthus. Great in terrariums. You use them in terrariums. Same things with these heart ferns and their crocodile fern over there. Oh, if you have any experience with these orchids, let me know. Like I said, I have grown plenty of sherry babies and the heaven scents, but never the sweet baby. I'm pretty excited about that because I think it's just mostly smaller and more compact and cute, which would be nice because the sherry baby, that gets pretty big. So something that's a little bit smaller would be nice. Easier to tuck around the house. You know what I mean? All right. I hope everybody's doing well, having a great day, a great life, and everything's just going absolutely beautifully for you. And of course, as always, and most importantly, everybody, keep on growing. Bye.