Tag: Plants

Categories
Arts

Canopy: A community project foreseeing a greener society

Courtesy of Madeline Schmidt

Concordia’s Greenhouse hosts a project inspired by a utopian concept, to be presented April 22

After making your way up to the 13th floor of the Hall Building and passing through an inviting doorway, you might suddenly notice the smell of fresh soil as hoses on a “mist” setting crowd your sinuses. An overwhelming presence of life makes itself known; a sort of hidden life, perhaps. 

You’ve stumbled upon Canopy; The Hidden Life of Humans: a project that unites science with arts and crafts in pursuit of the idea that we, as humans, may one day be able to move civilization above the ground into canopies. 

Courtesy of Madeline Schmidt

Maddy Schmidt, who recently graduated from Concordia with a major in design, conceived the idea in August of last year while walking through Montreal and spotting a planter erupting with vines and other vegetation. 

At the same time, Schmidt was listening to a Radiolab podcast about copepods: small crustaceans found in various aquatic habitats, and even in above-ground ecosystems among trees. In their episode Forests On Forests, Radiolab states that about 50 per cent of all terrestrial beings live in trees.

“I saw this crazy web of vines, and they were all linking onto each other. It looks like they’re holding each other. I saw them linking onto the fence,” said Schmidt. “I saw them linking onto other plants. And I was like, there’s this completely interconnected world, it was so mind-blowing.”

The Canopy co-creator immediately called her longtime friend, first-year photography major Liliane Junod, out of inspiration. The “partners in vine” brainstormed ideas for a project honouring the concept of humans living from the top down, rather than the ground up.

Courtesy of Lilly Junod

The idea of the project is to hang all sorts of house plants, such as pothos, also known as devil’s ivy, around the Hall Building’s greenhouse. They would be linked together with grapevines and hung on trellising made from recycled materials. 

The Canopy team is gathering material from Facebook groups that are designated for sharing recycled materials, such as Creative Re-use: Ø Waste, or CRØW.

Canopy will be hosting a workshop in collaboration with Concordia Precious Plastic Project (CP3) and Concordia University’s Centre for Creative Reuse (CUCCR), on April 4 from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.. Anyone is welcome to attend. 

CP3’s portion of the workshop will entail drawing lantern designs and learning how to transform them into illustrator outlines, which will then be cut into recycled plastic sheets with laser-cutters. 

The second part of the workshop, led by CUCCR, will focus on making arts and crafts with recycled materials, and techniques such as sculpting, drawing, painting, and printing will be taught by Concordia’s fine arts students.

“The end result of this project is going to be an exhibition where we create this magical canopy space in the greenhouse, and we’re going to include our artists from the community,” said Junod. “We’re excited to have not just people in fine arts, for whom art is their entire life, but also anybody. So we want to put forth the message that everyone can create for this.”

Courtesy of Lilly Junod

One of the Canopy team’s keywords is optimism, and their goal is to keep the community lighthearted when thinking about the environment.

“We really want this project to be as uplifting as possible,” says Schmidt. “Of course, we’re addressing tons of systemic issues, methodologies, but we’re exposing them through something much more artistic and colourful.”

The Canopy team is calling on any students from the Fine Arts, Arts and Science and JMSB faculties who are willing to lend a hand between now and the day of exhibit on April 22. 

You can visit the project’s Linktree @canopythloh for more information.

Categories
Community Student Life

Concordia’s Greenhouse

Greenhouse pond room. Thomas Vaillancourt/THE CONCORDIAN

The 13th floor: a little hidden gem of paradise.

Did you know that Concordia University has its very own greenhouse? It was opened in 1966 when the Hall Building was built.

This hidden gem located at the downtown campus is a little hard to find at first. But once you start seeing the painted plants on the walls of the stairwell leading you up to the 13th floor, you’ll know you are going in the right direction

.

Dominique Smith, the outreach and communications coordinator of the Greenhouse, gave The Concordian all the ins and outs of this space.

“I became the outreach coordinator a couple of months ago. The Greenhouse is a collection of different working groups that make up the community. Essentially, we are the people who create the agriculture community through workshops, volunteer hours and the staff that upkeeps the space,” Smith said.

He explained that his job at the Greenhouse is to work with all the different working groups that occupy the space, those groups being HydroFlora, Co-Op CultivAction, City Farm School and more.

