Outside it’s freezing cold, two feet of snow or it’s chucking it down and blowing a hooley.
You stare out the window and long for nature but aren’t exactly inspired to venture out.
The good news is you don’t have to be outside to enjoy nature. This is the magic of houseplants.
At the minimum, they provide a splash of colour in the loo. Used properly, however, houseplants provide a portal to the natural world.
They can provide that impossible transition between the outdoors and indoors. You can be made to feel at one with the world even within the comfort of your own home.
Lots of plants for lots of situations
Plants classed as houseplants tend to vary enormously.
In the UK, we tend to think of them as those that wouldn’t survive outside and therefore are tender and in need of shelter.
I would say, however, that it’s not always the case.
My wife decided she fancied a nice hanging houseplant in the sunroom. I thought about going through the route of annuals and doing things like million bells (Calibrachoas) then decided, nah I couldn’t be jeered.
What’s a nice trailing perennial with little fuss for indoors? I settled on good old English Ivy (Hedera helix ‘Variegata’) which does the job just lovely.
In the bedroom, we tend to have a window with a lot of condensation in the morning. The original answer was a saucer of salt to absorb the moisture. After a week or so I decided “Hang on I’m a gardener! Use a plant to mop it up!”
Hence the stunning Swiss cheese plant (Monstera deliciosa) has taken up residence in the window which not only looks brilliant and gives the bedroom a tropical, exotic feel but also crucially gets rid of the condensation.
The same goes for the emerald plant (Zamioculcas zamiifolia) in our dark hallway which suffered a similar condensation issue.
Spruce up any room
Asides from the usual pots of herbs, the kitchen window is jazzed up with my plant called Jill.
Jill being so named because it is the mother-in-law’s tongue plant (Sansevieria trifasciata ‘Laurentii’).
The bathroom has a lovely lipstick plant (Aeschynanythus radicans ‘Rasta’) which produces wonderful bright red flowering tubes just like its namesake.
The sunroom has a dragon tree plant (Dracaena marginata ‘Magenta’) to give it an exotic feel, albeit it lives in the shadier corner to avoid scorch.
It also has a collection of cacti such as the pickle plant (Curio anticulatus), bunny ear cactus (Opuntia microdasys ‘Albata’), spiraled cactus (Cereus forbesii), and woolly blue spire cactus (Pilocereus azureus).
I was also kindly gifted a couple of wonderful Rebutia hoffmanii from a gentleman I used to garden for out near Collieston called Paul that runs the National collection of Aylostera, Rebutia & Weingartia inc. Sulcorebutia.
Imagine owning the national collection of such exotic plants in the often brutally Baltic, windy skelp of land that is Collieston.
I still love it there though. Collieston is so beautiful! The living room features an Aloe Vera which shares a pot with a queen of the night (Epiphyllum oxypetalum).
Cuttings
That was in part an accident. I received a few cuttings of the queen of the night from Anne and Raymond Mackay, volunteers at Haddo House.
They kindly gifted me this and at the time I had no decent medium to pot it up into. I looked and hey presto the aloe vera had an ideal loose, free-draining soil that was ideal as a temporary solution to allow the Epiphyllum a chance to put down roots.
Frankenplant
In time, I honestly forgot about it and now each cutting has plenty roots. They could do with being lifted and potted on individually but I’ve kind of grown attached to my frankenplant.
Last but no means least is the good old faithful spider plant (Chlorophytum comosum ‘Variegatum’).
Spider plants are very easy to keep and need little care really. They can also pretty much thrive in any room so long as it’s not too cold and it gets a splash of water now and again.
Trendy
House plants these days getting ever more popular among younger folk and are providing a route of interest to those who have never been interested in gardening to suddenly sprout green fingers.
I’m all for anything that gets someone new into the magical world of horticulture. I’ll be honest, houseplants aren’t my favourite.
They always seemed needy and high maintenance. Truthfully though, they’ve grown on me a lot in the last few years. I see their merit.
I also see that if you’ve get the right plant for the right place it can make a huge difference to your home.
Take care and happy gardening.
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