Vegetal Studies

Hello everyone

Hopefully this won't come out of the blue (I just posted an
introduction of myself to the blog), but I thought I would offer some
thoughts about plant choice, and in particular the question of
sensitivity vs. hardiness:

1) There are plants which will survive a range of conditions but can
still be relatively sensitive or communicative about their needs. I am
thinking mostly of flowering plants that only bloom when they've got
everything they need (e.g. african violets, geraniums). I also had a
Kentia palm which was very quick to go brown at the tips (from
irregular watering) but kept producing new growth almost no matter
what.

2) What about plants that are active/communicative in ways other than
signaling distress, such as having the tendency to grow rapidly, or
reproduce (spider plants and piggyback plants both produce little
plantlets as a reproductive strategy). Of course, young seedlings of
many plants will be both communicative about their needs, and likely
to change substantially over a short period of time. Would seedlings
of food plants be of interest for this prototype - perhaps started
from seed?  There was a group doing experiments in the greenhouse on
top of the Hall building regarding indoor food crops, called Ensemble
Terre-Ciel, but their website is no longer working, so I'm not sure if
they are still around. Choosing climbing/creeping plants could also be
a way of making growth/movement more apparent.

3) I also wanted to put out there that there is an artist in Montreal
(Francine Larivee) who has done research on which species of moss do
well indoors, under what conditions of care. She made several indoor
moss gardens and collaborated with a biologist at the botanical garden
to get it right. Moss is pretty sensitive, also interesting in that (I
think) it invites close-up looking, also touching, though I don't know
if that's wanted.

Erin Despard
PhD candidate, Communication Studies
Concordia University, Montreal QC