Smith is also working on creating a vlog to explain the projects of those working groups, almost like a farmer’s almanac. 

Smith emphasized that The Greenhouse as a whole is a collective space. 

The staff at the Greenhouse, in partnership with HydroFlora, have brought back the Greenhouse to its pre-pandemic state. 

“We came together to revamp the atrium spaces. So you have the front atrium which has always been available for students to rent or study in. Now we have a pond room that students are able to rent or study in as well,” Smith explained. 

Smith explained how the layout of the Greenhouse is organized.

If one walks to the back of the Greenhouse, they can see all the sections where the different working groups such as CultivAction grow food for the HIVE cafes at Concordia University. 

HydroFlora is the working group that helps maintain the house plants in the Greenhouse. They also give classes and provide students with job opportunities.

Not only is the Greenhouse a collective space for the working groups, it’s also a space to give workshops and classes.

“All these different working groups try to give students here at Concordia an entrance into the agricultural world. Sometimes it’s hard being high up and technically kind of far away from the ground floor,” Smith said. 

Although the Greenhouse is a great initiative at Concordia, Smith stressed that the space is very finite and can’t accommodate a lot of people at once. 

So if you are at the downtown campus, feel free to give the Greenhouse a visit but make sure not to take too many friends with you or else you won’t be able to get a seat.

Photographs by Thomas Vaillancourt/THE CONCORDIAN

How to not kill your plants

A short guide for amateur plant enthusiasts

It’s always the same scenario: you wake up with an abnormal determination to reconnect with nature, or perhaps you’ve built up some motivation after hearing your friends getting excited by their new leafy friends — whatever it is, you decide that it’s finally time to bring home a few plants to take care of.

You read up countless mom blogs telling you how to care for your plants, scroll through “Top 20” lists telling you what fertilizer brands to get and avoid and the different types of soils you must get. After a trip to the store, where you get a couple of cute, small succulents, you set them up on your windowsill… Only to see them grow browner and sadder every week.

Having a collection of plants has become a really popular hobby recently. This isn’t so surprising, considering the many benefits of adding greenery to your home or work space, on top of the desire to bring the outdoors inside while we wait for this pandemic to allow us to leave our houses again.

But for those who have not been blessed with a green thumb, buying a new plant is more complicated than just going to the store, finding a nice looking one, and reading off the small care tag stuck in the soil. As a recovering serial plant killer myself, I thought I’d share some tips to help you one day build your own indoor forest.

Start small. Get one plant that you’ll be focusing your attention on for a little while until you’re certain you have the time and energy to dedicate to your plant friends. Remember, plants are alive, and although you can always go back to the store to buy more, you can save yourself the heartbreak, trouble, money, and negative environmental impact by testing out your ability to care for them before going all out.

Dracaenas and snake plants are pretty safe bets if you don’t have much time to care for or water your plants. They’re both also quite versatile when it comes to the amount of light they can tolerate.

Be realistic. Just like we have to accept that we need to donate that shirt that hasn’t been worn in months but could be useful “at some point,” we can’t pick our plants based on the level of devotion we think we could give it. In other words, don’t pick your leafy friend if it means you’ll have to adapt to its lifestyle and care needs, or at least not while you’re just beginning. Take it from me, someone who has killed more than one cactus thinking less water meant less maintenance, and then went on to forget to water them altogether.

If you’re the opposite and you tend to give your plants a little too much love, try going for a Chinese evergreen or a Boston fern — they won’t turn yellow when overwatered.

Assess your space. Be wary of where you place your pots. Don’t place a low-water plant in the bathroom, where it will be at the mercy of an overly humid and steamy environment. And if you’re not sure where to put that plant that needs “medium light,” you can do a shade test: wait until noon, when the sun is brightest, and stand around in your house. The more well-defined your shadow, the brighter the light in that area.

With time, you’ll find yourself looking into more advanced (and daunting) aspects of plant-owning, like soil drainage and water acidity. You’ll get there eventually, but just focus on keeping them alive for now.

 

Feature graphic by @the.beta.lab

Plants: filling the void and helping you succeed

Plant babies are offering hidden benefits in their new homes, especially during quarantine

Are you a plant parent? No? What are you waiting for? Many see those green leafy items just as some-thing to forget to water. Those ideas are changing.

