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Biotech Businesses

Plants for Cubicles? 150

Posted by Cliff from the green-with-your-grey dept.
Frank of Earth asks: "Our company recently moved to a new location and I was lucky enough to get a cube with a window. Now that I actually can benefit from sunshine, I thought it would be cool to grow something in a potted container. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a lot of information on growing plants in your cube. Most of the indoor plant growing topics I found are related to illegal types of plant growing you do in your closet. What types of plants make good cube plants with a geek flare? Rather than just growing a boring spider plant, I would like to grow something cool like a fruit or vegetable. If you've had experience growing something unique, please post your thoughts!" What kind of plant would you grow in your cubicle?
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Plants for Cubicles? More

Plants for Cubicles?

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  • Get an Amarilys (Score:3, Informative)

    by Pig Hogger ( 10379 ) <(moc.liamg) (ta) (reggoh.gip)> on Monday January 24, 2005 @12:52PM (#11456710) Journal
    They look strange (perfect for a geek) and the three huge flowers, then they pop-out, are a huge gratification.

    Plus the time it takes to grow will make everyone wonder what's going on, and before long, everyone will pay you a visit everyday to see how it's doing.

    And when it finally blooms, everyone will congratulate you for a job well done!

  • I attempted to do this, but the thing died. However, I do not have much of a green thumb. If you do, they look pretty cool.

    • Re:Bonsai Tree (Score:2, Informative)

      by douthitb ( 714709 )
      I would agree that a bonsai tree is definitely the way to go, although I will admit that they can be a bit difficult to care for. I have two of them in my house, and everyone who comes over asks about them. If you put one in your cubicle, you will instantly transform into Mr. Popular.

      Another thing to consider is that there are actually many types of bonsai trees, each with their own distinct style. Check out http://www.bonsaisite.com/ [bonsaisite.com] for lots of good info styles, growing and care of bonsai trees.

      • Re:Bonsai Tree (Score:3, Interesting)

        by orangesquid ( 79734 )
        Try a bonsai kitten. ;)

        OK, ok, you wanted fruits and vegetables---I would suggest peppers. They grow pretty quickly, aren't hard to grow, and you can use them in your lunches.

        Also, you can cultivate morning glories. They're not actually illegal (it's just illegal to consume the seeds), and I'm sure once you have a batch of seeds, a few people will covertly approach you and ask to buy some seeds off of you. It's not illegal to sell seeds (as long as you don't know they're being used illicitly), so you'd
      • "bonsai tree" is too generic a recommendation. it would be better to limit the choice to to ficus (fig) and similar plants that do well in low/flourescent light. unless that sunshine is direct and reliable for 6+ hours a day, a normal tree (like a pine or maple), will not do well. plus most non-tropical trees will need a cold period.

  • woot! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Frank of Earth ( 126705 ) <frank@fper3.14kins.com minus pi> on Monday January 24, 2005 @12:55PM (#11456744) Homepage Journal
    /. accepted my story idea!

    Thankfully I didn't use any links to my homepage-- that would have been really stupid and costly [ignore the links in my signature!]

    • Oh!

      You mean those crispy, brown things...

    • Re:woot! (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Well, while you're at the computer, maybe you can head over to dictionary.com and find out the difference between 'flare' and 'flair'. What the hell is a "geek flare" anyways? Is that a device used by beautiful women to warn other beautiful women that you're in the neighborhood?
      • Remember to always have at least 12 pieces of flare on at all times. Of course, that could cause a fire so you probably would want to carry around some water.

        You're right, I should have used flair. At least I used the correct "you're" in this post.

      • What the hell is a "geek flare" anyways?

        Lighting a grill [archive.org] with liquid oxygen would probably count.

  • you know you want it (Score:3, Funny)

    by passthecrackpipe ( 598773 ) * <passthecrackpipe@@@hotmail...com> on Monday January 24, 2005 @12:56PM (#11456768)
    Try this [purdue.edu] Grows everywhere, under almost every condition, everybody will love you, you will be very popular. Good for your health as well.

