Depending on the variety, you may not need an aquarium or a dome bowl. Do you know which variety you bought??

Thanks,

Rebecca

I live in Ny, which is a Zone 5 too. During the summer my epicias grow very happily in a hanging basket in a window. The minute fall hits though, the leaves fall off and the plant really dies back.
Epicias are VERY sensitive to cold and drafts. They also need higher humidity. I would suggest that you at least grow them in an aquarium or dome bowl (even a little goldfish bowl would be great) during the winter and even summer if you want.

I have about 6 episcias and some are hardier than others however they all drop dead in the winter if I don't place them in a dome bowl and keep them warmer.

However dont' worry if you lose a lot of the plant during teh winter, they grow very fast and by mid-summer you will have a nice blooming plant again!

-renee

I grow episcias with medium green, green/brown, and darker pink leaves in low humidity without too much problem. They are happier with higher humidity, but if it's comfortable for humans these ones do well enough. (E.g., my office air is dry and I can tell it's dry - the episcias hate it too.) Others will need higher humidity, such as the pale shimmery pink and green leaved ones like Cleopatra, the lighter green ones like lilacina, and the miniatures.

Episcias have the same basic requirements as most gesneriads for bright indirect light and a well-drained potting mix. On top of this the main things to remember are that they require warmth and constant moisture. High humidity also helps.

Hi,

I have episcia stawberry patch and it grows just fine without a terrarium. We do have a swamp cooler in the summer and a whole house humidifier in the winter. The humidity in the house is always around 50%.

Larry

larry, What is a swamp cooler? I have never heard of that before!
thanks,
Renee

Renee,

It's another name for an evaporative cooler. My wife hates it when I call it a swap cooler, but that is what I first learned it as.

They have evaporative coolers in arid places like Denver and Phoenix where the humidity is below 30%. On a hot summer day it is not uncommon for us to have a relative humidity of 10%. Basically the lower the humidity the better the evaporative cooler works. If it is much above 50% evaporative coolers don't work. So, you don't see them in Chicago or New York.

I'm not sure how many of you have ever heard of an evaporative cooler or even know what the mechanics of it is. The concept for running an evaporative cooler is that when water evaporates it cools. That is the reason why we sweat. When the moisture on us evaporates it cools our bodies. Now in a higher humidity environment the evaporation rate is slower than in an arid environment. In an arid environment the evaporation rate is higher and perspiration evaporates at a higher rate thus cooling off the person more efficiently. That is why they say it's not that heat but the humidity.

Evaporative coolers are basically filters, that look like large furnace filters, made of Aspen shavings for instance. Water is pumped up to the top of the filter and allowed to run down through the filter to a basin, which is then repumped to the top over and over again. This is all contained in a box. The evaporation of the water cools the air inside the box and the air is then blown into the house by a fan.

Larry

As Larry notes, evaporative cooling is most effect in low humidity areas. California has the perfect climate for these too, although they aren't seen very often. But, this is the primary way that greenhouses are cooled, both here and elsewhere. They will have an entire wall made up of "aspen pads", with water dripping down through them, and with fans mounted on the outside blowing through the pads, sending cool humid air into the greenhouse.

In the 70's I had a friend in the greenhouse business out in an inland area where the summers were typically in the 90's but humidity was low. He had a greenhouse that was something like 30 x 150 feet. On the narrow north end was located the drip pads and fans. For the first ten feet the air was always quite cool and humid, but as one got further from the pads the greenhouse got warmer, so he had all sorts of climates in this house. He grew incredible odontoglossom orchids up near the pads. These are difficult to grow cool growing orchids native to high elevations in the tropics. Hiw plants had huge pseudobulbs and put out spectacular long sprays of big flowers. At the other end of the greenhouse he had heat loving tropicals.

But when I was in Sarasota Florida one July, I was on an AGGS tour of the greenhouses at Selby Botanical Garden. It was a typical hot humid Florida day and in the greenhouses it was even hotter and more humid. I, being conditioned to dry California conditions, was just miserable; so, I went up and stood in front of their wall of pads, right in front of where the fans were blowing. It was slightly cool right up against the wall for about two or three feet--I just stood there. The contrast in effectiveness between there and California was stark. As soon as I moved away from the pads it was very hard to tolerate. Most everyone else, being from humid summer climates were doing OK though. I have vague recollections of seeing lots of plants in the greenhouses but standing in front of the pads is mainly what I remember. Oh yeah, I was standing so close that I was getting dark green gooey sticky staining algae on my clothes. Back in the 70's Selby maintained a small greenhouse that was cooled by air conditioning. It was very expensive and the space was only used for plants that really required cooler conditions. But, they had to give up that method of cooling. I recall that it cost something like $1200 a month. The main cost in a swamp cooler is for the energy to run the fans--therefore much lower.

Jon
PS: One memory of Florida is that they could bloom Episcia lilacina out in the open on their benches. That is one gesneriad that loves the heat and humidity of a Florida summer. This species can be grown in the open but here I need to grow it in a terrarium to get it to flower, which I am rarely able to do. E. cupreata forms are much easier to flower when grown in the open air.

Jon,

My mother-in-law lives in Sarasota. When we went down to visit her a couple of years ago she took us to the Selby Botanical Garden. I just thought it was wonderful. I was also really impressed with all of the gesneriads they had in the place. We were fortunate enough to get a tour guide who was a volunteer to show us around. I also impressed my mother-in-law with my knowledge of plants. Even though she knew we had lots of plants around the house it must not have occurred to her that I knew what I was doing. At least sometimes. lol ;o)

Larry

My Episcias languished and looked sickly until I put them under lights.

They like the warmth provided by the lights, and I also keep them above a layer of water in the trays. The warmth from the lights evaporates the water enough to increase the humidity.

Some of mine doubled in size within a month, not to mention looking a lot better.

Oh, I have heard of evaporative coolers before. I so wish we could use them here, but our summers are more humid than hot. Of course all you people who live in california and florida are laughing at me for sure thinking "90 degress, you call THAT hot?" I was just in florida for a vacation in November and it was pretty hot and it didn't rain once! That would be just so unusual for Rochester. It was a little hard to get used to.
-Renee