JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: When Debs shared the pictures of her
indoor jungle, created when she had to bring outdoor plants inside to avoid the
ice, it reminded me how much I value the sight of greenery and flowers
indoors this time of year.
My mother was gifted at both gardens and houseplants; during the long, snowy upstate NY winters our house was full of blooming geraniums, lush begonias, and tropical spills of philodendrons. I did not inherit this gift. My husband had the green thumb in our family, and he mostly directed his efforts outdoors, where, let’s face it, they were needed. (This Old House is surrounded by almost three acres!)
But when Ross passed away, it was up to me to keep things alive. Surprisingly, I did so. Once I realized it wasn’t necessarily rocket science,as long as I picked the right plants (ie, very hard to kill) I began to expand my collection. I love succulents and stocked them all across my kitchen windowsill. Emulating my mom, I picked up geraniums at the end-of-the-season sales and was pleased to find they did well in my chilly house.
I’m quite happy to cheat. Over the years, I’ve invested in good fakes for sites with bad lighting or too much pet activity to risk something living. And I’m not claiming to be any sort of expert - I’ve never managed to keep a gifted orchid alive, and my succulents tend to bolt and get straggly (my poor donkey tail looks like it has mange.) But overall, I’m pleased with the sight of green - faux and real - that greets me in every room.
How about you, Reds? Are you a houseplant Houdini? Or making do with a vase of grocery store flowers?
LUCY BURDETTE: We don’t have houseplants in Key West, though John is growing some amazing tomatoes on the deck. The problem is we have to get rid of everything when we leave for CT and killing the plants is too heartbreaking.
At home in CT, we do have plants. We have a lime tree that must be 20 years old that produces actual fruit, and many wonderful geraniums, and an aloe that produces too much. They are confined to the kitchen and living room because otherwise we’d forget to water. I love them all and if I stop enjoying one, it goes in the compost. Which reminds me, I had lots of potted violets as a single person. I wonder what happened to them?
RHYS BOWEN: Like Lucy we live in two places which makes
houseplants almost impossible. I have a couple of little succulents that travel
with me. Otherwise I’m afraid it’s very realistic looking fakes in Arizona. An
enormous bamboo and a lovely orchid. (Since I also can’t keep orchids alive
this is the answer for me).
Our gardens in both places are on irrigation systems and a gardener comes in once a month to trim back. But that’s the extent of my gardening. Sad because I love plants and would like a garden to potter in. But we live on a steep hillside with a hungry herd of deer who eat everything.
DEBORAH CROMBIE: For years we had a voraciously plant-eating cat, so the only plants I could have in the house were hanging Boston ferns (although he would occasionally manage to nibble a hanging frond) and orchids, which were not to his taste. These are still the things I love most, although the cat has gone to kitty heaven. I’ve added a bromeliad and two tiny Christmas cactuses in the sunporch. We’ll see how they do.
Last winter we brought in so many plants, huge Boston ferns and geraniums and begonias. We put them in a corner of our dining room, where they looked beautiful at first. But they made a horrible mess, and by spring they looked awful and ended up consigned to the compost heap. I swore I wouldn’t do that again, but here I am, with a porch full of rescues…
HALLIE EPHRON: My house is full of plants. Most of them have never been outside.
I always thought I couldn’t do orchids but then I discovered that getting them to bloom is all about benign neglect and patience. I bought one orchid plant at a yard sale – it wasn’t blooming and it took 4 years of doing absolutely nothing until it finally bloomed. Spectacularly hot pink orchids.
My Norfolk pine is my pride and joy. I’ve had it for about 20 years. One day it’ll hit the ceiling and then I’ll have to figure out how to prune it down or put it to pasture.
The challenge is when my daughter visits and brings her cats that treat leaves and branches like cat toys and think the soil is another more conveniently placed litter box. Plus a lot of the plants are poisonous for cats, and they do munch on them. So while the cats visit, the plants live in my office with the door barricaded.
JENN McKINLAY: I love my houseplants (all 20) and my
outside plants (too many to count). I am definitely a plant mama. My
orchid had babies, two of which I still have, are thriving with new leaves but
no stem or blossoms yet. I have three Christmas cactus cactuses all of which
bloomed this year. My dracaenas have grown so tall - one is almost to the
ceiling. A scat mat around the base of the plants keeps the cats from
digging.