  • A large tray of wheatgrass? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Klowner ( 145731 ) on Monday January 24, 2005 @12:59PM (#11456817) Homepage
    Imagine a potential client visiting your cubicle, and you feel like you could use a little energy boost, just stroll over to your tray of wheatgrass and graze for a few moments, then rip some out and offer a small handfull to your client.

    I think it would really impress them.

    You could start wearing animal hides as well, that's also impressive.

    (seriously though, wheatgrass is easy to grow, and you can nibble on it or juice it)

    • Imagine a potential client visiting your cubicle, and you feel like you could use a little energy boost, just stroll over to your tray of wheatgrass and graze for a few moments, then rip some out and offer a small handfull to your client.

      Exactly! I've found that communal grazing with the client is best followed with some grooming.

      You can feel through his pelt for little goodies -- him being the more dominant (customer) you'll probably find he doesn't usually groom you. But occasionally you might get a

  • bonsai!! (Score:3, Informative)

    by St. Arbirix ( 218306 ) <matthew...townsend@@@gmail...com> on Monday January 24, 2005 @12:59PM (#11456824) Homepage Journal
    I have several bonsai all over my computer desk, on the computer speakers, and sitting in the window by my desk. Azaleas are perfectly suited for indoor life. Also nice is the rabbit's foot fern on one of the speakers which just looks weird and multiplies as fast as a spider plant. Behind my computer (a laptop permanently fixed on my desk) is a small cluster of palms of some sort which enjoy the heat that my laptop's fan pumps out at them.

    Occasionally the fern will droop down low enough to get in the way of my screen. This is a really good indicator that the plants need watering.

  • The BPFH: Dionaea Muscipula (Score:3, Funny)

    by Kosi ( 589267 ) on Monday January 24, 2005 @01:01PM (#11456862)
    And if it's grown enough, you can even feed her your lusers.
    • heh, on the subject of plants that move when you touch them, how about a mimosa pudica [demon.co.uk]? It is a tree, but you can keep it in your cube when it's still a sapling... apparently when you touch the leaves, or give the plant's pot a good sharp tap, the leaves fold up and droop towards the ground. (according to the link, it's a protection against locusts.)
  • You can try a lemon tree ; sure, you'd have to wait a couple of years (or buy an older plant) before you can actually get a lemon out of it :p
    Anyway, the plant smells nice and it's quite resilient - my sister had a larger one in her room for almost 15 years.
    • Lemon trees are neat to mess with. If you support a lemon's weight artificially, it won't break from the branch, but continue to grow. You can get them to be as big as cantelopes pretty easily. They stop resembling lemons after a while. They more look like a brain.
    • If you are in a Northern climate, and don't have a sunny Southern facing window, I would avoid the lemon tree. They can be hard to keep alive during the Winter months when you live in someplace like Minnesota for example.
  • my lab workbench has giant windows that get lots of sunlight.

    Being a biologist (but not a botanist) I've experimented with various plants. Currently I have 3 pothos (philodendron) vines, and a small palm tree. The vines are great, you can drape them over anything and they bring a nice natural look to an artificial environment. They don't require a lot of light, and only need watered once a week. On the first of the month, I usually spike their drink with a bit of fertilizer (Miracle grow) to replace ni
    • I don't usually reply to my own posts, but if your office doesn't have flies (The fruit fly labs upstairs would keep my lab well stocked), you can use raw hamburger. Or eventually annoying coworkers if the plant gets big enough. :)
  • I would have to say, ask your local florist. I currently have a christmas cactus in my cube that I got from my florist, and it's doing very well despite the fact that I do not have a window and the lights almost never get turned off. It has survived a whole month so far.
    You could also consult your local home improvement store or nursery, which ever one you know where is.

  • Cactii (Score:4, Informative)

    by Loacher ( 816765 ) on Monday January 24, 2005 @01:04PM (#11456909)
    I would recommend a cactus.

    They require little care (water once a week during the warm months, none at all during the cold months, fertilize once a year), so they can survive vacations and weekends unattended.

    Cactii come in all kinds of strange, unique geeky forms, and several produce weird looking edible fruit.

    Look up epiphyllum catus, beautifull flowers, and fruit that tastes like passionfruit (smell before eating, goes bad very fast).

