Water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes)

A friend of mine introduced me with water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) several years ago and ever since then I had it maybe two times. Since we have cold winters hyacinth cannot survive outside but it also rarely survives indoors. Lack of sunlight is the biggest problem and artificial lights are too expensive to use. It is interesting that sometimes it survives through entire winter and when spring comes it starts to die. Don`t understand why but it is very disappointing to see that.

To me water hyacinth is very interesting looking plant and great addition to ponds and lakes. My biggest reason for wanting this plant is that it looks very unusual and I would like to see it flower :). I hope that this post will end with water hyacinth flowering and producing seed. Since it is hard to overwinter plants seed would be great thing to have.

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Planting containers, sand, water plants

Spring is coming and it is time to prepare for sowing and planting new plants. Old ones are holding very well for now, although it doesn`t mean anything. Plants can sometimes survive the entire winter and then die in the spring; probably from exhaustion.

Spring sometimes also represent time when people spend money on planting containers that are usually used for short period of time: for growing seedlings. It is much cheaper to use what you have at home and make you own containers. I used aluminum foil, sticky tape and a box as a mold. This is the result:

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Winter 2011./2012.

This winter is all but not cold, at least for now. Temperatures are like those we have in spring and plants are loving it, especially those native to warmer climate. Chances that in February snow will cover everything are very high but nevertheless I am very pleased that we are having sunny and warm days. Although all of the plants are inside the house some of them are in heated and some in unheated places. Those that are more sensitive to cold and temperature changes have their permanent place in the heated parts of the house. 

Since winter is almost at its end I decided to sow some bamboo seeds (Bambusa arundinacea, Fargesia fungosa, Fargesia papyrifera). If I had known that winter will be so warm I would have planted more bamboos much earlier.

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