Outside, I have my garden (just planted the spinach and more tomatoes) and my trees - lemon, fig, pomegranate, peach, pecan, and I added a Thompson grape vine last year, which appears to be thriving. I could go on and on about the joy of plants but I’ll end with a Martha Stewart quote (paraphrasing): If you want to be happy for a year, get married. If you want to be happy for ten years, buy a dog. If you want to be happy for life, grow a garden.”
HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Oh, I always have fresh flowers on our breakfast table. From the garden when they’re in season–and I am always happy to make bouquets out of whatever there is even if there are not flowers.
Grocery store flowers, too, can be absolutely gorgeous–you just cannot use them as is. That’s the fun part-–trimming and rearranging and finding the right container. It’s such fun to do!
And I am so happy in our gardens, so lucky to have a
good climate. Hundreds of tulips, when the time comes. If the squirrels will
just leave the bulbs alone.
But I’ve tried to bring plants in, too, geraniums and begonias. They just are never happy. Never. It’s so sad. (I DID bring in a big pot of parsley, and crossing fingers, so far so good.)
As for house plants–not a chance. I get a green plant, it dies. I mean–tragically and instantly. I have totally given up on those. I am so impressed when I see them happily in other houses. But I know when I am defeated.
EXCEPT–about 10 years ago, a pal gave me an African Violet in a gorgeous vintage fishbowl-type container. It is apparently SO happy, and blooms fabulously several times a year. I love it ridiculously much.
How about you, Dear Readers? Do you haunt the plant nursery, or the faux flowers section of Michaels?
We have a few houseplants that I've managed to keep happy, most notably a huge Crown of Thorns that occasionally decides to blossom . . .
ReplyDeleteI've been a houseplant person since college, when I learned all about them from my roommate, Peggy. I'm a firm believer in at least one plant per room. Pothos are so easy to grow and propagate. I also have a big philodendron that I've had for fifty years, a Christmas cactus and two Mother's Day cactuses, a big aloe, my beloved clivea, a gift from a friend now passed away, and one little plant (maybe a cyclamen?) that has never been potted up and blooms several times a year.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I've never had an orchid, I used to have African violets - I want to get another.
I do have outdoor gardens, but I am less and less motivated every year. I don't know where Karen finds the energy! I envy Jenn's warm weather fruit trees.
I posted a picture of my little flowering sweetheart on FB, and it's been confirmed to be a cyclamen. Also, it's apparently hard to keep alive and blooming! I had no idea. In the spring, I feed all the houseplants fish emulsion weekly, and otherwise water weekly. That's it.
DeleteEdith, I was surprised to visit London this time of year and seeing cyclamens blooming in gardens all over the city. They don't do well in heat, so you must keep your house cool enough for them. I've read that they do best in 55-65 degrees.
DeleteEdith, cyclamens like acid soil and to dry out between waterings, and an east window. Water your plant with the left-over tea from the pot. As for the clivea - I had never heard of it before, but it is beautiful!
DeleteYep to a cool room and an east window! I don't really drink tea (I know, don't tell anyone), though.
DeleteCyclamens take one look at me and die. Truly. Kudos.
DeleteI do love your gardening stories, inside and out. Pets and wild life are an issue outside and pets must be considered when choosing inside plants. Since we only had dogs, only German Shepherds, our inside plants never posed a problem. The dogs were not allowed to walk on the big rug in the living room, and most of my houseplants are on the other side of that rug.
ReplyDeleteI still have philodendrums that were from my mother's plants dating back to the early '60's. I have a palm tree from a cutting my father and step mother brought back from Hawaii in the 1980's which has spread in the pot. And I have a half dozen African Violets that bloom on and off all year long. I have one struggling aloe that goes from happy to sad constantly and a few others including some kind of lily. There is that perfect window in my living room and a couple other plants survive nicely on a built-in brick planter where the light has always been just enough but is much improved now with our new glass door.
ReplyDeleteI bring in the huge pots of perennial herbs (bay laurel, rosemary, oregano), scallions & parsley from my balcony garden to overwinter until the spring. They are over 10 years old & taller than me so I don't want to lose them. As for houseplants, I don't get any direct sunlight since my apartment faces north so I just have a spider plant.
When I lived in Toronto, I had dozens of houseplants including pothos, spider plants & a giant Christmas cactus that became gnarly & woody with age but still produced hundreds of pink blooms.
