Whether your house or apartment is
large or small, traditional or modem, you can make it more pleasant and
attractive with houseplants. Notice how magazines always picture rooms with
more plants than most of us think to use. Where winter rages, growing plants
give a sense of summer and continuity, an escape from cabin fever. Where
winters are warm, people want the indoors as well as outside to be lush, green,
and living rather than sterile, bare, and artificial.
Caring for indoor plants is a calming,
soothing therapy that eases other problems. But all plants will not grow in all
places. Finding the ones that will adapt to your lifestyle and your cycle of
care as well as to your home's temperature, light conditions, and humidity is
the secret of success.
Most of us find some plants
short-lived; enjoy these while you can and don't expect more than they can
give. There are plants for every place. Try new ones until you find the ones
that thrive for you. Here are a few suggestions you may find useful, whether
you consider yourself a casual plant fancier or a green-thumb gardener.
Selecting Your Plants
You'll want to consider available space, your purpose in adding plants, and the
climate of your plant setting: light, humidity, and the degree of care you wish
to provide. One rule that always follows is to buy strong, healthy plants;
never bargains that may be difficult to maintain. Plants need wrapping in
transit only if the temperature is below freezing. Be sure to take your plants
directly home, no matter what season it is. Don't let them sit in a hot or cold
car while you shop or visit. Sometimes there is a period of adjustment: slow
growth, sometimes even a few dropped leaves or buds, while they adapt to their
new conditions.
Light
Cacti are some of the few plants that take direct sunlight well. If a plant
receives too much light, the leaves may bleach out to shades of yellow. Too
little light is a common reason for spindly stems, or for small leaves that are
widely separated on the stem. While plant tags usually carry specific
information about the light requirements of each plant, the plants themselves
also give clues. Deep green foliage is rich in chlorophyll, enabling the plant
to survive on relatively little light. Plants with dappled leaves also do well
with broken light, as these varieties often trace their origin to the forest
floor. African violets and many other plants do well under fluorescent lights
for 12 to 16 hours a day.
As a rule, south windows give brightest
light, east next, then west. North windows offer only low light. Blooming
plants need more light than foliage plants. Move new plants until you find the
spot that suits them best.
Temperature Avoid drafts of both warm and cool air. Most plants benefit from night
temperatures 10 degrees or more cooler than day temperatures. Some plants, like
cyclamen, prefer only 60 degrees in the daytime. The ones that can will adapt
and live like you do. Enjoy the others briefly and understand why they can't
stay longer.
Watering While soaking plants from below every few days is usually preferred, you may
avoid lime buildup on the soil surface by letting water run through the pot
from the top. You will have to water less frequently if containers are larger.
You will keep moisture conditions more constant if you can group plants in
larger waterproof containers within beds of peat moss.
Plants need much less water during
short days of winter than during spring and summer. Flowering plants need more
water during budset and bloom, less otherwise. Most plants prefer to be kept
evenly moist, but some do best if allowed to go long enough between each
watering for the top surface of the soil to feel dry to the touch.
Grouping for Appearance and Environment For displaying plants, you may not want to rely on your coffee table, end
tables or windowsills exclusively. Ready-made or specially- built plant stands
give you much more freedom of design, and tightly grouped, the plants will tend
to create their own beneficial microclimate of better humidity that they can
share. Humidity between 60-70% is usually best. A bay window is ideal for your
plant family, as they can enjoy the abundant natural light plus a cooler
environment in winter months, when rooms are heated.
Humidity
The low humidity in a heated house is one of the biggest problems for plants.
Besides grouping, you can raise humidity by setting pots on trays of damp
pebbles, misting the foliage (of all but fuzzy-leaved plants) with a fine spray
of water often or daily, or using a humidifier. The longer and colder the
winter, the more stress on plants. In warm climates, on the other hand, misting
is not necessary and could lead to fungus.
Plants for Special Places Plants that are pampered indoors in most of the country can grow outside in
places like Florida and California. But you'll still want some
inside. Keep some of your favorites in containers. Enjoy the luxury of rotating
plants from a Rest and Restoration area outside to the spotlight inside when
they are blooming, loaded with fruit or berries, or otherwise in prime
condition. Adjust watering as needed to avoid rot.
Pots and Containers Always
use clean pots of the right size. If you reuse a pot, be sure to thoroughly
clean it, especially on the inside. Plants do best in pots where roots fit
snugly. As the plant grows, repot to progressively larger containers. Foliage
mass is a fair indication of the mass of root growth. Containers should be big
enough so that there is room for watering every three days or so. Pierced pots
enable you to water plants from the bottom by soaking. Good drainage is also
provided by these bottom holes, which will require use of an outer bowl or
saucer. With closed pots, a layer of broken pot fragments or coarse gravel at
the bottom should keep roots from standing in water.
Soils and Fertilizers Soils become compacted with normal watering. Any white mineral crust that forms
should be removed, and the soil should be carefully loosened with a kitchen
fork or ice pick. Then it's important to add humus in the form of peat moss,
sphagnum or leaf mold to keep soil moist and aerated. Sterile vermiculite or volcanic perlite will
serve well to improve the root environment. These should also be added to most
commercial potting soils for better plant growth. If sand is used in your
mixture, it should be coarse, not the fine grade that will pass through a
screen sieve.
Fertilizing is most important when
plants are actively growing, as in spring and summer. Liquid fertilizers are
easy to handle as most may be simply added to water.
Always feed according to label
directions or less, never more.
Grooming Be sure to remove dead leaves and twigs from your plants and from the surface
of the potting soil. This waste can be a breeding site for pests or infections.
Keep leaf surfaces free from dust, and don't forget that most plants benefit
from a shower once in a while at your kitchen sink, laundry or bathtub.
For more tips please contact us today.
B.A. Florist & Nursery Co. Call Us Today At (312) 421-6326 or Fax (312) 421-6339 1000 West Randolph Street • Chicago, IL 60607 E-Mail: info@bafloristinc.com Yahoo! Maps / Google Maps
Bringing
a Bit of the Outdoors Inside!