November 8, 2011: At our regular November meeting, Melanie Pyle, who is in charge of indoor plants at the Smithsonian Institution, presented a slideshow overview of indoor plants in the Smithsonian museums and then demonstrated the creation of dish gardens. Basically she created arrangements using plants rather than cut flowers.
Pyle recommended Home Depot and Lowes as sources for inexpensive plants. To create fuller dish gardens, she removes plants from their commercial pots, minimizes the soil around the roots and divides clumps. Then Pyle creates an arrangement in a container, using flexible plastic liners in porous containers. She uses Spanish Moss to hide the mechanics and give a finished look to the dish garden.
Pyle suggested creating foliage gardens in which the variety of foliage shapes and colors created interest. To remove the dull from foliage, she spritzes the arrangement with a leaf shine product. She warned against combining tropical plants with temperate plants, saying tropicals looked better with tropicals. Pyle said overwatering was the biggest problem for indoor plants. She recommended sticking a finger "up to the second digit" into the soil and, if you feel any moisture, don't water.
At the end of the demonstration, the dish gardens and excess plants were raffled as door prizes.