    Most mammillarias produce small red edible fruits, and some have very interesting shapes. Look up mamillaria elongata cristate, or Mammillaria bocasana 'Fred', one of my favourites.

    If you like really weird shapes, look up Euphorbias, I specially like my Euphorbia obesa cristate.

    Note: Cristate means a Crested fromd of the plant. They usually look like brains.
    • I'll second this; I had a small cactus in cubicle hell at a bank for two years. Occasionally throw some water in there, that's about it for upkeep. Offices are often dry, and lit up for long hours (6am-9pm in my case), which cactii are fine with.

      Plus it's hilarious when cow-orkers walk up and say "Hey, is that sharp? OW!!" :)
  • Even though you have a window, you'll find that shade loving (or at least shade tolerating) species will do best. I seriously doubt that you can not find any information on growing indoor plants other than weed on the web, get real. That aside, here are some suggestions: Ferns, look nice, filter the air, easy to grow, love shade. African violets, small, don't require frequent watering so they won't die over weekends or vacations, don't mind shade. They don't bloom often, but they look nice even when they ar

  • Ch-Ch-Ch-Chia! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by panker ( 461977 ) on Monday January 24, 2005 @01:06PM (#11456923)
    A Chia Head [buying-chia-pets.com] would be interesting in a cubicle. And it would be the source of lots of discussion. Or, how about an underwater plant [watergardenweb.com]? Or one of those dirtless air plants [mgonline.com]? Or some wheatgrass [wheatgrasskits.com].

    I grow mold all the time, but nobody seems to be interested or impressed.

  • Bamboo or Sprouts (Score:2, Interesting)

    by CsiDano ( 807071 )
    A buddy of mine who happens to be a programmer grows alfalfa sprouts in his window, they are easy to care for and he uses one of those busboy trays like in a restraunt as a planter. Also he has a really nice beer glass filled with nice stones and water and stuck some bamboo into it, then these nice offshoots grow from the sticks.

    • Could agree more with Bamboo. I have three big sticks in a nice ceramic vase on my vase and it'd terrific. It's maintainence free as well; I've had it on my desk for about and year and a half and had to water it 2-3 times. It's the best kind of plant for a guy like myself that often kills them.

  • Something hardy (Score:3, Interesting)

    by JoeD ( 12073 ) on Monday January 24, 2005 @01:09PM (#11456969) Homepage
    Find something that can thrive on neglect.

    I like jade plants [tamu.edu]. They're very long-lived, and don't require much care beyond watering every couple of weeks. When they get older, they start to look like miniature trees.
    • Find something that can thrive on neglect.

      You could try growing Kudzu [ua.edu], that seems like it fends for itself [jjanthony.com] pretty well. Also, you are not going to be hassled by your fellow cubicle mates asking for cuttings; they'll get them whether they want them or not. If they've got their own plants already, well that's just too bad... Best of all, if you are running Red Hat it will even configure your hardware [redhat.com] for you, so there's a definite geek connection too... ;)

      • Believe it or not, I've been wondering what it would take to get some of that. I get the impression that since it went nuts in the southern states it's hard to get elsewhere (people afraid of it taking over...)

        If somebody would engineer some oil-producing genes into the stuff we could solve our fuel problems virtually overnight (biodiesel is our friend). I imagine the remains from processing the oil could be pressed into cheap building material, too...

        • All you'd need to do is drive across some of the southern states in question, and when you see some overgrown trees/fields/towns/whatever (and you will), pull over and grab a cutting or two.

          Just don't get caught bringing it home. I believe it's a felony to transport it.

    • My ex girlfriend gave me one of these... 8 years ago. It's now four plants, I have to give some away.

      These things make great gifts. We broke up on very amicable terms and had a great relationship, so it's a happy little plant to have around.

      I'm having some luck with bamboo too. Seems to be quite resiliant, maybe up there with spider plants and devil's ivy.

  • If you're going to be growing anything in a cube, it should definitely be one of these:

    Tasty! [google.com]

    I mean, the parallelism alone would be great!