In recent months, there has been a rise in plant culture. Videos of plant tips and tricks, and some of plant parents just showing off their collections, have been taking the internet by storm. You can scroll through the vines of Instagram as well as “PlantTok,” the plant side of TikTok, watching plant-filled content for hours.

Odarlyn, the creator of plantiiplants on Instagram and YouTube, started her page in October 2020 and has since grown a community of over 22,000 plant lovers. With her community rapidly growing, she shared her thoughts over Instagram on why plants were suddenly becoming such an interest: “Quarantine! People are in need of feeling responsible for something. In this case, keeping plants alive.”

All throughout quarantine, many nurseries reported soaring plant sales, as people used plants as an outlet for all things they were missing from the pre-COVID world.

“Somewhere amid COVID-19 lockdowns, pandemic plant parents are filling the voids in their social life — and apartments — with an influx of flora,” stated an article by NBC.

Plants can actually do more for you than fill the void left from pre-COVID times. Overall, houseplants have countless benefits, especially in your workspace.

When spending all week preparing for an exam, the last thing you want to worry about is the space in which you work. However, your space can have an impact on your studies. Small changes like adding some greenery to your desk can actually improve your concentration. Multiple studies have been conducted over the years demonstrating how having indoor plants can lead to better focus and more productivity overall.

Even for the most focused students, school can be extremely stressful. Getting a plant to put on your desk won’t eliminate all that pressure; however, a study done by the University of Hyogo in Japan proved that having plants in your work environment can lead to less stress in your life. The researchers agreed that stress is a pressing issue in today’s workspaces and felt that adding some greenery is a solution that is often overlooked.

Nature and greenery have been known to reduce stress compared to urban landscapes. By adding a small house plant on your desk and looking at it when you feel stressed, you are providing your brain with a little bit of natural scenery to decompress.

When you have a new plant and it’s thriving, you feel as though you’re thriving too. New leaves can be almost as exciting as passing that course you have been working so hard for. This is because the answer is also in the interaction: the Hyogo study showed that people who took care of their plant grew a positive attachment, which leads to greater stress relieving benefits.

Don’t worry — there is no need to buy millions of houseplants and turn your office into your own personal forest (although you could if you want). The study shared that even just one small plant reduced the stress of their participants.

Now after all that information, there is only one final step in becoming a plant parent, and that is to buy a plant. This can seem like a daunting task as there are many varieties of houseplants you can choose from. It’s important to take a look at the kind of environment the plants will be living in and use this to guide your decision.

Plants aren’t always easy to take care of, especially if you don’t have the greenest of thumbs (I know I’ve killed quite a few in my time). What’s important is that if you keep trying; eventually, you will find the right plant.

And don’t forget to water it.

 

Photo by Christine Beaudoin

Categories
Student Life

DIY diaries: Apartment decor

Photo by Laurence Brisson Dubreuil

You know how taking hormonal birth control tricks your body into thinking it’s pregnant? Well, I think mine has tricked me into thinking I’m a mother of three, armed with a Pinterest account, the loyal patrons of my mommy blog and a burning desire to get crafty. (My children’s names in this scenario are Kayleeigh, Kaiylen, and Kaedenn, by the way).

Let me explain.

I’ve recently noticed a monumental shift in how I like to spend my free time. Lately, my perfect evening is spent holed up in my apartment, pounding Diet Cokes and making macrame. Nothing gets me more jazzed these days than the prospect of organizing my cupboards or repainting my closet doors. Who have I become?

As winter slowly draws to a close, the mood to change things up in my home has been especially strong. Redecorating costs can add up quickly though, so I’ve had to find some ways to do it on the cheap. Here are some easy, quick, and affordable projects that I’ve really enjoyed so far.

A great way to make things a bit more sophisticated is with a quick coat of paint. Photo by Laurence Brisson Dubreuil

Plants, Paints and Pots

Whenever I pick up a new houseplant for my home, I usually plant it in one of those cheap terracotta pots from the dollar store. While this looks nice enough on it’s own, a great way to make things a bit more sophisticated is with a quick coat of paint. Personally, I’ve been enjoying this stone-gray colour. It’s easy to paint over afterwards and the porous surface of the terracotta is really forgiving when it comes to making cheap paint stick on. The only thing left to do is actually remember to water the plants. This is something I struggle with and will likely continue to struggle with until the end of time.

