Thursday, February 5, 2015

Low light succulents?

Making a quick run through Home Depot last week naturally I had to to visit the nursery area, where I was surprised to see they had a huge selection of succulents and sedum signed as being “low-light” houseplants. Low light succulents, who are they kidding? Succulents need light. Succulents soak up light, like these Crassula, at Cornell Farms.

Cactus love light too...

Except maybe these.

Too much light and they might melt, since they're plastic. Photographed at City Liquidators.

A clam-shell from Lotusland? Nope, fakery at Z Gallerie.

Living walls like this need bright, indirect, light to thrive.

Well, unless they're not living walls, like this. No light, no problem!

Agave wanna be, complete with a pineapple pruning.

Since tillandisias demand such extreme care it's good there are now fake versions of them available too.

Okay, kidding aside I get it. There are places where you want to put plants where they just won't be happy. Better a fake plant than a real plant that will die.

I guess.

In the right container I think this one could even fool me.

Untill I looked into the center. Has the person who designed this ever seen how a real agave grows? What's going on in there?

Real or faux? Real!

So fuzzy.

Faux.

But fun? Ya, I suppose.

Those graptopetalum (graptoveria?) are pretty darn realistic.

These last four were photographed at The Gardener's Choice in Tigard.

But let's end back at Cornell Farm, and with the real thing.

Ain't nothing better than the real thing.

Right?

Or do you appreciate the faux? Which this is not. If you were wondering.

All material © 2009-2015 by Loree Bohl for danger garden. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited and just plain rude.

28 comments:

  1. Mmmm..fuzzy good...
    So what brings Danger Garden to Tigard of all places, I wonder?
    It has to be Gardener's Choice. Has to.

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    1. Oh I stopped there, you know I did! But the reason for the trip south was Crate & Barrel.

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  2. No matter how realistic fake plants are...there is just something that doesn´t feel right about them for me.

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    1. "doesn't feel right"...both psychologically and sensorily!

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  3. Real is infinitely better. But faux is getting pretty good, and as you know I've got a few fakes myself. In a dim room, where no plant will live, I don't see any harm in making a pretty faux arrangement. Just remember to dust!

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    1. Dust...I've got a sansevieria that I need to remember to dust ever so often!

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  4. Have to say that I found myself squinting and giving double looks on some of your photos to see if they are real or not. Pretty convincing some of them! Plastic plants tend to go towards the tacky side of things but there are exceptions once in a blue moon...

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    1. My grandma stuck fake red geraniums in her front garden. That's on the "not acceptable" side!

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  5. They have gotten better at making them look real, but that Agave with the weird center is just wrong. I haven't used any fake plants, but I do have quite a few dried flower arrangements.

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    1. Dried were once real, although they are hard to keep the dust off of!

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  6. It's getting ever harder to spot the fakes, at least in photographs. I guess there's quite a market out there for fake plants.

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    1. Indeed. Lots of people who don't care or think themselves black thumbs (probably because they bought a "low light succulent" at home depot and it died)

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  7. Not in our world...but they have their place.

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  8. I have never used fake plants, although I've considered it outside so I could at least have something the deer wouldn't eat. I'm embarrassed to admit I kind of like that staghorn fern wall, though...

    That agave center sort of looks like the smaller leaves at the base of a flower stalk. Still not right though, looks more like a bromeliad center with a flower stalk coming out. Maybe you can take out the center leaf and stick a flower stalk in when you want it to "bloom"? Agave flower stalk sold separately, some assembly required.

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    1. Ha! I love it. Want an agave bloom without the death?

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  9. I have two plastic barrel cactus in terra cotta pots that I got at a garage sale years ago. They're currently in a closet somewhere but they are very realistic looking. Other than that, no imitation plants for me although I do enjoy a silk flower arrangement or two because I'm horrible at keeping water in vases and hate cleaning up dead flowers.

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    1. For some reason your comment had me smelling that smell of old water in a vase with cut flowers. Yuck!!!

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  10. There are a few I've had to touch in order to confirm that they're plastic but most are rather obvious. It's like silk flowers - I can't get into them. There's always Sansevieria if you need something that tolerates low light.

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    1. Yes! I swear those things could live in a closet as long as you watered them ever so often.

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  11. The fakes are getting pretty good and more common. Interesting comparisons, the string of pearls look the most fake. I don't have any but don't mind seeing them elsewhere.

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    1. They do seem to be getting more common, I wonder why that is?

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  12. I was just at a jewelry shop this morning with a friend and I noticed they are all these little arrangements of succulents and cacti and I thought how are they keeping them looking so good inside, then i realized they were fake! Oh well better than real ones sentenced to death. Did you feel like rescuing the poor mini silver finger cacti? I bought a little orchid last year at the grocery store and it look so perfect and never changed the flowers stayed on...after awhile I began to think it was fake so I stopped watering it....then all the flowers fell off : ) so I started watering it again...and it is still doing fine!

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    1. I looked at those 25 cent fakes and tried to figure out something creative and fun that I could do with them. Taking a photo was the best I could do.

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  13. Real for me. Better for the environment, in all sorts of ways.

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  14. Maybe some good faux for my shady patio...I mean, who would know? But some real...my z 9b patio surounded by z 8b shall be killer... Thanks for the visit and analysis, Danger G.

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    1. You'd certainly cause a little head scratching from a knowledgeable passer-by, "how is he keeping that agave alive in complete shade?...."

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