Stop press! We have a new plant available!
To a non-plant geek, like almost anyone reading this, the discovery of an unusual variety of a common small plant (the
Aglaonema, or Chinese Evergreen) would be of little interest.
When you've been doing the job for fifteen years like me, the same old plants can get a little routine, particularly plants that have any record of being reliable in normal office conditions. If you look regularly, you'll notice our
portfolio of plant images remains static, as new species are a rare occurrence. Many a time, we find a new plant and start using it, only to find it has an obvious weak point which makes it unsuitable. But the
Aglaonema (or Aglo, colloquially) is a mainstay of interior landscaping as it'll cope with lowish light, customer mistreatment and a variety of watering levels. Its only weak point is needing to be kept pretty warm. But most of them, as the example picture below shows, are somewhere between green and white, wheareas the A. Valentine is strikingly red and yellow variegated.
Every
maintenance technician has been issued with two of these to use as they see fit, and see how they perform in offices. Fingers crossed!
Finally, how did I find out this species existed?
Last year I blogged about an American
houseplant discussion forum that I'd joined. What I've found very interesting is that they are readily able to buy plants that we don't have in Europe, and this plant seems to be widely available there. So I tried asking my Dutch supplier and he came up trumps.
Jonathan