    And when you're done, you could probably use the husk to create a diorama of you growing it in your cube for an extra bit of surrealism in your day.
  • How about a euphorbia tirucalli, aka stick-plant, pencil-plant, pencil-cactus, etc? It's definitely different, easy to grow and a converstaion starter. Of course being an odd plant the comments range from "cool, where can I get one" to the classic comment from one of my mother's former neighbors, "What's that?", "It's a pencil plant"...pause..."Ugly f***er, ain't it." Google it for pictures. I found one picture of a dense outdoor plant [gardenweb.com] and a newly potted one [maccactus.com].

    A monstera [desert-tropicals.com](aka split-leaf philodendron). They ar

  • that goes in a small pot (ie on the desk, or on the monitor), try a Venus Fly-Trap :) Bring a bit of gristle or something every once in a while from home for it and it should stay pretty happy.

    No idea what the lighting/watering requirements are, though it should be easy enough to find out.

    • Venus Fly-Traps are fun but they are not a hardy plant.. you'll have to water them with distilled water.. tap water will kill em
      as for light they don't like direct light
      think swamp floor
      I grow many house plants and Fly Traps are the only ones I cant keep alive :(
  • The Fire Lily is the coolest looking plant,
    http://http//www.firelily.com/firelily.html/ [http]
    Dont know how Cubicle friendly..., but annoying for co-workers is part of your job.... :)

  • Small bamboo plant... (Score:3, Informative)

    by dubious9 ( 580994 ) * on Monday January 24, 2005 @01:26PM (#11457234) Journal
    I've had luck with small bamboo plants. I keep mine filled with water, so there's no overwatering. It doesn't require a lot of light, but they'll grow faster if there's more.

    They do grow very slowly though. However, there are many very nicely arranged ones.
  • The first thing that you should try is some Basil. True, it is not a veggie or a fruit, but it is an amazing plant that is great to start a window-box-ish type work project. Start with one of the smaller leaf varities (which should grow very quickly in direct sun... try 'small leaf greek') and see if it's for you, and then you can move onto one of the larger leaf varities (opal or italian large). I've had many co-workers enter my office and comment on how nice the smell is.
    • This is what came to my mind. I was thinking herbs to spice up you your lunch or tea. Maybe some mint. Another idea would be to get a strawberry pot with the multiple openings and see how many strawberries you can harvest for the year. One final option would be to setup some sort of salad garden in a box. That one might be interesting with leaf lettuce and some herbs to add to a vinegar and oil dressing.

  • Odd definition of lucky. How about working in a place where they actually treat you as a human being? (No cubicles at all?)

    • Don't knock cubicles, man. I admit, I did have problems at first adjusting to cubicle life. But after a few years the urge to flee fades completely. Also, I have grown accustomed to the feelings of comfort and security that having my own designated cube to sit in provides me. It's nice knowing exactly where you're going to be for the 8+ hours you will be working. My life is better for the regimentation provided by cubicles.

      Now if you will excuse me, it's 1:30 p.m. and time for my afternoon urination.

  • Garlic was fun.
    Tomatoes were useful.
    Corn was unwieldly after a bit,
    Peanuts are next on the list.

    Plants like these are a great way to break up the day and increase pleasure in the office.

  • If you're not picky on the exact sort of mushrooms you get then all you need is moisture, not too cold temperatures and some compost. In one of my previous offices we had some mushrooms growing out of the edge of the sink in the pantry...

    If you're picky on the sort of mushrooms you want then it's hard...

    Hint: don't eat them.
  • Orchids are not actually as hard as you might think to grow, and are beautiful too. If you go the the store and buy the ones without flowers, they are even very cheap ($10 or so). Just be sure they get enough humidity. There's plenty of information online about growing them, and the flowers are definatly unusual.
  • grow some Chipolte or Habenero peppers. They are pretty and tasty at the same time. They are Pretasty!

    Put some on your lunch, or give them away to your coworkers.
    • I'll back this up completely. Given good sunlight and an amply warm environment (i.e. not resting under an air conditioning duct), small pepper varieties are easy and rewarding to grow. Do them from seed if you can; that way you get to see the plant(s) come alive, flower, and fruit.

