Lately, the question I hear most often is “What is a houseplant?” And that’s a good question when you come right down to it, but not an easy one to answer. Is a house plant grown for foliage?
Usually. For flowers? Quite often. Is it short, tall, medium, bulbous, tuberous, fibrous-rooted, shrub-like, or treelike? All of these characteristics may be found, plus many others.
We could be quite literal and state that no plant occurs naturally indoors and that, therefore, there is no such thing as a true house plant.
Or, equally literally, we might say that it is conceivable that any plant could be grown in a container in the house; therefore, all plants are house plants.
The truth lies somewhere between these two extremes, and in my opinion, depends on one thing: What plant are you talking about?
Indoor Flowering Annuals and Bulbs
Many plants can be eliminated easily from the list of plants to be considered for indoor growing.
Annuals and bulbs that can be flowered indoors only once (tulips and hyacinths, for example) we use in their season for quick, vivid color, but we consider them transients.
Grass and wheat, used for special effects, are even more fleeting in their stay indoors. Shrubs such as lilacs, hydrangeas, and forsythia may be flowered indoors but also need an outdoor life.
Giants of robust growth, like the Japanese timber bamboo that will shoot up to 50 feet despite most attempts to stop it, are scarcely practical in houses with eight-foot ceilings!
However, small-fruited tomatoes, grown as annuals in most parts of our country, are perennials and will flower and fruit indoors season after season.
Bulbs that require dormant storage but will occasionally flower, like gloxinias, amaryllis, callas, and caladiums, are excellent houseplants. Shrubs such as gardenias, azaleas, flowering maples, and hibiscus are as happy indoors as out.
Dwarf bamboo, averaging a foot in height, and the taller-growing golden bamboo are eminently satisfactory indoors. So, we find that each plant must be judged on its qualifications before we can state definitively that it is a houseplant.
Characteristics of a Good Houseplant
We usually look for a few general characteristics to determine if a plant will be a good house plant.
First, it should be evergreen, or if it is deciduous, it should require only simple storage under the kitchen sink. Second, it should be a convenient size.
For you, this might be a plant that will not outgrow a four-inch pot; for someone else, a plant in a 20-inch tub is not too large to handle. Third, it should have appeal either in foliage or flower, or both, or in a manner of growth or fragrance.
In addition, it should be amenable to the conditions normally found in the average home.
These do not vary as much as you might suppose; most people enjoy the same general temperature range, and thanks to central heating and air conditioning, this can be maintained throughout the year.
No one enjoys the glaring sun indoors or wants to turn on electric lights to see in the daytime.
Through large windows, plus curtains or shades, light is increased or diminished as necessary for the enjoyment of the people in the house, and plants find the light intensity that suits us best.
(Soil and watering and feeding, important as they are to the well-being of almost any plant, need not concern us here.
They are under the direct control of the indoor gardener and can be adjusted to suit the plants’ needs and preferences; thus, they do not affect our choice of house plants.)
We have discussed what plants should be or have to be good houseplants. Let’s say a few words about what they should NOT be or have.
They should not be temperamental, prone to shed leaves or drop buds at the slightest provocation, nor should they require undue care to grow satisfactorily.
Oh, I know that many people find great joy in rigging up complicated heating cables and humidifiers and fluorescent fixtures to humor their plants; on occasion, I will pamper a “shy bloomer” until it flowers or slips a pliofilm cover over a difficult-to-root cutting, but I have no desire (and scant time!) to have every plant I grow challenge me constantly. So, I believe a good house plant should not act like a prima donna.
Significance of Odor in Indoor Plants
Whereas appearance is important because houseplants are so close to us, the odor can be equally important for the same reason.
Man learned to deodorize skunks before he welcomed them around his premises; Women should learn to de-scent the giant aroids before growing them indoors!
If a plant lacks any perceptible odor, we think nothing of it; if it has a pleasing fragrance, we are charmed by it. But a plant that comes into bloom with an odor that sends everyone who doesn’t know better in search of the dead rat, then I say it doesn’t belong in the house!
Yet thousands and thousands of indoor gardeners are devoted to their “voodoo lilies,” as they are now being called.
When the fetid stench overwhelms them, they open the windows regardless of the outdoor weather. (To minimize the smell, use a sharp knife to remove the spadix as soon as it can be seen, or remove the entire blossom.)