I used to attempt to keep an outdoor flower garden and indoor plants. I come from a long line of farmers, after all. But I tend to get distracted and let the weeds overtake the outdoor stuff. And when Kensi came along, I gave up on the indoor plants. She loves to eat flowers and leaves and so many are toxic (which I found out the hard way a few years back), it's just easier to avoid them all, except cat grass. I always keep a pot of cat grass growing to satisfy her weird vegetarian cravings.
ReplyDeleteI love house plants, too, but even though we get light from our glassed in balcony they don't do too well. Not sure why. I have had luck with lemon seed! Have two mini "trees" in pots. And also a miniature rose bush I bought last spring that so far is surviving. That's about it. I do want to get some succulents because they do very well in this space. We had some but gave them away when it looked at one point like we were moving back to the states. (We did move, temporarily, but found we were homesick for Portugal! So now we content ourselves with Skype and WhatsApp visits with friends and family there, and some visitors are coming this spring and summer.) We had an orchid for awhile, but gave that away, too. The blossoms had died and nothing came back for the longest time, so I gave it to a friend here who has a green thumb. True to what Hallie said, orchids do take time to blossom, and now it is doing just great under my friend's care.)
ReplyDeleteWhile my mother had plants in the house for the longest time, I think it will come as no surprise that I don't have any desire to follow in those particular footsteps. There are some fake vegetation things in a couple of spots in the house that she decorated with but the only reason I haven't taken them down is a complete lack of ambition to do so.
ReplyDeleteAbout the only time I would even consider buying flowers is if I was visiting my mother's grave or if by some act of some fictional deity, I actually went out on a first date. The former doesn't happen as often as maybe it should and the latter never happens anymore.
Jay, you are a hidden gem. Hardly anyone gives flowers any more.
DeleteIn her 20’s my daughter had a first date show up with a dozen red roses. She thought it was creepy, but then that wasn’t the only reason .
DeleteLove it when someone gives me flowers. One year we received flowers from our neighbors and it lasted longer than expected! That was quite unusual. Jay, you are an unicorn because it is rare these days for a young man to give flowers on a date. Your date will be very happy!
DeleteBecause of cats I only have my citrus plants inside and a 10 year old little cactus on my windowsill. In years past I also had large trees inside, that became so tall and then I had to find new homes for them. When I lived in a house with a cathedral ceiling, the height of the trees was never a problem.
ReplyDeleteOutside in my garden the only thing that does well is parsley. My blueberries did well too until the birds discovered them. I had thought we could all share, but apparently they had other ideas.
I wouldn’t have thought of myself as a houseplant person-however… I have a planted pathos over the CD shelves in the living room, 2 Christmas Cacti on a table in the dining room. 2 bases of potshots cuttings in the kitchen, a planted pathos hanging in a copper pot in lien bedroom, and in the den, which gets the most sun in the winter, a large jade plant, another Christmas cactus, an African violet given me over 19 years ago by a friend, and 2 little cacti that are pandemic lockdown gifts. Also a pot of blue autumn pansies I brought indoors in December that now seem to have white blooms. Yikes! I also have an herb and flower beds outdoors. Inside -benign neglect and luck .
ReplyDeleteYup. Lots to be said for benign neglect! :-) And definitely luck!
DeleteI have four large houseplants, all in one sunny room, and five orchids on a windowsill that get the Hallie treatment--benign neglect and patience--and periodically bloom, grow new leaves, or both. I also have a balcony with nine window boxes fastened to its rails. In the winter, the boxes are full of ivy, miniature evergreens, hellebores, and skimmias; in the spring, daffodils, tulips, and hyacinths; and in the summer, geraniums, sweet alyssum, and blue salvia. It is a tiny outdoor garden, but it makes me very happy when I look up at my flowers from the street or sit among them under the balcony awning reading.
ReplyDeleteI have too much to deal with in my yard to worry about houseplants. However, I do have several plants left over from the pandemic: an orchid that blooms every year to eighteen months, an African violet that blooms if I remember to fertilize it, and an aloe plant outgrowing its space on the rim of the bathtub. Plus three batches of paperwhite narcissus bulbs to liven up the kitchen. After our May frost date, I plant deck railing boxes and pots with annuals and herbs and hang a bushy Boston fern on the screened porch.
ReplyDeleteI have a brown thumb, and have killed many house plants in my younger days. I don't enjoy gardening much either, but every year I buy some flowering plants and try to plant them before they wither. I enjoy them, along with my mongo honeysuckle, peonies and at least one dahlia that comes back on its own volition. A couple of months ago, a good friend gave me two house plants, an African violet and a Christmas cactus, both in lovely pots, with saucers that her husband, a potter, had made. Not to to brag, but they are both still alive after more than 2 months and the cactus has a new blossom on it. Maybe this time I will succeed!
ReplyDeleteI've never been really good with houseplants. We did inherit a huge aloe plant with the Cottage; the Hubby overwatered it and I was able to bring it back (thank you, Google and YouTube). I have a smaller star aloe and a succulent that is so tall it flopped over and is now growing along the windowsill. But it's growing.
ReplyDeleteOutside, it's all petunias all the time. Easy to care for, hardy, and not attractive to deer. I did get The Hubby to agree to put in some sunflowers when we clean out the garden this spring. We'll see how that goes.
Oh I love this post so much! I love hearing what others have for houseplants (I love mine so much!) and the funny stories of why others don’t. My mother had a very green thumb and the house was full of beautiful plants. I am certain that had an influence on me. I live in Maine where the winters and long and dark so having lots of indoor plants gets me through until spring where I spend the next 3 seasons working in the gardens and yard. I agree with Martha Stewart on lifelong happiness being found in gardening (and reading of course!). I wish I felt the same about cooking.
ReplyDeleteHA HA HA! Yup.
DeleteMy gardening aspirations have shrunk over the years to one large bed and a few hardy roses near the patio. And the hostas out front--oddly enough, our resident deer population never bothers them. Inside, older nephew begged for a houseplant, so we have Veronica--a spider plant hanging in the window in front of the kitchen window. I've almost killed her twice--sorry, Veronica!! I loved this property because of the trees and the windows--lots of light inside! But, no good places to put plants (no windowsills). Then came the cats--now five of them. When I lived in my previous home, I had tons of plants inside and do love the greenery and blossoms. Maybe someday.
ReplyDeleteWhat a nice post this time of year when everything is so gray where I live! All the women in my family are talented gardeners except for me, but I've managed to keep some death-proof philodendrons, aloes, succulents, and spider plants alive for years. My kitty is a plant killer too, so the plants have to be high enough that she can't get to them. Somehow she still manages to get to the spider plant, which is her absolute favorite toy. I find little pieces of it scattered throughout the house occasionally, and I have no idea how she does it since it hangs on a hook from the ceiling! I may have to put a camera on the plant and report back.
ReplyDeleteI would LOVE to see that video!
DeleteYes, I have plants! Christmas cactus -15 – white, pink, hot pink, red, singles and doubles – which if you ever see one and stupendous. All bloom gloriously 2-3 times a year. Secret – neglect (let go dry), and they all go outside in May until Oct, and live in the dappled shade under the deck roof. Geraniums – about 300. All colours, they live on the rolly-racks in the sunroom in the winter, and are planted along the rock face in the summer. Orchids – 4 – they are nice in the cold of winter. In season, poinsettias, easter lilies (I love the scent), mini roses – they usually get bugs!, and occasionally a bought bunch of cut flowers. Unfortunately, we don’t get to town much, and they tend to be poorly before they even come home, but a big secret is that you will win my heart with flowers! There are a few trees, but you can always squeeze in more. I keep wanting to go to town, as January is when Home Depot usually brings in the little citrus trees and I would like to try a lemon. A few years ago, I bought a fig tree, which I dutifully put outside every summer, and had a few figs, but unfortunately, it succumbed to bugs – whitefly is horrible! I am on the hunt for another. The ‘something-de-jour’ this summer was an olive tree, but so far, I am not impressed. All plants go outside in the summer, and surprisingly I don’t often pick house bouquets – maybe because we are rarely in the house.
ReplyDeleteThere has been lots of greenery in lots of houses, and it is interesting to see what does well in one place, and what does not. I have never been able to keep a Boston fern, and in Ontario we had a perfect window for African violets and cyclamen, but they just either dry up or rot here. I think it is the light.
As for the cats – we have always been lucky and they were not plant eaters, except for spider plants. I now put a top dressing of small pebbles on the top of the soil, which prevents digging, but last night Prue who likes to carrying things, around decided to remove the rocks from the amaryllis one by one – little pest!
Margo you are amazing!! And spider plants ARE cat toys...
DeleteI've been looking for yellow Christmas cactus ever since someone told me they exist.
