Of Neem Oil and Strelitzia

We recently bought some chilli seedlings locally and brought them home to put under our grow lights. All was good for a few days until we spotted tiny black flies hovering around them. After some research it seemed apparent that we had brought home fungus gnats and so, fearful of the impact of our biosecurity measures in the apartment, we set about researching suitable pest control methods.

It seems that these little blighters spend their larval stage in the pot compost around the surface and then hatch into these flies to repeat ad infinitum. It also appeared that a good means of controlling them was to water from below and thus keep the top of the compost dry and to apply a neem oil solution to the adults. Neem oil was duly acquired and a mixture was made of for spraying. We also potted on the seedlings a little prematurely but we hoped that might have an effect as well.

It's a week later and we appear to have, at least for the time being, removed the infestation. What is even more pleasing is that we dont appear to have spread to other plants , including our lemon tree which is in close proximity. We sprayed it with neem oil as well - just to make sure.

As a part of this process, we had ordered the neem oil from our local florist, Otok in Foss Street Dartmouth and when we went to collect it, there was a good sized Strelitzia nicolai there just waiting to be liberated. It really fitted the bill for our next acquisition. We wanted something tree like but tropical and we wanted, if possible that it would flower despite the north facing aspect of our apartment. I personally think that the plant is unlikely to flower but it would be good if it did. However, the leaves are just magnificent and remind me of banana plants, to which it is related. I suspect the aspect and also our potting strategy will help us prevent the growth habit to the 6 to 8 foot height and 3 to 5 foot spread, although our ceilings would just about accommodate it. On the positive side, if it took up a square metre of the apartment we would still have seventy-six left.

At the moment it looks a bit forlorn in its location by the bath ( for maximum humidity) accompanied only by a rather sad looking specimen of Calathea lancifolia which is currently recovering from being divided as it was pot bound. I don't think we'll see its rather insignificant flowers this year somehow.

However it sits opposite a larger collection of varying flowers as shown in the images and this will help to set off the room whilst it comes into its own.

Indeed, we have had a couple of success stories so far.

The two Christmas cactus's that we originally bought from M & S about eight months ago flowered a little feebly and then went into a sort of leaf growing phase. We potted them on and one decided to grow a load of leaves and the other as you can see, set out with a mass of blooms. The hope and expectation is that the leafy grower will now develop some flowers over the next few months whilst the current star will get stuck into vegetative growth for a while. This way they might flower alternately through the year. We'll see.

Similarly we have had mixed success with the cyclamen, also from M & S. Both were bought flowering and then after a couple of weeks went into decline.

It most likely had something to do with the watering regime but we couldn't seem to get it right. Generally we tended towards dry rather than wet but I suspect that the size of the corm was such that any water was taken up quickly but still left the plant dry. However we increased the watering as the weather warmed up and now we have one prolific flowerer in burgundy and one sparse flowerer in frilly pink.

We'll feed back on the relative successes of these at a later stage once we have. a little history and data to base any assumptions on.