Highlight a coffee table, a fireplace mantel, a piano with a single pot plant, or adorn a bay window with a collection of them.
Bring an early spring to the indoor garden with the fragrance of spring-flowering bulbs.
Add sparkle to your kitchen with a few geraniums, begonias, miniature roses, or herbs. Then, dramatize an entrance with a splash of green foliage plants.
If your home has a picture window, one you look into and out of, this would be a perfect place for a collection of pot plants.
They will give you pleasure as you come and go, and neighbors will appreciate the outdoor view.
Arrange plants in saucers atop a low wooden bench, or set them in a metal-lined planter box.
Good-looking containers enhance the beauty of all house plants—even very plain ones.
Use large redwood planters on rollers to display green and variegated foliage, such as a jade plant (Crassula arborescens), croton, and fatsia.
A planter in an entrance hall, accented by a small spotlight, forms a perfect introduction to a home decorated with house plants.
If there isn’t room for a separate entrance, let a planter-divider create the illusion of one.
Tropicals Go Together
One of my favorite planters is a metal-lined wooden box filled with bromeliads, crassula, and paradise palm (Kentia fosteriana).
Its center of interest is a split-leaf philodendron (Monstera deliciosa).
When I added this to the planter, I gave it a 12-inch wooden slab as support. Some 4 years later, it is 4′ feet tall and is supported by a totem I made of unmilled sphagnum moss wrapped around a piece of wood from the forest.
I keep this moist so that the plant’s aerial roots will grow into it.
Metal plant stands with rings or circular trays for holding pots are especially good for exhibiting flowering plants.
One of the prettiest ones I have seen was white wrought iron with space for a dozen flower-laden wax begonias, each growing in a spotless, white plastic pot.
This kind of stand is just the thing for displaying a small collection of African violets.
As in a large planter, unglazed clay pots are used when potted plants are to be sunk into peat moss or soil.
The top of a standard clay pot is as wide as it is high. These range from thumb size to tubs 18″ inches in diameter.
The important thing to remember about unglazed clay pots is that they evaporate moisture through the sides and the soil surface.
This action keeps roots cooler in hot, dry weather, but at the same time, it may be impossible to keep the soil and plant roots sufficiently moist without constant watering.
More Rest For The Water Boy
Glazed pottery, plastic, and metal plant containers lose moisture only through the soil surface and the plant. Thus, they require less frequent watering.
When you use a wicker basket or any decorative container as a slipcover for a flowerpot, protect it by first inserting a saucer.
Or wrap the lower part of the pot with aluminum foil or polyethylene as a waterproofing measure.
The danger here is that no excess moisture can get out of the pot, and waterlogging may result.
After you’ve slipped a pot inside a jardiniere, you can conceal its edges by carpeting the surface with polished pebbles or white stones.
These are available at florists shops or where flower arranging and house plant supplies are sold.
Create A Verdant Setting
To have a grouping of house plants that is attractive at all times, depending on foliage plants as the mainstays, such as:
- Philodendron
- Dracaena
- Norfolk Island pine
- Aglaonema, aralia
- Neanthe bells (dwarf palm)
- English ivy
- Dieffenbachia
- Cissus
- Fatshedera
- Ferns
- Rubber plant (Ficus Elastica)
- Fiddle-leaf fig
- Pilea
- Peperomia
- Schefflera
- Tradescantia (wandering jew)
Set off this backdrop of greenery with only one, or a few, flowering and fruiting house plants.
You might arrange to throw a small spotlight on the plant of the moment.
Potted plants can do well in the average home. A temperature range of 62° to 80° degrees Fahrenheit satisfies almost everything.
The greatest problem is moisture in the air—expressed as a degree of relative humidity.
Strive to attain 50% percent—this amount is good for most plants and humans.
The old rule of safety in numbers applies when the atmosphere is too dry.
Group pot plants in a deep brass or wooden planter and stuff moist sphagnum moss around them.
Or, fill a plastic or metal tray with pebbles, and keep these moist. Set pots on their surface.
All plants need bright light, and most need a few hours of sun each day, particularly in the winter.
If your home doesn’t have a well-lighted situation for plants, consider growing them under fluorescent lights.
These casts very little to operate, yet many plants thrive under them, yielding rich-textured foliage and flowers.
44659 by Elvin Mcdonald