Seeking people with green thumbs

Hi X,

You might want to PM Tina Samuels. She is literally writing the book on gardening (actually a bunch of them, and a column) , so she might have some
ideas.

Hope this helps,
Chacounne

Ok, please axcuse my ignorance, but why do you need a darkroom for digital imaging?

cheap lighting

Does the room have to stay dark constantly? If so I don't know what plant could tolerate that really.

But if it can have a little light that can be shut off when it needs to be then buy grow lights. You can buy cheap grow lights. I bought mine at walmart for under 10.00. I grow all year long inside in a dark hallway. That hallway puts off the best heating source so I put grow lights on the stand and have my own little greenhouse.

Some hostas need little light. Most tolerate a lot of shade. But still not sure if they would withstand a complete absence of light.

I don't know of any other plant that grows well in the dark. I am sure there are some. There are very strange plants. There is the mushroom (not really a plant but a fungus, different kingdom completely) but you already expressed you didn't want that.

Wow, no light at all? Try a fake plant made of silk leaves - looks good, needs no light or water. Just dust with a blow dryer every so often.

asked my mom the plant expert

My mom is visiting me tonight and she is the plant expert (as I call her ). She said that hostas, a plant called the cast iron plant and most ferns will survive low light conditions. Some even tolerate dryness and low humidity.

She said some will tolerate some artifical light even if for a few hours. Coleus is a shade plant too so that could work.

A bet eh? How long do you have to have this thing alive?

I have had an inside plant (spider plant) that hardly gets any sun except maybe two hours in the morning. And it has lived! For over two years now! I can't believe it! Of course I water it occasionally. I at first was intentionally trying to kill it but it never happened.

Navigator, which way did you bet?

Aspidistera

Go with the cast iron plant (aspidistera). It has the best chance of making it. Don't over water - even if it starts to die, you should be able to 'fake' it for 100 days. Get the solid green. Variegated tend to be a bit weaker genetically.

P.S. These were common indoor plants during the Victorian era. They are more often found in the outdoor garden section these days.

Gray

XThe NavigatorX said:

Thanks everyone. I can't use a silk plant. I need a real one so I can win a bet. I'll look into some low-light ones. Maybe I can sneak it out into the main room during the day or something.



It's pretty common in newspapers and magazines. We work in complete darkness with constantly-calibrated monitors so when we color correct images, what we see on screen ends up being exactly what prints. A single light shining in the background slightly alters how you perceive images. We can't even have images as desktop backgrounds. Only 45% grey.

An extreme example of this is here:

Blocks A and B are the exact same color. Don't believe me? Take it apart in photoshop and look for yourself.

Click to expand...

Or print it out on a good printer and cut the squares apart with scissors. I found this somewhat amazing the first time I saw it.

What about ivy? Just that plain ol' green ivy. . .some call it pole ivy. Don't over water. Like you, I can kill about any plant, but that seems to hang on longer than anything for some reason. Never tried it in completely dark room, but it will go on and on. . get scraggly as all get out, down to one or two leaves left on it before it totally gives up the ghost.

Why not buy 2 or 3 different types of plants to try? Is that against the rules of your bet? If nothing else, you might have article fodder there!

Photosynthesis is pretty basic. I don't see how you can win the bet with a plant in the adult stage of its life. Would a potato with sprouts count? What about a flower bulb of a kind that blooms in the fall and would therefore be dormant at this time of year?

Navigator, unless the bet allows you to use Gro-Lites or something similar, with the necessary UV rays, I'm afraid you're going to lose. Even low-light plants can't survive in the kind of darkness you're talking about. You'd need something without chlorophyll. Do the plant a favor, and when you see signs that it's not healthy--pale leaves, attenuated stems, dropping leaves--please accept that you've lost and take the poor thing to an environment with light before it starves to death.