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Dr. Green Thumbs, 33311, Fort Lauderdale, FL (2026)

08/21/2022

I bought these tissue cultured Musa Florida back in June. I was nervous about deflasking and acclimating them to a potting medium. They sat near a sunny window for over months.

I was overthinking what I needed to do. The main things I overthought were what materials to use as a potting medium and how to maintain 100% humidity around the plants.

One big plus to leaving the plants sealed for so long is that they continued to grow leaves and roots.

So what I finally decided to do was to use a sterilized 50/50 mix of sphagnum peat moss and homemade coconut fiber. To maintain humidity I used deli containers, sealing them with parafilm grafting tape.

Now I'll just wait for them to grow a good bit before I do the next steps.

#33311

03/21/2022

Well, if you know you know, but if you don't know ask because I love to share.

I recently purchased two of the main pieces of equipment used to perform plant tissue culture at home with reliable success.

Plant tissue culture is normally carried out in a commercial or university laboratory. The cost of equipment and supplies + skilled labor and training is beyond most household budgets.

Though plant tissue culture can be performed with improvised equipment fashioned from available household items, I opted to purchase used standard equipment at a fraction of the new cost.

The first picture is a laminar flow hood equipped with a HEPA air filter and a UV light. This piece of equipment provides a flow of clean air free of dust, spores, and bacteria. The aseptic conditions inside of the cabinet are required to prevent contamination during the handling and transferring plant materials for tissue culture.

In the second picture is a pressure sterilizer also known as an autoclave. It is used to sterilize growing media, tools, and all containers used in tissue culture.

When I started to seriously consider performing tissue culture at home I watched numerous videos and read many scholarly articles as anyone else would. I also purchased a book: Plant Propagation: Principles and Practices. I chose this book because it is the book used in the plant propagation course at UF. It has 2 full chapters dedicated to plant tissue culture alone. This book contains hundreds of methods of plant propagation that I've never heard of, or ever could have imagined.

The first plant that I am going to propagate by tissue culture is banana. That is the plant that sparked my interest in and desire to do tissue culture. I will use the Nam Wah banana that I have growing in my garden. It was purchased from back in spring/summer of 2020. I recently learned it too was produced by way of tissue culture which I found to be super cool. A banana plant from tc back into tc.♾️
#33311

03/15/2022

I'm proud of this one! Made it this morning. I was inspired by a YouTube video that I watched just before.

I had been looking for instructions to make a lei out of my crown flowers. I came across a series of videos where the teacher was very thorough in instructing how to weave a haku lei. I saw that I had similar materials in my yard so I thought that I'd give it a try.

I saw she used ti leaves to braid her lei. I grabbed some sugar cane blades, lemon grass, and palm leaves to make mine. I ended up using the lemon grass and it smells great🍋!

The teacher in the video used a couple of different types of colorful dracaena leaves and koa leaves. I have plenty Song of Jamaica (dracaena reflexa) so I used that.

This was very fun for me to make as you know I love creating things with my hands. Very happy with how it came out. First time to make a lei and definitely won't be the last!
# #33311

03/02/2022

Hey everybody meet Ms. Millie! and I had the great pleasure of meeting her and touring her Farm back in January.

Miss Millie is such a kind generous person. It was great chatting with her. Her farm was paradise for me. The veggies were greener than green and fresher than fresh.

I bought all the produce that I could carry. I am really looking forward to my next visit.

Ms. Millie has been farming this land just herself for 7 years. You can see the care, dedication, love, and hard work she puts into growing all of this organic produce.

is located in Davie, Florida near Orange Drive and Flamingo Road.

If you live in South Florida or plan on visiting South Florida please visit and pick up some produce from Ms. Millie🌱💚

02/26/2022

Passion vine has been my best selling plant since I started offering plants for sale back in November.

I'm running low on them so it's time to make some more. I've had success starting passion vines from cuttings in water and from seeds. I wanted to start more passion vines using both methods at the same time in order to compare results and share with you.

Things got a bit busy around here. So let's just say I got the seeds in soil and trimmed the cutting from the vines on Sunday, but I didn't get around to cutting the vines up into sections and getting them in water until Wednesday.

I will also place some cuttings in soil soon to compare that to what I've already got going. I have never tried rooting passion vine in soil before.