      Small is the key for an indoor setting. Just about any chile pepper will work inside as long as the sunlight is sufficient. Most common chiles grown in the US will stick to approximately 3ft tall by 2ft wide max (there are excep

  • I like African Violets [google.com] - the foliage is nice, (and it's fuzzy!), and it has little blossoms year around. Lots of variety here.

    Jade plants [google.com] are cool too. They're succulents - have sort of plump leaves.

    Both of these are easy to care for and should do fine in medium light.
    • My then-girlfriend found African violets to be very very picky--she killed them about as fast as I could keep buying them (no jokes, please). They're kinda picky about just the right amount of water and fry easily in too much sunlight.

  • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Zinnias! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by De Bas Meister ( 797791 )
    I suggest growing zinnias [seedsofknowledge.com]. They're easy to grow, grow quickly, and turn out some darn impressive blooms. Plus, you can always use them to surprise coworkers of the opposite sex...

  • How about an ecosystem (Score:2, Interesting)

    by lukesky ( 211936 )
    You can have your very own ecosystem, complete with water and fish. It will not need any care (only a little light), since the bowl is completely sealed.

    http://www.gadgets.co.uk/eco-sphere-ecosphere-sh ri mp-ecosystem.html

    I thought of buying one myself, just for the geekfactor.
  • Although they don't require direct sunlight, venus fly traps make a good conversation starter.

  • pineapple (Score:2, Interesting)

    by joejor ( 578266 )
    On my desk, I have a pineapple plant. You can start you own by saving the crown of any store-bought pineapple. Mine is growing hydroponically in a glass jar. The plant is very forgiving and can handle prolonged neglect. I've let my jar run dry up to a week.
  • I've had a corn plant for 13 years. I forget to water it for a month sometimes. It's doing fine. It doesn't need much light, either.

    With some fertilizer, it decided to bloom and put out spectactularly-scented flowers.

    http://www.evergrowing.com/tips/cornplant.htm [evergrowing.com]

  • Ask the experts (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DaveJay ( 133437 ) on Monday January 24, 2005 @02:39PM (#11458226)
    Since I don't know of a slashdot for gardeners (stemdot?) I recommend going to your local greenhouse, and telling them you want something...

    1. for indoors (duh);
    2. that will get light from [whatever direction your window faces];
    3. that generally requires a drenching of water once a week, but can handle twice a week and won't die if it doesn't have water for two weeks.

    They'll have a whole selection for you. Unless, of course, you'd rather stick with doing the equivalent of asking people in the gardening forum what kind of computer to buy for ordering seeds online. ;)
  • you get one of those plants from Little shop of Horrors [wikipedia.org]. Not only will it eat your PHB, it will do a little song and dance afterwards!

  • Dwarf tomato plants (Score:2, Informative)

    by drokus ( 116100 )
    I have grown Japanese dwarf tomatoes in small containers indoors with no problems. The tomatoes are about the size of a large cherry with some plants producing yellow and some red. Pretty cool 12 to 15 inch plants with more tomatoes than you would think.

  • A fern (Score:2, Interesting)

    by bluesourcecode ( 820052 )
    They are uniquely beautiful plants, they live a long time, require little maintenance. They are also quite adaptable when it comes to amount of sunlight.

    Of course, if you have some room and really want a conversation starter, grab yourself a "Laurier" [google.ca] (not sure of the english name). Its quite an impressive plant. Mine is 6 feet tall and lives with about 3 hours of direct sunlight+rest of the day in shade.

    As a rule of thumb, avoid any plant which requires constant or high humidity, since the windows w
  • My roommate has been growing some habanero plants for quite a while. I guess he waters them profusely every now and then, and uses plant food meant for tomatos, and the crazy thing has grown twice its size in two weeks. Very rewarding, and edible too!

  • Upside-down tomato garden (Score:3, Interesting)

    by autarkeia ( 152712 ) on Monday January 24, 2005 @03:22PM (#11458884) Homepage
    I saw this upside-down tomato garden [hammacher.com] on a recent flight in SkyMall and thought it looked pretty cool. The tomato plants grow downwards and then you can plant something else on top. It's rather large, but I think it's rather unusual and is the ideal geek planter.

