Indoor Plants: Decorative Assets

Indoor plants have become increasingly popular as decorative assets, particularly in city homes where even outside greenery is scarce. Am amazing variety of foliage now blooms in homes...flowering plants, evergreens, shrubs, small trees, even palms and rare species from the Orient and deserts. Almost all of them flourish the year round, so that a feeling of spring persists even when snow is falling outside.

The decorating possibilities are enormous. A single house plant will highlight a coffee table, a fireplace mantel or a piano, and a large collection of foliage and flowering plants will bring a bay window into dramatic focus.

You can spark up your kitchen with a an indoor herb garden, or bring early spring to your entrance foyer with a fragrance of flowering bulbs. A teacart provides an unusual as well as practical place for a collection of potted plants. There a literally hundreds of places in your home where plants will serve not only a decorative function but a useful one as well.

Create an Indoor Garden

Creating your own indoor garden is easy, and a fun hobby, particularly as you can start or add to your collection of living potted plants any time, and in any season you choose. Of course selecting living plants and using them effectively to enhance indoor beauty is important. But it need not be complicated. You don't need "green thumb" talents. You merely have to use exercise the same basic good judgment you would in planning and using any of the materials, furnishings or accessories that add to the beauty of your home.

Two basic types of pot plants

First...flowering plants that may either flower all at one time or keep flowering over various periods of time. Some of the favorites are geraniums, azaleas, begonias, hydrangeas, lilies, roses, gardenias, chrysanthemums, African violets, tulips, poinsettias, daffodils and hyacinths.

Second... foliage or green plants, mostly tropical verities professionally conditioned to grow in almost any climate. Some of the more popular are philodendrons, ferns, jade plants, Chinese evergreens, dracaena, caladiums, coleus, bromeliads and cacti and other succulent plants.

The clay pot is preferred by professional growers and florist, because it is the only container that truly provides plants with the growing conditions of the earth itself. Plants in thin-walled plastic containers do not have this essential advantage. You will find the majority of the finest, healthiest looking plants of each variety in red clay pots, which make them easier to care for and easier to repot into larger-sized clay containers as they grow. Note: the clay potted plant can be stood in a decorative tub, basket or planter for special effect.

Plant Selection and Watering

Select foliage plants that have dark green, glossy leaves; flowering plants that have firm healthy stems and well-developed but not yet fully opened buds. Avoid: Yellowed, browned, curled or falling blossoms or leaves and drooping stems, all tell-tale signs that a plant's root structure is not healthy. Ask your florist or garden store to give you watering instructions for each plant and follow them carefully.

Plants require different quantities of water. Some like it dry. Some like it moist. But few can stand over watering. Hence the porous clay pot, which leaches out excess water on all sides, is your best insurance against "drowning" and killing your plants. Generally, if top soil in the clay pot feels dry to the thumb, your plants needs water. Use lukewarm water. Do not allow plants to stand in water. It's best to water all your plants at once, pouring gently until water runs out of the bottom drainage hole of the clay pot.

Plant Temperatures..Light..Fertilizer

Do not expose plants to temperatures that are too warm or too cold. Most plants are best kept at temperatures between 60 and 70 degrees. Ask your florist about each variety. Keep plants away from drafts, heating or cooling units. Be sure to ask your florist what amount of light is best for each plant in your collection. Flowering plants generally like more light, but in varying degrees. Foliage plants usually do better with less. Group sun-loving and shade-loving plants together, when possible.

Apply a fertilizer that can be dissolved in water about once a month. Don't over-fertilize. Finally, turn a spotlight on your indoor plants for a dramatic effect. This is a good supplement if plants do not get much light, as long as it is not too close to the plants.