Any kind of paper works when it comes to origami. Photo by Laurence Brisson Dubreuil

Origami on a String

I recently took up the hobby of making origami—again, I genuinely don’t know who I am anymore. Something I’ve been doing lately is stringing paper cranes together using a needle and embroidery thread, and then hanging them around my apartment.  I think it adds a really pretty pop of colour to the room and the cranes are surprisingly easy to make once you get the hang of the different folds. I learned how to make them following YouTube tutorials.

As long as it’s cut in a square shape, any kind of paper works when it comes to origami. That being said, I do find that using actual origami paper makes things much easier since it’s so thin and easy to fold.

Chalk paint is great because you can apply it to all kinds of surfaces. Photo by Laurence Brisson Dubreuil

Put Some Chalk Paint on It 

Do you have a roommate? Does that roommate have an old whiteboard they’re going to throw out? Does that same roommate also have a can of spray-on chalk paint? Do you feel confident enough in your relationship with said roommate that you can steal their whiteboard and chalk paint without their permission? If so, try it out!

A chalkboard looks much nicer than a whiteboard, in my humble opinion. Plus, chalk paint is great because you can apply it to all kinds of surfaces. Just make sure to draw a cute doodle of you and your roommate on it afterwards, to make up for stealing her things.

Cards are Cute

A cheap frame from the dollar store is a magical thing. I keep a stack of them stowed away in my closet, so that whenever I stumble across a cute print, I can easily hang it up that same day. A frame also allows you to get creative with what you display on your wall because it makes almost everything look pretty, elegant and intentional.

A frame allows you to get creative with what you display on your wall. Photo by Laurence Brisson Dubreuil

Lately, I’ve been really into framing the postcards I’ve collected over the years. Whether they be from my own travels or someone else’s, I can’t resist bold colours with a glossy finish, ya know? I think they look lovely grouped together in four-panel frames like the one you see here. (The skull print is not a postcard, by the way, but a print by a local artist—you can find her as manson.grrrl on Instagram. Her stuff is great!).

This also works really well with greeting cards. In this case, I cut off the front portion of the card and glued it down on a coloured piece of paper so that it would fit into a larger frame. It’s a great way to liven up a room without spending the big bucks.

Redecorating doesn’t have to be expensive and time consuming, and you don’t even have to be a Pinterest mom to make it happen. Plus, focusing your energy on personalizing your space and working on yourself is a great way to put off studying, so that’s healthy! Hopefully these ideas can inspire you to get creative with your home. Happy decorating!

Photos by Laurence Brisson Dubreuil

Categories
Student Life

Dreaming of a green Christmas?

Graphic by Salomé Blain

It’s the holiday season, and you know what that means: snow is falling, decorations are going up, and Michael Bublé has suddenly entered society’s radar again.

Crack open your wallets, ladies and gents, ‘cause it’s time to go Christmas shopping.

Last week, I made the mistake of stepping into a Winners on a Sunday afternoon. The place was jam-packed with ravenous Christmas shoppers, their carts overflowing with clothes, toys, home decor, technology, sports equipment, you name it. Simply put, it was an absolute hellscape – the shelves nearly picked clean, it felt like the apocalypse was just around the corner.

The whole experience got me thinking about the sheer amount of waste Christmas gifts produce each year. From polyester pajamas to plastic playthings, many popular presents are non-biodegradable, and if we’re being honest with ourselves, most of these items will end up in our landfills and oceans rather than our recycling facilities. Although there’s only so much the individual consumer can do, the more we are conscious of what we buy and where it goes, the more we can reduce our impact this holiday season. So without further ado, here is a list of sustainable gift ideas to try this year:

 

Houseplants

Houseplants have become insanely popular in the last decade or so. Although I personally manage to kill everything I touch, a lot of my friends are big time plant parents and are always happy to add to their collection. Also, I hate that I just said ‘plant parents.’

If you can, try to buy your plants at a local shop rather than online or at a big box retailer. Besides being a more sustainable option (usually), I find that these smaller stores have a more unique selection, and staff tend to be very knowledgeable about what species make good gifts.

Thrifted and/or Vintage Items

Not only is thrift shopping a greener option, it’s affordable too. While gifting something that is already used might seem a bit weird at first, you can find a ton of quality, beautiful items at your average charity shop—I’ve even found clothing with the tags still on. If you don’t want to spend your afternoon sifting through items in person, websites like ThredUp and Ready to Wear Again make it easy to narrow your search by size, style or brand.

