# HC and UG as house plants?



## fabihanski (10 Mar 2021)

Hemianthus Callitricoides and ultricularia graminifolia are very pretty little plants that IMO would look nice in little pots around the house. I've got some HC growing emersed on soil in tissue culture cup, with the lid off a quarter, so essentially its getting air but with the substrate drenched and another couple of pots of HC and UG in slightly damper conditions. 

Has anyone successfully grown these in house climate long term? 

My thoughts are, with a very wet substrate, and being low lying, they'd be kept in a slightly more humid environment? 
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## Nick potts (10 Mar 2021)

Lots of aquatics can be acclimated to normal humidities over time.

I don't know if the 2 above would work at normal house humidities though.


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## dw1305 (10 Mar 2021)

Hi all, 


fabihanski said:


> Has anyone successfully grown these in house climate long term?


I had _Utricularia graminifolia_ <"for a while">, I don't have it now.  I've found the difficulty with all the _Utricularia_ spp. I've grown is that they have all (other_ U. gibba_) suffered from "Boom then bust".

cheers Darrel


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## fabihanski (11 Mar 2021)

Nick potts said:


> Lots of aquatics can be acclimated to normal humidities over time.
> 
> I don't know if the 2 above would work at normal house humidities though.


Really? Do you have any examples, I would love to try 😊. I have some rice paddy herb- the cooking var of Limnophila Aromatica that I'm trying to harden off, but anything less than 90% humidity and the leaves start browning at the edges


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## fabihanski (11 Mar 2021)

dw1305 said:


> Hi all,
> 
> I had _Utricularia graminifolia_ <"for a while">, I don't have it now.  I've found the difficulty with all the _Utricularia_ spp. I've grown is that they have all (other_ U. gibba_) suffered from "Boom then bust".
> 
> cheers Darrel


Thats interesting, the flowers are particularly why I wanted to try with UG, could it be that emersed its perennial? Do you find it dies back after flowering? Or can it be hit and miss


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## Nick potts (11 Mar 2021)

fabihanski said:


> Really? Do you have any examples, I would love to try 😊. I have some rice paddy herb- the cooking var of Limnophila Aromatica that I'm trying to harden off, but anything less than 90% humidity and the leaves start browning at the edges


If you go here Plant Finder - Encyclopedia of Aquarium Plants

In the search select the can be grown emersed dropdown and will show you which can be out of water.

90% of the plants we use are not true aquatics, they do need high humidity though


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## fabihanski (11 Mar 2021)

Nick potts said:


> If you go here Plant Finder - Encyclopedia of Aquarium Plants
> 
> In the search select the can be grown emersed dropdown and will show you which can be out of water.
> 
> 90% of the plants we use are not true aquatics, they do need high humidity though


Thank you, that might come in handy. I have a lot of plants growing emersed, however I'm trying to find aquatic plants that will grow at normal room humidity of 50% or so. I have lots of emersed set ups purely for growing fast, but they're not pretty, I'm looking for something that will look pretty more than anything and won't have to be in a sealed dome


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## dw1305 (11 Mar 2021)

Hi all, 


fabihanski said:


> however I'm trying to find aquatic plants that will grow at normal room humidity of 50% or so


I'm not sure that would suit _U. graminifolia, _but there are _Utricularia_ spp. (Bladderworts) that can be grown on a <"window-sill">.


fabihanski said:


> Or can it be hit and miss


Just hit and miss for me, <"other than _U. gibba_">.

cheers Darrel


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## zozo (11 Mar 2021)

With UG it strongly depends on your rooms Microclimate and if this favours the plant it could be easy to grow in a sunny spot on the window sill. This is something to find out with trial and error. But there are many reports to find on the internet where is stated this is a fairly easy plant to keep. Not for me, I failed over and over again and my best guess is my house might have a nasty draft or occasional temp swing this plant hates or something in this direction. People writing positively about keeping it might be living in another more suitable part of the world, I dunno...

Note UG is not truly aquatic as in the exclusively submersed form in the way we usually see it around. Tho it's known in botanical literature as Affixed aquatic, probably meaning something as irrevocably and exclusively attached to wet environments. It needs to have its roots and utriculus (Bladders) in the water able to catch microorganisms from it. It should be water with a rather low (EC) mineral content and preferably matured enough to contain microorganisms. Putting dry sedge in some demineralized water and let it mature seems to work pretty well to refill the UG container. Then flooding the plant parts for a little while also seems to be welcomed.

HC can be kept in a similar way and rather constant wet, but on contrary is hungry and not only loves loads of light but also high fertilization. I've managed to keep it partially submerged and emerged for quite some time in a high-tech environment.





Later I've tried to grow this plant in low-tech like this but it keeps dying on me... My best guess it's a combination of less light and much less fertilizer, not being in its favor and not able to grow strong enough to withstand this condition. All tho if kept in a small greenhouse it's much less demanding and happily grows on with little care under solely natural light on the window sill. Thus air humidity also plays a major role in this. 

Plants can be very mysterious lifeforms without a brain but still a mind on their own only leaving us guessing...  One's failure or success doesn't necessarily mean it's something universally applicable to this particular plant.


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## foxfish (11 Mar 2021)

Baby tears is a non aquatic plant that looks like HC and grows like mad as a pot plant.


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