Now, you have a checklist to help you determine whether or not any given plant will be a good house plant.
Will it remain a convenient size? Is it, and will it continue to be, attractive (or store easily)? Does it need extremes of light or temperature that are not normal in my home? How does the foliage or flower smell?
In Florida, the nurserymen considered me an idiot Yankee because I grew hibiscus and oleander in the house. I was considered very odd in Michigan because I grew small coniferous evergreens indoors.
Here in Arizona, my nurseryman-neighbor is sure I have flipped because I have bougainvillea rosemary and fragrant olive in my office and the garden!
It proves only what I’ve always contended . . . one man’s garden standby can often be another man’s house plant.
Over the years, I have “introduced” many plants to indoor gardeners after I had found them good.
Don’t be afraid to take cuttings, get juvenile plants, or anything that appeals to you; you just might discover a good house plant no one else has ever tried.
Begin Indoor Gardening
If you are just beginning your indoor gardening, you have probably picked up a few plants from displays at nearby supermarkets or variety stores.
Most of these are what are called proven house plants, practically foolproof for the beginner, and a large portion of them are members of the aroid family.
Included in this family are such well-known plants as the:
- Philodendrons
- Aglaonemas (Chinese-evergreen)
- Anthuriums
- Dieffenbachias
- Pothos
- Monsteras
- Spathiphyllum
- Syngoniums (‘Trileaf Wonder,’ ‘Green Gold’ and ‘White Imperial’)
- Scindapsus (‘Marble Queen,’ or devil’s-ivy)
- Which are evergreen, plus caladiums, zantedeschias (callas)
- Amorphophallus
- Hydrosme
Except for the last two, all meet the requirements on our checklist. In addition to the aroids, small ferns and ivies, succulents, and African violets are usually displayed; these, too, pass the test for good house plants.
Try Out New and Unusual Plants For Indoor Gardening
As you progress with indoor gardening, you won’t be satisfied with the variety of plants you can find locally. You will turn to catalogs from house plant specialists and probably spend hours poring over them.
Purple velvet (gynura), freckleface (hypoestes), and angel-wing begonias may interest you because of their foliage; wax begonias and patient lucy (impatiens) may delight you with their multitudes of flowers; amaryllis and gloxinias may tempt you into trying your hand with bulbs and tubers.
Don’t be afraid to order by mail from a reputable dealer; properly packaged plants can travel across the country by parcel post and arrive as fresh as the proverbial daisies.
But when scanning the catalogs, keep in mind our checklist for house plants; occasionally, plants are offered that are extremely difficult to grow or that soon outgrow any indoor location.
On the other hand, you may discover “new” ones (if not new, at least they are unusual), especially in the seed catalogs, such as wood roses, which make a lovely vine, or thunbergia, also a vine but free-flowering.
Progress As An Indoor Gardener
The final step in your progress as an indoor gardener, short of becoming involved in one of the special arts such as hybridizing or grafting, will be to “discover” your plants, not only by searching them out in catalogs but by finding out what outdoor material will adapt to the indoor culture.
For this, catalogs from southern growers are an excellent hunting ground, for these nurseries are well stocked with all sorts of plants that might like your home’s climate.
Perhaps I should note here the difference between a greenhouse and a nursery; the former handles tender plants and outdoor material.
In the South, the plants generally grown by nurserymen are frequently the same ones that northern greenhouses offer. Still, they have a much larger variety, and some of these are excellent houseplants.
Years ago, I liked Ervatamia coronaria var. flore pleno so much that I got a plant from Florida and found it did beautifully indoors in the North. This was way back before any house plant catalog thought of listing it.
The same was true with a certain variety of polyscias, only in that case, the only specimens I could find at the nurseries were far too large, so I had to root my cuttings.
Incidentally, when trying out new material, it is usually wise to start with juvenile plants; they become acclimated to indoor conditions much more readily than mature specimens.
Now, both the ervatamia and the polyscias are listed in house plant catalogs. So, dare to try something different!
You might have spectacular success, and if a visitor to your indoor garden says, “THAT isn’t a house plant,” just show him our checklist and prove that it is!
44659 by Katherine B. Walker