If you wanna kick your thrifting up a notch, try shopping for vintage items. While this route can be a little more expensive, shopping vintage can turn up some pretty special finds, and the extra thought and care will be much appreciated. Ragstock.com is a great online resource for vintage clothing, and Montreal is packed with all kinds of vintage shops like the Mile End’s Citizen Vintage and Local 23.

Donations

One Christmas when I was a kid, my great-uncle sponsored a polar bear in my name with the World Wildlife Fund. It was a great gift because a) I was sad about the polar bears dying, and b) it came with a cute little polar bear stuffie. This present was both low-waste AND beneficial to an environmental cause, which is pretty cool.

If your loved one has a cause that they are passionate about and you have a bit of cash to spare, consider making a donation on their behalf. Obviously, this type of thing isn’t for everyone, but if you think it will be well-received, go for it!

Items for long-term use

It’s no secret that much of what we purchase can become unusable or obsolete over time. Oftentimes, items wear out more quickly because they’re poorly made or because something newer and shinier has entered the market. While it’s normal and completely okay to replace things that are broken or utterly outdated, an investment in higher quality items that will stand the test of time is well worth it, and much less wasteful. This type of product can range from ultra-durable coffee mugs and winter boots to timeless furnishings and clothes.

Of course, this type of gift is only sustainable if the person receiving it actually has a need for it. When it comes to buying items that are meant to last for years to come, make sure you know a thing or two about the person you’re buying it for!

One last tip before I go: as you complete your December shopping, consider switching up the way you wrap your Christmas presents. Most gift-wrap is non-recyclable because of its glossy finish, so make sure you look for wrapping paper that is recyclable and/or biodegradable. Better yet, try using some old newspapers instead—topped off with a bit of ribbon or twine, I think this actually looks pretty cute. Plus it’s free, which makes it even cuter.

Happy holidays everyone!

 

Graphic by Salomé Blain

Categories
Student Life

Go green in urban areas year-round

Find the resources to start a small garden and optimize your growing space

Gardening is tough manual work, especially when you are living within the cityscape of Montreal. Surrounded by concrete and limited green-space, attempting to plant vegetables can be restraining. Last Wednesday, the Concordia Greenhouse offered a compromise for those who live the city life but still crave natural produce.

On Jan. 30, the “Grow Your Own Food Year-Round” event, led by Urban Homestead Montreal, gave a presentation about public resources and areas to harvest edible greens. Sheena Swirlz, coordinator for the organization, taught various tips and tricks to approach interior and exterior food cultivation.

On the 13th floor of the Hall building, Concordia students and Montreal residents were invited to discuss various methods to start their own small-space indoor and outdoor, year-round gardens. Surrounded by hanging foliage within the glass structure, Swirlz spoke about seasonal harvesting and explained the beneficial outcomes of gardening, when done effectively.

Swirlz delved into sprouting and microgreens, hydroponics, window farming, and more. While adapting to the seasons, gardening in the city can seem daunting: “I think people think that it’s simple […] but, in the beginning, there’s a lot of set-ups, a lot of research to optimize your growing systems,” Swirlz explained.

Swirlz highlighted that a garden can be personalized. “In my garden, I almost exclusively grow things that you can’t generally find. So, I’ll grow things like cucamelons, which are these little things that look like miniature watermelons, but they taste like cucumbers. They look like little mouth-watermelons. So adorable!”

Urban Homestead Montreal hosted their event in the Concordia Greenhouse on the 13th floor of the Hall building. Photo by Alex Hutchins.

When planting in the spring, whether indoors or outdoors, Swirlz recommends Swiss chard and kale or hearty herbs like parsley, oregano, and mint, all of which regrow every year. For Swirlz, Swiss chard and kale are the go-to vegetables “because they are super easy to grow, [and] they’re not prone to pests as much as other things, they’re extremely nutrient rich.”

Swirlz mentioned that during the spring season, people can be introduced to wild harvesting by getting involved with various Montreal organizations and plant shops that will take you on foraging walks. Neumark Design, Naughty Nettles Medicinals and Myco Boutique all offer plant-identifying workshops and activities. During these walks, you can forage for edibles like fiddleheads, morel mushrooms, dandelions and stinging nettles.

