Features: Magazine | Literary Review | Life | Metro Plus | Open Page | Education Plus | Book Review | Business | SciTech | Friday Review | Young World | Property Plus | Quest | Folio |

Green cascade

Kasukkodi is ideal for overhead pots and window boxes

The cascade of feathery foliage instantly attracts the eye. The plant called kasukkodi in Tamil (Hexline centz) lends a pleasing touch of greenery to gardens though it does not have flowers.

Each plant has a thin, 2 mm, soft green thread of a stem about two feet long. On the stem are strung short-stalked, thick coin-shaped opposite leaves.

The plants droop gracefully around the pots they are grown in and appear too tender to bear the weight of their thick leaves. Obviously, the plants are ideal for overhead pots, hanging from the ceilings of open verandahs, outer ends of windows and balcony roofs.

Plant four to six-inch cuttings at one-inch intervals in loamy soil filled in circular pots not more than eighteen inches in diameter.

Water thrice daily, and keep the pots in the shade. Shoots and fibrous roots develop at the nodes in a week. The shoots grow straight in the beginning. After being erect up to a height of 10 inches, they droop. In about three months, each plant grows to a length of two feet.

A second technique is to arrange the long stems without clipping in concentric circles in the pot, spread soil over the plants to a depth of one inch and keep wetting. Roots strike and shoots stand up at each node.

The strands rub against the edges of round pots and may fall off. Placing strips of cloth between the plants and the pot helps. Plant all fallen strands back in the pot, under the soil.

The plants can be kept indoors, and on the floor, in pots that are slightly raised. The flowing foliage trails like a peacock's tail.

The plant satisfies Feng Shui followers who believe in live greenery indoors.

J. MANGALARAJ JOHNSON

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail