Our Garden Gate: Decorating with houseplants

Do you enjoy nature and working outdoors in the garden, taking a hike in forests or maybe tending to your summer vegetable plot?

If these activities help you to have a connected feeling to nature, why not have that same comfort zone with some interior plants inside your home?

It is a proven fact that house plants give people a sense of comfort, lessen stress, increase physiological ease and help reduce air pollutants. Plant explorers for centuries have scoured the earth to find plants of unique qualities and that they can adapt in their homes. These plant collectors have collected cuttings or seeds, brought them back to the nursery industry and cultivated them to be enjoyed.

The basics are relatively simple to implement by understanding ‘the right plant in the right place,” be it outside or inside.

In homes, there are varied light conditions from the north, west, east and south sides. It is critical to understand these light conditions. The north side of a home might have a condition of low light, and you would choose plants appropriate to fit those light conditions. Whereas, the south side windows might be bright and warm.

While light conditions can vary from room to room, humidity will vary from the bathroom to dining room, affecting one’s choice of indoor plants.

A tip that I learned from Armstrong Garden Center was to take a piece of paper, hold your hand about 8 inches above the paper. If you can clearly see a shadow with some definition, you have high light. If the shadow is blurry, you have medium light, and if you can’t see any shadow at all you have low light conditions.

Once you have determined the type of light, you can go plant shopping to match a room’s conditions.

As a plant decorator, I look to plants as a final touch to bring nature inside. I keep coming back to the “right plant in the right place,” for the plants can lend a complete new personality to a home.

Perhaps that corner in the living room needs some cheering up? Maybe the formal dining room, where family members don’t sit all the time, could use a centerpiece plant or a combination of plants in a hand-carved wooden bowl. The kitchen bay window could be enhanced with a collection of high-light plants like some succulents, pachypodium, echeveria or mini jade.

Big plants for a big area and proper scale include:

● Bamboo palm: Chamaedorea seifrizii: thin canes, graceful arching fronds, with medium light.

● Howea forsteriana: kentia palm: graceful arching feather-like fronds, it does well in medium light, with several palms planted in one growing container.

● Lady palm: Rhapis excelsa: one of my favorites for its elegant stature with fan type of leaves which can take lower light conditions.

● Fiddle Leaf Fig: Ficus pandurata: with broad leaves, you can make this plant a focal point for its bold, unique architecture and foliage.

● Schefflera actinophylla: Umbrella tree with tall exotic style, high light.

● Ficus benjamina: Weeping fig does best in bright light. Its pendulous branches are graceful and soothing to the eye.

● Dracaena warneckii: D. craigi, D. massangeana: All are striking plants with green to variegate striped leaves. Grown from cane cuttings, imported from Central America.

Medium size plants for that right place in your home include:

● Philodendrons of all types: some broad and bold to cascading and great for hanging pots. Low light requirement, likes water.

● Anthurium: There are many species from the tropical rainforests and many flowering hybrids. Their flowers can last for months in red, white, pink, purple and green.

● Dieffenbachia – Dumb cane, has large bold leaves with a wide selection of marbled foliage. Keep on the dry side.

● Spathiphyllum White flag: Glossy arrow-shaped leaves with erupting white spath like flowers in the middle of the foliage. Very unique, from giants 3 feet tall to dwarf types which are good for tabletop decor.

● Aglaonema: low light, with medium water and comes in a wide variety of mottled foliage from greens to pinks. It’s a real durable plant, and I use them a lot has hardy houseplants.

Small size flowering plants include:

● Flowering orchids: These have become the rage to decorate your home with, and the moth orchid is leading the charge to get plant lovers hooked. The strap-like foliage is small, but the tall flower spikes that jump out of the foliage are amazing. They come in white, purple, pink, yellow, maroon and speckled types. They last for months on end and add cheer as a gift or brighten up that table top.

● Flowering Bromeliads: When I find something new and exciting, I keep it in the house for months, and after flowering, I will plant it out into my garden. They come in small, medium and large types and make wonderful combinations when clustered with different types to create a mini-landscape garden in a striking container.

● Sansevieria sp: Mother-in-law-tongue is an old fashioned house plant known for its durability and used in low light area, from tall and upright with broad leaves, to petite rosettes and some with stripping on the leaves.

● Flowering seasonal plants: Depending on the season, some greenhouse growers specialize in unique flower potted plants for the season: hydrangea, chrysanthemums, crotons, poinsettia, gloxinia, African violets, streptocarpus, clivia and many more.

● The fern family: There is a large selection of ferns from Boston fern, rabbit’s foot ferns, staghorn ferns and many cultivars. Ferns enjoy good light and moisture. They are great in a hanging pot with macrame rope.

The latest wave in houseplants is a vertical wall garden, where whole walls are planted with small plants in specialized hanging pockets, and an irrigation system installed for watering. It’s like a living mural of plants where home gardeners can blend assorted colors and textures in a living plant wall.

When using house plants as an interior piece of decor, I believe that a good looking container is like yin and yang. It’s about color, harmony, balance, scale, structure and what looks good together.

Containers can vary from colorful stoneware pots from Thailand to hand-woven baskets from South America and loads of other choices in between.

If you are going to insert a houseplant into a container, you want to make sure you have a saucer under the pot. I like to set small pea-gravel in the saucer and the container on top of that to ensure drainage. You don’t want to have your plants sitting in stagnant water.

If the containers are to sit on carpet, place a cork mat below the container or use pot feet to elevate them off the carpet.

More interior plants die from overwatering than under watering. I use a tensiometer to measure moisture content before watering. The probe is inserted into the soil, and it gives you a reading of moist, dry or wet and takes the guessing out of watering.

If the plants are small enough, I’ll take them into the shower for a periodic cleansing to wash off any dust, pollutants, animal dander, mites or bugs if infected. I don’t believe in leaf polish for I feel it clogs the pores of the foliage and just use a clean wet rag when cleaning the leaves.

Since the plant will spend its life in that pot, you should consider a light feeding program to ensure a healthy specimen to adorn your home. I vary my feeding program and change it from time to time. There are both liquid and granular house plant fertilizers in nurseries.

If you have children in the household, allow them that special connection with plants by having them water, feed and dust the plants. They can also name each plant which will add another connection to becoming gardeners at home.

The new book “Vitamin N” by Richard Louv will give gardeners 500 ways to enrich the health and happiness of their children and family. It’s a good read and much needed in these nature deficit times for children.

Interior plants can bring another component of joy and happiness to someone’s home.

“A garden can become a true outdoor living room and a living room can become an interior garden.”

Roger Boddaert is a landscape consultant and horticulturist and can be reached at (760) 728-4297.