Potted Plants from Snug Harbor Farm
It’s no secret how much I love potted plants - especially those rare and unusual varieties.
During my last visit to Maine, I purchased several specimens from Snug Harbor Farm in Kennebunk, Maine - a wonderful and charming nursery specializing in hard-to-find plants. Among the plants I brought home - Selaginella kraussiana or spike moss, Wodyetia bifurcata also known as Foxtail Palm, Cotyledon pendens, Nephrolepis falcata the Fishtail Fern, and Echeveria 'The Rose.'
Enjoy these photos, and please go to my new site Martha.com for useful gardening tools and supplies.
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- I’m always on the lookout for new and unusual houseplants to add to my collection. These are Echeveria ‘The Rose’ – ruffled Echeveria in a beautiful rosewood pink color.
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- The wide leaves have a slightly silvery sheen.
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- Here’s a closer look at the ruffles. And when moderately stressed by bright sun and drought, its leaf coloration can deepen even more to a glossy brick red.
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- Whenever I bring home potted plants, they go right to the greenhouse where they can be transplanted. There is a hole at the bottom of each pot. A clay shard is placed over the hole to help with drainage. I like to use clay pots because they allow proper aeration and moisture to penetrate through the sides and to the plant. We always save shards from broken pots – it’s a great way to repurpose those pieces.
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- Ryan fills the pot with a scoop of potting mix – he fills to just below the top of the pot’s rim with room for the plant in the center.
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- We’re using Miracle-Gro Houseplant Potting Mix available on my new e-commerce site at Martha.com – I hope you’ve had the time to see all the great products on this new site – we’re adding more every day!
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- In this pot, Ryan is planting Selaginella kraussiana – a species of vascular plant in the family Selaginellaceae. It is referred to by the common names Krauss’ spikemoss, Krauss’s clubmoss, or African clubmoss, and is found naturally in the Azores and parts of mainland Africa. I brought home spike moss as well as this trailing variety of spike moss, ‘Aurea.’
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- After planting, Ryan adds a sprinkling of Osmocote fertilizer – also available at Martha.com.
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- Osmocote is made of small, round coated prills filled with nutrients.
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- Unlike other moss, spike moss has a more traditional root structure and can sprout roots from its stems.
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- Here’s the spike moss all potted up. Spike moss foliage is a vibrant green color. It has very small leaves that overlap on trailing jointed stems. This plant loves high humidity and indirect light.
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- Spike moss does well in acidic or neutral soils. A safe PH range for this plant would be around 6.5 – but the more acidic the better.
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- This is Nephrolepis falcata or Fishtail fern. This species is native to the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. It is fast-growing with elegant fronds formed by bifurcated lobes, or split into forks, at the tip.
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- Here, Ryan uses a hori hori to scarify the roots – slice through the roots in several areas to encourage root growth. It may seem harsh, but the plant will send out new feeder roots and should soon recover. Check out my hori hori knife on Martha.com
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- This plant does best with exposure to shade or dimmed light.
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- Here’s Blackie watching all the planting from his nearby bed – did we wake you, Blackie?
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- This plant is Cotyledon pendens, named also Cliff Cotyledon – a beautiful trailing succulent belonging to the Crassulaceae family. This rare plant is native to Eastern Cape in South Africa. Cliff Cotyledon is a branched shrublet plant with hanging stems that can grow up to two feet long.
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- Its leaves are arranged in opposite pairs, often crowded and highly fleshy. The leaf blade is elliptic to ovoid, up to an inch long, up to 0.6 inches wide, and up to 0.4 inches thick.
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- Another plant is this interesting Wodyetia bifurcata, the Foxtail Palm, a species of palm in the family Arecaceae.
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- Wodyetia bifurcata is a very attractive monoecious, thornless, palm with long plumose leaves that have irregular and jagged edges.
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- The Foxtail Palm has a thin, smooth, light gray trunk that can reach to more than 30-feet tall.
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- Ryan also potted up two agave attenuatas. When young, the evergreen plant grows in whorls of enormous, soft-textured silver-grey leaves. As they grow older their stems can grow as high as four feet.
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- I am so very pleased with these additions to my greenhouse. I am looking forward to seeing them mature and thrive.
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