According to Swirlz, gardening can bring communities together, all while offering a self-reliant lifestyle. “It’s like knitting and baking. It’s to make people feel better. It does feel good to do things with our hands,” she said. “Gardening really connects us with plants, makes us feel like we’re part of nature again, and it makes people feel better.”

During the winter, growing mushrooms or germinating your own sprouts indoors are some of the most exciting and cost-effective ways to cultivate during the cold months.

Martha Martinez, a Concordia student and event attendee, thought the topic of mushrooms was the most interesting of Swirlz’s presentation. “It’s something that we eat a lot where I live with my family. We don’t buy shiitake every week. That is an expensive kind of mushroom.”

Swirlz enjoys planting indoors during her free time and prefers this cheap alternative compared to always shopping at grocery stores. “It is a way of saying, ‘No more capitalizing on food.’ Being able to feed your family and being able to have food on your table should not be a business,” she said.

Feature photo by Alex Hutchins

Categories
Student Life

Lazy gardening 101

Spider plant. Photo by Alex Hutchins

Plant care tips and tricks for those who suck at gardening

If you’re anything like me when it comes to gardening—meaning you kill 75 per cent of all plants you touch, but are still first in line whenever Plantzy has a liquidation sale—then this article is for you, wannabe master gardener.

I have about 30 plants and counting in my apartment that are thriving, surprisingly, so I’m clearly qualified and in a position to be giving advice about plants. (Shout-out to my roommate who takes care of literally everything plant-wise whenever I’m slacking hard, which is basically all the time). So here’s my fool-proof, totally legit, how-to guide on care for low-maintenance indoor houseplants. Don’t worry, all of this advice has been approved by Concordia Greenhouse official Paul Fournier.

GENERAL TIPS FOR HOUSEPLANTS:

Only water your plants when the soil has dried out. Stick your finger in the soil, and if the first two centimetres are dry, it’s time for some H2O. Waterting proportions typically depend on how large your plant is and how quickly the soil dries out. On average, you should be checking your plants about once a week, and more frequently as ambient heat increases.

Re-potting, or “potting up,” should be done yearly. Increase your pot size by about five centimetres in diameter each time. Keep in mind though: commercial pots are sold in inches! Do not increase your pot size by five inches. A pot that’s too big will cause root rot. Also, be sure to give your plants fresh soil when re-potting.

Most indoor houseplants can’t handle direct sunlight. Some can in small amounts (see examples below), but as a general rule, just avoid it. Unless the species you have requires direct light, indirect, medium-low light conditions are ideal.

Developing roots from plant clippings in water instead of moist soil can be effective for some houseplants—but not all. If you choose to start with water, make sure that, once the roots have grown to about one centimetre, you put them in soil. Many plants, if left in water for too long, will develop a water-root system and their growth will stagnate. Once this happens, the plant is likely to suffer when transferred to soil. However, some plants can be left in water permanently and will grow very well (see examples below).

Pothos (Epipremnum aureum). Photo by Alex Hutchins

Pothos (Epipremnum aureum)

Sunlight: Medium-low, indirect (no direct sun)

Soil: All-purpose

Bonus tips: Pothos’s are one of the few houseplants that tend to thrive just as well with a water-root system as they would with a soil-root system. (For all the broke students reading this who are not willing to spend money on dirt, just leave your pothos in a mason jar with water). They also grow well in the shade of other plants.

Spider-plant (Chlorophytum comosum). Photo by Alex Hutchins

Spider-plant (Chlorophytum comosum)

Sunlight: Medium-indirect is best (but will grow in almost any type of light)

Soil: All-purpose

Bonus tips: If you add a bit of fertilizer every time you water your spider babies, they will grow like crazy—even during those dreary winter months. They are one of the easiest plants to propagate and, like pothos, thrive with a water-root system.

Heartleaf Philodendron (Philodendron cordatum). Photo by Alex Hutchins

Heartleaf Philodendron (Philodendron cordatum)

Sunlight: Medium-indirect

Soil: All-purpose

Snake Plant (Sansevieria trifasciata). Photo by Alex Hutchins

Snake Plant (Sansevieria trifasciata)

Sunlight: Indirect-low (but will tolerate a bit of medium sun)

Soil: Succulent mix is best (but can manage with all-purpose)

Bonus tips: Some succulent care rules apply to this plant—mainly avoid over-watering. So many plants belonging to the sansevieria genus have similar care requirements: Starfish, Silver Queen, Robusta and Bird’s Nest, to name a few.