  • bonsai (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Glog ( 303500 ) on Monday January 24, 2005 @03:23PM (#11458919)
    If you want to be original I'd suggest adding a bonsai to the cubicle farm. You can get as geeky as you want with it - there is lots to learn about bonsai care and it might even make a nice hobby when you are not dealing with IT stuff.
  • ...they will worry that the webcam pointing to it has 100% uptime.

    -Derek
  • You can grow a small lemon tree in your office rather easily, keep in mind it will only bear about a dozen to a dozen and a half lemons a year, but it is different, and colorful.
  • Can anyone recommend cool plants in the same vein as the submitter, but ones that don't have flowers? You know, for all the geeks allergic to pollen?

  • Potato! (Score:2, Funny)

    by orkysoft ( 93727 )
    Get a potato plant, take care of it meticulously, even coming in during the weekends to water it, only to have it die when it's almost full-grown!
  • Chives spring immediately to mind. They do need to be watered regularly, but provide abundantly with fresh seasoning for your lunches. They also reproduce vegetatively so one cluster of bulbs will spawn additional clusters so you can afford to give some away or grow more.

    Mints do well, but need a larger pot, lots of water, and will take over a good part of your window. The upside is that they smell great if you do so much as rub against the leaves, and the leaves are great as an herbal infusion.

    If you

  • Ask HR first (Score:3, Insightful)

    by travail_jgd ( 80602 ) on Monday January 24, 2005 @03:38PM (#11459192)
    I hate to be a party pooper, but if you work at a bigger company you should check with someone first: either Human Resources or Maintenance.

    One large company I was with had very specific rules about what could and could not be kept in the office. While it seemed really petty and controlling on the surface, I was told that problems with insect infestation (especially ants) and allergy-causing plants were the reason.

    Or you could always get a silk flower, and impress the ladies with your gardening skill. Just remember to dust it every week or so. ;)
  • The smell should be enough to get you out of work for the rest of the day. Of course you have to wait half a decade for it to work...
  • Easy to grow, low light requirements.

  • Avacado (Score:3, Informative)

    by mattsucks ( 541950 ) on Monday January 24, 2005 @04:35PM (#11460098) Homepage
    Growing an avacado from a pit is pretty cool. After you use an avacado, take the pit and suspend it, round side down, in a small bowl or glass of water. I use 3 toothpicks, stuck into the outside of the avacado, roughly equidistant around the middle and halfway down. You want maybe the lower 1/3 in the water. After that, some references will tell you to give it a week in the dark, and some say to just sit it in the sun. I am lazy, so I just put mine on the windowsill and let them go.

    After a week to a month, the darned thing will sprout. You'll want to keep water in the bowl, and let it grow until you have 3 or 4 strong leaves. Then transplant to a small pot, keep it watered, and there you have it.

    You won't get a full-sized tree (they grow 60' 70' tall in the wild) and you probably won't get fruit, but the leaves are pretty, and its cool to tell people that you're growing an avacodo tree.

    This is a decent refs: at AllSands.com [allsands.com]. Of course a google for "growing avacado" will get 100s of results as well.

    I've also grown small herbs (ha ha, not THAT herb) in office settings. Basil, oregano, thyme, some mints .. the plants are pretty, they smell great, and if they get plenty of sun they'll flower. Nothing big and showy, but quite nice overall.
    • I tried this at home a few times, but on each plant as the stalk grew vertically and grew new upper leaves, the lower leaves fell off. So I always had a stalk with three or four leaves at the top and nothing below that

      Any idea what I did wrong?

      • I usually keep them pinched back to about 18" tall, the lower leaves stay on that way.
        • When I tried pinching out the top, I ended up with a stick with no leaves. But maybe I was trying to keep the plant too short (10 to 12 inches). Thanks for the tip.

  • Word of Warning (Score:4, Informative)

    by RedHat Rocky ( 94208 ) on Monday January 24, 2005 @05:20PM (#11460802)
    Watch for nasty visitors your plant may introduce or attract to your workplace.

