Gardening the Amana Way

Chapter 8. Gardening Indoors

e8d ———————————————————————————— Gardening Indoors E ventually the gardening season must end. I always take my memories of the year’s gardens into the winter season with me. But something else carries me through until spring. Wilma was somewhat skeptical—okay, actually flabbergasted—when I approached her about my yen to build a tropical garden in the middle of three bedrooms on the second floor of our 112-year-old home. (See photo 43 in color section) We already have three bedrooms, I reasoned, and there are only two of us, so we certainly don’t need them all. Besides, there’s a fourth room up there that’s pretty much vacant. As a temperate zone gardener smitten by tropical plants, I thought this proposal made perfect sense. And so the negotiations began. “This is absolutely absurd! How are the plants going to survive up there without sunlight? You can’t cram them all in front of the windows.” “Fluorescent grow lights.” “How are you going to get those big, heavy pots up there?” “With a dolly.” “What if the pots leak or overflow and the water comes down through the ceiling into our dining room?” (Much to my chagrin, this actually happened several years later because I forgot to caulk a section of baseboard.) “I’ll think of something.” “Are you planning to have plants all over the room?” “Yes.” “Well, I need to have a place for my sewing machine and some additional storage space.” “That’s fine. I’ll figure something out.” As you may have surmised by now, Wilma is truly a saint. Having gained 108 chapter eight her reluctant consent, I spent the next three weeks or so coming up with designideas .I’mnotverygoodatdrawingupplansonpaper,soIworkedthings out in my head. The time to do this, I soon discovered, was at night in bed before falling asleep. That’s when the best ideas came to me. First, I worked out a space compromise with Wilma. The vacant room measures fifteen feet by fifteen feet. One third would be devoted strictly to plants, one third to a patio and a few more plants, and one third to a sewing area and storage. The plant and patio parts were easy. I partitioned off the garden third of the room from the patio third by installing a latticework wall with a floor-toceilingopeninginthemiddleofthewalltoprovideaccesstothegardenfrom thepatio.Onthepatiosideofthelattice,Ibuiltnarrowraisedbedsfilledwith rocks and sand that would hold additional potted plants. In the garden proper, I used the same rock-and-sand mixture. Before puttingitdown ,Iexposedthebrickonanexteriorwall to givesomeadded interest . Then I sealed the wooden floor with roof sealer and covered that with twenty-year rubber pond liner. The sand and rocks would provide a great deal of surface area from which water could evaporate to create a humid atmosphere . Pots could drip and leak to their heart’s content, as the water was captured by the out-of-sight rubber barrier. Next, I dropped the nine-foot ceiling down a foot and a half in the garden , so the potted plants situated on the floor would receive adequate light. I installed a bank of eleven fluorescent light fixtures, using inexpensive shop lights, and spaced them about a foot and a half apart. If you’ve ever checked out grow-light bulbs that purport to simulate the entire spectrum of sunshine , you know they’re very expensive. I solved that problem by purchasing both ordinary grow-light bulbs (wide-spectrum Sylvania GrowLux), which represent primarily the warm spectrum, and cool white bulbs to cover the rest of the spectrum. Each fixture has one of each kind of bulb. An added bonus is the fact that the heat from the warm fixtures is sufficient to heat the entire room, no furnace or heater needed. The lights are on a timer, providing plants with fourteen hours of daylight. As a final touch, I added a fountain with a small pool. A concealed pump lifts the water from the pool up to a small downward-slanting trough. I filled the trough with activated charcoal, using a few rocks from the floor to retain the charcoal particles. This arrangement serves both to purify and to oxy- Gardening Indoors 109 genate the water as it trickles through the trough and splashes back into the pool below, without the need for an expensive filtering system. I stocked the pool with the obligatory goldfish. Mindful of the fact that I would be adding a...