Yellow Christmas cactus?? Ooohhh, wouldn't that be lovely!
DeleteBrava, Julia! Love that you took over Ross's houseplant care. And Jenn, the quote about gardens spoke to me. It's so nice to have greenery sharing our space in the winter, especially.
ReplyDeleteNo one will be surprised to know we have houseplants. About two dozen, I'd guess. I'm partial to crotons, and have three, all different. The biggest plant I have is a dracaena that I put outside in the summer, along with the crotons.
My fairly dark living room is a good spot for peace lily, parlor palm, and the massive dieffenbachia given to me this fall, which has already grown a foot. If I'd known they grew this fast I wouldn't have taken it. Snake plants, aka sansevieria, also thrive in low light. I'm growing a bunch in a north-facing window downstairs. My Meyer lemon has blossoms again, and maybe with Judi's advice on pollinating them I'll actually get fruit this time. My big success is with prayer plant, or maranta. It's so happy where it lives that it blossoms profusely, something I didn't know they did. Tiny, lavender orchid-like blooms, so pretty with the variegated foliage. I keep dividing them and making new pots, the same as with the aloe a friend gave me, and the peace lily is ready to get divided again.
I have had many failures, too. I can't keep jade trees alive, and African violets never rebloom for me any more. I had two big pots of ginger (did you know the leaves are also edible?), but now I just have two big pots of...dirt. I'm trying to grow a fig in a pot, like my friend who has several, but if this third attempt doesn't work I'm throwing in the towel. Spider plants, too. Flora, I envy your Veronica! I have one anemic one that just does not grow.
Karen, poor Veronica is determined to survive in spite of me! If I could remember to water her regularly, she might produce babies again.
DeleteThis is like true confessions, Flora! LOL
DeleteJenn I had to look up a Scat Mat and that is brilliant.
ReplyDeleteI had a ficus in a large container for many years and over time all the leaves fell off and it was just branches so I planted it outdoors right next to the back door & those who are familiar with these plants know what happened next. It took off like crazy & became a 40 foot high and 20 foot wide tree with roots that uprooted the patio bricks and part of the yard! It was beautiful though. We had to take it out when we demolished our old house to build a new one.
I'm currently without plants. I had some plants for years but sadly neglected them so all I have are some gorgeous large pots on my patio housing some spiders webs. My plant need has been so low that I didn't even think about purchasing a poinsettia this past Christmas. Maybe I'll find some bulging tulips in the spring.
ReplyDeleteBulging? What the heck? Geez... That should be - Blooming tulips in a pot.
DeleteNo houseplants for the time being. When I was a young child, my family lived in a two story house with a gorgeous garden that looked like it was straight out of the pages of Secret Garden novel.
ReplyDeleteI’m happy to report that most of the plants I moved from Minnesota to Florida in our packed-to- the-gills Toyota Corolla survived. 3 large Scheffleras (2 of which are 20 years old), medium Christmas cactus which I combined two plants into one pot, medium mixed planter, small jade and small bamboo.
ReplyDeleteWhat I didn’t bring: an orchid that fell out of its pot when I picked it up to pack, and the one year old lemon tree that had only green lemons. I picked the two largest fruits but we didn’t end up using them for anything. What didn’t survive: the ferns that I dug up out of the yard that originated in my grandmother’s yard and that I had successfully transplanted from my mother’s yard 6 years ago. I’m sad about that.
And the jury is out on the pineapple plants. We successfully grew a pineapple by rooting the top of the one our kids brought us from Maui in 2022. It was delicious! We ate it just before we moved and had begun rooting its top plus 3 more pups from the plant. We just now got them planted in pots so we’ll see what happens from here.
Outdoors: Our landscaping needs some colorful plants that will attract hummingbirds and the type of grass they have here is going to take getting used to.
Caring for my plants makes me feel connected to my mom who died in 2018.
Neither faux nor indoor nor outdoor flora here. The only plant that lived long, but certainly did not prosper, was a philodendron that I received in 1968 as a love token. The card read, “I am Alfred. R… loves you very much. Potted plants don’t lie.” It survived, just barely, about as long as the love… just over 2 years. Congratulations to all of you who have long lived and prospering plants. Elisabeth
ReplyDeleteOhh that's a good premise for a scary fantasy story...the relationship only lasts as long as you can keep the plant alive. oooh.
DeleteIt is a great idea Hank! We can blame it on the plant (they don't lie).
Delete