    A coworker once had a plant in his cube, it became infested with some kind of mite. These mites then migrated through the halls to some other plants, can't recall if they killed the plants or what the deal was. Caused quite the stir, plants at desks were banned from then on.
  • That's easy to answer. Get yourself one of many variants of the common Pothos [southerntropicals.com]. They are extremely hardy. You can neglect them for weeks, sometimes months and still the damned things won't die. I had one way back in HS that I was required to keep alive in biology. If our plant or animal died during the year we lost points. Right before the X-mas break I took a few of the really long runners from my plant and dipped them in the aquarium sitting next to the pot. When I got back from the break (after 3 w
    • We had little potted ones in the bathroom of the first startup I was in back in 96 . . . no windows. Just fluorescents when someone would go in there and turn the lights on . . . They got watered (with water) maybe once every couple weeks and sometimes would go months. The did not die. Since they were so hardy, we moved them from bathroom to bathroom as the startup grew . . . eventually after I decided to leave the company after it got absorbed by a big telco, I took the plant with me and gave it a spot
      • I remember when my sister first entered college that one of her college friends had a bunch of aquariums and a couple pothos plants. They went around the room at least twice. Every wall had a huge amount of plant on it. They were run through the aquariums for water. Hellva big plant. I saw a bigger one a couple months ago. Here in Wichita there is a timber products company. I was in their building one day and happened to look into one of their offices. They had the plant stretched back and forth acr
  • and you don't need to get another plant ;-) (sorry, i couldn't resist)
    actually, you might consider any plant that's hydro/aeroponic friendly. take a look at the hyodponic gel, that supplies water and nutrients to your plants root system. spider plants are nice because of their broad light/heat/moisture requirements. so are the lucky bamboo plants, which are actually related to the corn plant and have no relation to bamboo at all. i actually have a spider plant in our kitchen(not too bright, 'cause it's next

  • I've got an interior office and my Spathiphyllum is doing just fine. I put it by the window over the weekend and when I'll be gone on a trip for a while. Most plants will go (even in a dry office) for a week without water if you make sure they're nice and moist before you leave.

    http://pubs.caes.uga.edu/caespubs/pubcd/b959-w.htm l [uga.edu]

    Remember that overwatering can be just as bad as underwatering. And if you get someone to water your plant for you, make sure you casually run down how often they should wat

  • - A terrarium with carnivorous plants (Venus Fly Traps, Pitcher plants, Sundews)
    - A caudiform succulent. There are a lot of different kinds of these. They are very odd looking when dormant (which is a lot of the time). If you can get one, a Boojum Tree would be a good choice just for the name alone.
  • hoyas [google.com] seem to thrive in lower light, can withstand drought (they are epiphytic so they are used to a drench and dry cycle), and their blooms are cool as hell. some orchids might do well too. dont waste your time with palms and such (right !!?? you didnt "ask slashdot" so we could suggest common crap ?!! ;)
  • I've gotten used to Plumeria as an outdoor plant in my neck of the woods. If forced back to mainland USA, I'd do as most do, indoors.

    The flowers are fragrant without being sickly so. Provided the office stays at least 70, you'll have leaves for all year except - say - Febrary, during which time you can blow off the watering. As long as the inside temp stays above 40, it'll come back big time in the spring. The branches are pretty thick and stay green, so it won't come off as spindly. When it gets too big fo

  • That's what I'm growing now.
  • They tend to dry out in the average office.. And if you are in the middle of a sea of cubes, the lighthing sux .. they need real sunlight..

  • Philodendron, spider plant, african violet, wandering Jew, lucky bamboo, thalinopsis orchid, snake plant (aka Mother-in-law's tounge), Ficus benjamina.

    For the ambitious, Andropogon gerardii or Acer abes.
  • I have had fabulous success with African Violets [avsa.org].

    You can buy a small one at Home Depot for under $3. They come in a huge range of colors, so pick one you like.

    The KEY to cube-grown African Violets is the pot. A pair of nested "self watering" pots will give your African Violet the right amount of water all the time, while you just have to remember to check it ~once/week.

    Again, Home Depot is your friend. They have a few pretty options in the under $10 range for smaller pots. Google [google.com]also provides a lot of

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