On a side note I'm also comparing fresh harvested seeds from one of my fruits to seeds I received from my best garden friend that were dried and stored for several months. I'm trying to see which seeds germinate the fastest, fresh or saved. I did soak both groups of seeds for a full day before planting in soil. I'm keeping a lid partially open on the containers until I see germination.
#33311

02/11/2022

A little gift I'm sending with my wife for one of her coworkers. I sent fruits and vegetables with her to work a few times. One of the chefs loved the scotch bonnet peppers from my plants. He uses them in recipes. He asked for some seeds so I said sure, take home 2 plants, seeds, and some peppers. One of the best joys of gardening is being able to give some of what you produce as gifts.

I am very impressed with how well peppers grow here. The mother plants of of all that you see here have lived in the garden over two years with little care care from me. They are also approaching my hight (6'3").

Seeing how these have done I've decided to add several new varieties of peppers to my nursery and my garden.

Aji Amarillo, Aji Charapita, Purple Splotched Aji Cachucha, Cuban Heirloom Aji Cachucha, Gatherer's Gold Sweet Italian Pepper, and 'Holy Italian' Sweet Pepper which is an F6. Holy Italian is the one I'm most excited about growing because of the large size of fruit and the fact that it is a new variety in development.
#33311

01/15/2022

The other night me and my kids were coming home from a friends house and we saw what we thought was a bunch of dragon fruit growing on the edge of a lot.

A few days later I returned in the daytime and I realize that it wasn't dragon fruit but was another type of cactus.Then I noticed there are a few other interesting plants just growing wild on this vacant lot.

So I went back with my tools and collected me some plant materials. I ended up with a bunch of cactus, Mexican sunflower, fiddle leaf fig, and callisia fragrans cuttings.

I am most excited about growing the callisia fragrans. I read that when it grows in the shade it's green but when it gets plenty of sunlight it gets the red color that you see in the picture.
#33311

01/05/2022

Potted 2 bamboo plants that I started from culm cuttings this past fall. I also up potted a bamboo that I started Spring 2020 from a 3 gal to a much larger pot.

These were all from 1 and 2 node cuttings from cut down bamboo culms that I salvaged from bulk trash. They are clumping types.
#33311

01/05/2022

Air layering of the papaya is complete!

Tools and materials used: used plastic laundry bag, moistened peat moss, machete, pocket knife, twine, bamboo, and a ladder.

The process: Well I'm pretty much gonna let the pictures tell it right here.

I did work through a few challenging parts while doing this. The first being driving the machete into the thick stem. I decided to use a piece of 2x4 to tap the machete into the papaya stem. The next challenge I had was removing the machete from the papaya stem once I got it in there. That was because all the weight of the upper part of the plant was bearing down on it. I had to use the same 2x4 to drive the machete out of the stem. The next challenge I had was holding the bag of peat moss with one hand while tying the bag to the stem with the other hand. That's the only part where I could have really used another set of hands but you know you work with what you got.

I found this idea in an online video. I want to do more air layering including mango + other fruit trees.

It should take about 45 days for roots to form. Then I'll chop the top and plant it in soil. 🤞🏿🤞🏿🤞🏿
#папайя #파파야 #パパイヤ

#33311

01/05/2022

Here are some clips of of me processing coconut husks to use in my homemade potting mixes.

I used my bolo machete to chop it all up. At the last minute I got the idea to use my soil sifter to separate the small coco chunks from the smaller coco bits.

This was all so much fun for me. I love working with my hands and acquiring new skills.
#33311

01/04/2022

Papaya plants can get very tall making it really hard to pick the fruit. They also can get knocked down in a heavy rain storm.

One idea I discovered is air layering the papaya plant high up near the top of the plant. When the roots develop on the air layer you chop that top portion of the papaya plant and put the rooted air layer in the soil. You end up with a dwarf papaya plant that's fully developed and easy to harvest from.

The whole process should take about 45 days.

You see here what I've got to so far. Basically I've just cleared fruits and leaves to give me a good position on the stem for an air layer.

I sent all but one of the fruits to work with my wife to give to a coworker who is overjoyed to get them. He claims that they taste much better than the ones at the store.
#33311

12/21/2021

Here's what's coming down the pike in the Dr. Green Thumbs Nursery for Spring and Summer! vanilla bean orchid, aluminum plant, boldo, more monstera adonsonii, coconut, dragon fruit, dracaenas song of India + song of Jamaica, and hoya Australis + hoya carnosa.

I will be sharing how I propagate these so you can do all of this yourself if you don't already know how 👍🏿
#33311

Dr. Green Thumbs

08/21/2022

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02/11/2022

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