Specialty Gardening: How the Growth of Plants is Limited, 1 by tapla

tapla wrote:
I'd forgotten I'd even posted this thread. ;-)

I do numerous presentations for various groups, clubs, organizations ..... in the span of a year. Recently (last month) I was scheduled to lecture on various aspects of houseplant care to a local chapter of the Women's National Farm and Garden Club. Since I originally posted this thread, I had something of an epiphany while considering a reply to another thread in which I invoked Liebig's Law, and in doing that suddenly realized that we are defined as growers by our ability to identify and eliminate the effects of limiting factors. If you consider for a moment that we are virtually assured that every plant we grow, unless it's from seed, has the genetic potential to grow well, produce well, and look beautiful. As an example, every houseplant we ever bought, left the greenhouse as a beautiful specimen, so we KNOW it has the genetic potential to grow well and look beautiful ....... if we just get out of its way. ;-)

What I mean is, if we were able to provide perfect conditions - the plant would be perfect. Since we're never going to find the exactly perfect combination, how close to perfect our plants are is determined at how close to perfect we can make the conditions under which the plant grows. It's through our ability to eliminate and reduce the effects of limiting factors that we earn our green thumbs - nothing more than that. We just never realized it because it's never been put into those terms. I have never read that perspective or heard it offered before, but I doubt that anyone would disagree.

Obviously, it's to our advantage to work on the most commonly known limiting factors, or those we've identified as limiting first. For container gardeners, I think that eliminating the effects of a poor soil represents, hands down, the most potential for improvement & deserves first consideration. The roots are the heart of the plant, and it's impossible to have a healthy plant without a healthy root system.

After the limiting effects of soil choice and watering habits are reduced to your satisfaction, something else is going to be 'limiting'. You'll need to work on light, temperature, nutrition, and a few other things, but they are all surprisingly easy. I would never encourage someone to blindly follow directions without knowing why, but it is a fact that if you give a novice grower a very good soil, instruct him/her to keep the plant in the sun (if appropriate) and water it in a certain way every time the soil is nearly dry with x number of drops of fertilizer per gallon of water, that that grower can bring along very beautiful plants from the outset ...... at least until something changes that calls for adaptation, at which time the novice would be at a loss.

The point is, it's all very easy. WE just make it harder than it has to be through our not always ideal choices.

Lol - I don't know if this is interesting, or if I'm just flapping my jaws. I get accused of that from time to time, but as you can see, I remain undeterred. I know that last month when I presented the concept that our plants know what they're supposed to do, and they want with all their genes to do it - all we need to do is get out of their way and help them a little by taking care of those things that limit their ability to fulfill their genetic destinies, there were a lot of people having 'AHA!' moments or HUH! - I never thought of it like that' moments. What say you guys?

Al