Weeping Fig (Ficus Benjamina). Photo by Alex Hutchins

Weeping Fig (Ficus Benjamina)

Sunlight: Medium-low, indirect (no direct sun)

Soil: All-purpose

Bonus tips: Weeping figs don’t like to be moved! Find that sweet spot, and leave ‘er be.

ZZ Plant (Zamioculcas Zamiifolia). Photo by Alex Hutchins

ZZ Plant (Zamioculcas Zamiifolia)

Sunlight: Medium-low, indirect is best (but will tolerate a bit of direct sun)

Soil: All-purpose

Bonus tips: ZZ plants like to be “pot-bound,” meaning they thrive in a pot that constricts them. (Yearly re-potting rules still apply). They’re also very forgiving if you forget to water them, or forget that you’ve already watered them.

An important gardening lesson that can take years to learn (you’re welcome) is that all plants have a mind of their own. Trial and error is key when developing your green thumb, and don’t always trust the internet—shocker, I know. Everything you’ve just read here are merely suggestions. More than anything else, it’s important to pay attention to your plants and how they adapt to your specific growing conditions. Even if your methods are unconventional, if they work, keep doing whatever your plants seem to like.

Get started on your garden by hitting up the Concordia Greenhouse plant sale on March 6 from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Categories
Student Life

Growing nature in small containers

A large crowd of Concordia students gathered for HydroFlora’s first workshop at the Concordia Greenhouse. Photo by Kirubel Mehari

HydroFlora teaches the how-tos of hydroponics at Concordia Greenhouse

“Creating nature in a small container, that’s what [hydroponics] is all about,” said Dominique Smith, the founder of HydroFlora, to sum up a Hydroponics 101 workshop he gave on Jan. 10. HydroFlora is a Concordia group devoted to developing sustainable alternatives to large, intensive farming practices. The group offers a whole hydroponics curriculum to students in the form of workshops offered throughout the semester.

HydroFlora’s interns also meet on a weekly basis to plan these educational workshops and develop hydroponic techniques, which they practice in the Concordia Greenhouse. The greenhouse, where HydroFlora’s first workshop of the year took place, was filled with students eager to learn about the basics of hydroponics, a method of growing plants without soil. The air was filled with a mixture of scents, like lavender, and students stood among various plants, including banana and grapefruit trees.

According to Melissa Donnelly, an intern at HydroFlora and a Concordia anthropology major, the self-funded group sells succulents and cacti at the Hall building market every Wednesday. Donnelly takes part in growing these increasingly popular plants by molding their cement pots.“Hydroponics is a way of going back to your grassroots, literally,” Smith said during the workshop. He explained that just placing flowers in a vase full of water is essentially hydroponic; there is no need for any nutrient solution.

Dominique Smith, the founder of HydroFlora, began the workshop by explaining the fundamentals of how to grow plants without soil. Photos by Kirubel Mehari

Smith began the workshop by introducing the Kratky method of hydroponics. This method works best with leafy greens, such as lettuce or a spider plant. In any type of container, a leaf or the base of the plant is stabilized in water using foam or by cutting a hole in the lid, if the container has one. This way, the plant receives all of the ingredients it needs: water, oxygen and light. Smith added that one shouldn’t forget about the essential ingredients “love and patience” when growing plants.

After a few days, depending on the plant, the roots will begin to grow. “You leave it there and it does its thing,” Smith said. He explained that stabilizing the plant allows its roots to grow naturally, and the container can just be left by a window. “It’s simple and clean,” he added. The roots can tell you a lot about the plant itself, Smith explained. If they are white and hairy-looking, it means the plant is receiving enough water and oxygen. If multiple plants were placed in the same container and their roots have a yellow tint to them, however, it most likely indicates the plants are competing for nutrients.

Following the workshop, Smith gave a tour of the greenhouse’s more elaborate hydroponic set-up. Water circulates through a pipe system for irrigation, and the plants are grown in Smith’s homemade compost, which replaces typical soil. The compost is made out of coffee grinds which contain nitrates, banana peels which secrete potassium, and ground up eggshells which provide calcium—all important nutrients for plant growth, Smith explained. Although this method of hydroponics is more elaborate, the main idea is there—you can grow plants without soil.

For more information on HydroFlora and their work at Concordia visit: https://www.hydrofloraconcordia.com.

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