[Music]
hey guys this is summer rain from
homestead Brooklyn and today's question
revolves around the Marne teh CA or the
prayer plant family we've actually had a
significant number of questions around
prayer plants which is so good to see
because these plants three or four years
ago if you walked into a garden center
or a plant shop these are really hard to
find but now if you walk in you see so
many different varieties which is so
cool because house plant enthusiast
market really started to ask for new and
interesting cultivars and varieties so I
have 12 different varieties or cultivars
or species here across four different
general now Jenna is just a scientific
way to group like plants together it's
the plural for a genus so I have four
different general here this is stro
monthi this one in the that began up
here closer to you are moranto so then I
have kallithea here and then this is a
tune on the-- now the first thing you'll
notice about these plants is the
striking foliage now you walk into a
plant shop and you're just like oh these
are so beautiful because they have so
many different types of colors and
patterns on their leaves so it's not
unusual for somebody to just walk in and
say oh my gosh I want this plant without
knowing very much else about it but the
striking foliage foliage you'll see that
a lot of these plants and I have one
right here have like this almost
aubergine or maroon bottom some of them
have a white bottom and then you'll see
all these different kind of colors along
the the primary veins of these plants
now this is for good reason these plants
love a moist and humid environment so
they they have a lot of water saving and
also light light saving qualities these
are plants that would typically be found
on the forest
fluor in the understory so they don't
get a tremendous amount of light so
these bottoms these maroon or purple
bottoms this is on the the abaxial
surface which means underside and on the
abba ad axial surface on the upper side
you'll see all these different colors
but this maroon or sometimes though the
whitish bottoms will actually prevent
the light from going through the leaf
and pump it back up through the the
green part of the leaf again so that it
maximizes the light that it gets what's
good about that how it translates into
our homes is that these are truly medium
to even you could push it into the low
light plant arena which is great because
let's face it like a lot of us don't
have a tremendous amount of light in our
homes the downside though is that and I
mentioned this before is that these
plants love moisture which means they
love high humidity which is something
that we don't often have in our plants
and as we start to approach the the
colder climate the colder seasons that
heater that heating that we have in her
house often dries out the air a lot more
these plants are particularly sensitive
to too much heat or too dry within the
air
so you'll notice and I'll pull this
calathea zabrina out you'll notice it
starts to curl its leaf along the edge
here so even before a plant will turn
flaccid or you know start to look a
little sad this will curl its leaf so
I've noticed in my 10 anthe right here
as well in this calathea which might
have been a little bit too close to the
window it started to curl and really
it's the leaf like is basically taking
its leaves and saying I'm gonna shade
myself from the hot Sun or this hot
temperature so I could hold on to that
moisture within my leaf the other thing
you'll see is that and how the prayer
plants actually get their name is that
the plant really love
to move and if you have a prayer plant
in your house you'll totally know what I
mean by this but in the daytime it'll
actually put its leaves down similar to
this and then the evening if you've ever
watched a time-lapse it'll start to fold
its leaves up as if it's in prayer and
again another great water saving
technology that these leaves have
developed themselves now these plants
are typically found in Central or South
America and I'd mentioned this before
but on the forest floor and they love
this kind of high humidity medium light
their soil likes to stay pretty moist
and I have a whole section that I've
done another plant went on me on
watering hacks in the home so if you
haven't seen that one definitely tune in
because I talked about hydro spikes and
humidity mats and ways to kind of beef
up the humidity within your area and
these are plants that definitely thrive
in that kind of environment the soil
you'll want it to be able to hold on to
some water but also still drain because
these plants will even though they like
to be moist they will have root rot if
you have it sitting in too much water
and also these plants are quite
sensitive not just to a lack of humidity
but the type of water that you give it
and I found this out kind of the hard
way because I'm in New York City
supposedly we have like some of the best
water ever but I was using just regular
tap water on the marathas here and I
started to notice a lot of leaf browning
now I had really good humidity so I was
like well that's not it
so what could it be and I tried using
distilled and filtered water and that
was so much better the brown edgings
which you'll see sometimes this on this
Tremonti it gets a little bit of crisper
Brown edgings so again might be the heat
might be lack of humidity but it could
also be the type of water that you're
using so if you have too much dissolved
salts if you have too much fertilizer on
these plants they're definitely going to
be sensitive to that now the other thing
you'll probably notice and this may have
happened if you have had these plants
long enough
is that they will start to die back so
you might have really beautiful leaves
one minute and then all of a sudden it's
what looks like a dead stock now I
pulled out three of my plants here I
have this calathea zabrina
this calathea veggie ahna and this
calathea loose nari all of these had
dried back to this kind of brownish
stock here and what I would like to say
is if you've been treating your plants
fairly well they may just actually be
going into dormancy because what you
don't see below the soil is that it
actually has a pretty tuberous
rhizomatous system down here so if what
I'd like to do is a little test so if
you're if you're able to like pull on
the stem and the root and if it's still
kind of hanging on there then chances
are that it's actually fully alive it's
just taking a little break it's like you
know what guys I've been blooming I've
been putting out these beautiful leaves
but it's time for me to go a little
dormant and oftentimes plants especially
if they're subtropical or tropical
varieties which is a lot of our
houseplants they like to have some kind
of dormancy in their dry season which is
sometimes our cool season so all three
of these plants had what I would say
died back but you know you might not
want to look at you know a brown stem
within a within a pot so I would just
say you know go out and get another
plant but also keep this one and keep on
caring for it in the same way that you
would if it if it had some leaves I mean
I continue to keep mine moist and boom
you start to see these beautiful new
leaves start to develop so these are I
would say some of the best tips that you
could do when thinking about moranto
again
truly you know low to medium light
plants I would say it's perfect and more
of a north facing window or a little bit
further back in an east and west window
or you can even put it maybe like eight
feet back from a south facing window but
remember you want to keep the humidity
high you want to take care of the type
of water that you're using and if you do
those things and you're going to be a
really good plant
to the morontia family here so hopefully
that was very helpful for you of course
if you liked all of these videos that
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homestead brooklyn calm thanks guys
tune in next week bye