Bosom Buddies | Bangkok Post: lifestyle

In the past, when one mentioned indoor plants, the first things that came to mind were dieffenbachia and aglaonema. They were inseparable, these two, like bosom buddies in high school. They have the same requirements concerning light (filtered), soil (well-drained, loamy soil enriched with compost), water (enough to keep the soil moist, but not soggy) and fertiliser (a pinch of NPK10-30-10 or its equivalent every two months).

COMMON: New cultivars are expensive—one plant was sold for half a million baht—but as they reached the hands of mass-producers, prices drastically dropped.

Aglaonema is more compact than dieffenbachia, but both add a tropical touch to any garden with their beautiful green foliage mottled with white (or cream in the case of dieffenbachia and silver in aglaonema), and both can grow healthily for long periods of time in poorly lighted and badly ventilated rooms. They are even propagated the same way, that is, by stem cutting and plant division. If you have doubts about growing aglaonema, all you have to do is read last week's Green Fingers article about dieffenbachia and you should be alright.