Does your house have plants?

Lizzie
Former Community Manager
Former Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

Does your house have plants?

House Plants

 

Hello Everyone,

 

If you are like me I really enjoy having a few plants dotted around my home. I now have a little tradition in that every December I get a amaryllis plant which I grow from its bulb. Usually it takes a month or two until the flower opens and by this time I have usually forgotten which colour it is - so it is a lovely surprise. I also think I am getting the hang of keeping orchids, as far I know what to expect when all the flowers drop off! 🙂

 

Here is my amaryllis from last year:

 

Plant.jpeg

 

Do you have any house plants in your house or listing (if seperate)? Are you green-fingered? Perhaps you have some tips or suggestions on which varieties make good indoor plants? 🙂

 

Looking forward to hearing from you.

 

Lizzie

 


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38 Replies 38
Wendy-and-Frank0
Level 10
Stonington, CT

@Lizzie, you're a girl after my own heart.

 

I time my amaryllis bulbs to have them bloom at Christmas although I am staring at one right now who didn't get the memo and is ready to burst any day.

 

I am an avid gardener but a lousy houseplant person.

 

What works for me are succulents and African violets in guest rooms.

 

My guest bathrooms have window sills in the showers and I have clay pots housing plants that require high humidity and little maintenance.  English ivies, pothos, and spider plants fare well in these spaces.  When it comes time to scrub the shower between guests, they get a good watering as needed and an inspection of for tiny mites that may have moved in.

 

Orchids are easier to grow than most people realize but they do attract insects (mites) which are easily remedied.  With ABB's review system, many may be less inclined to host plants for fear of reading later that there were "bugs" in the house.

 

 

Yes I'm a florist and have loads of tips especially for people without massive gardens or no outdoor space where shall I write them @Lizzie I tell my clients to take their orchids in the bathroom when hot shower is on also in kitchen especially when cooking with loads of steam I have tons of tips 

Lizzie
Former Community Manager
Former Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

Of course I had forgotten you are a wonderful florist @Sara2. Thanks for sharing a few tips here. 🙂 

 

I have my two orchids on the kitchen windowsill and they love it there, I thought this is because of the dappled sunlight, but I didn't even think about the humidity - that is really handy. 

 

What would be your recommendation for an ideal house plant?

 


--------------------


Thank you for the last 7 years, find out more in my Personal Update.


Looking to contact our Support Team, for details...take a look at the Community Help Guides.

Lizzie
Former Community Manager
Former Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

Aww it is lovely to hear you also love an amaryllis too @Wendy-and-Frank0. Mine for this year has just bloomed, but I have just noticed it has a secondary flower too! I do find they get so top heavy though it is a balancing act to make sure they don't topple over. 🙂

 

It is interesting to hear your orchids attract insects, I haven't noticed any, but that is definitely something to keep in mind when selecting a plant. Perhaps you could put a venus fly catcher next to it or maybe not! 

 

A friend of mine gave me a cutting from a geranium plant early last year and I kept it indoors, it looked very happy, then as soon as it got warmer last year it didn't enjoy my house anymore and so it went to the plant pot in the sky...I do think I am going to try again though. 🙂 

 

African violets sound nice, I can't think what they look like, are they easy to look after?


--------------------


Thank you for the last 7 years, find out more in my Personal Update.


Looking to contact our Support Team, for details...take a look at the Community Help Guides.

African violets are the easiest things in the world to grow IF you water the dish.  You wet the leaves, you've killed the plant.  Those crazy things grow in yogurt containers, for crying out loud!  Cuttings are easy to propagate.  Google it, grow it, use the right growing medium, and water the saucer!

 

As for those confounded orchids, they are epiphytes that love to grow in trees.  In my home country, they are weeds.  Go figure!

 

I grow mine in wood chips (epiphytes grow on wood) and wood in New England LOVES, LOVES, LOVES critters. I've had termites move in on orchids.  The fight was on.  I won but the orchids lost.

 

England was chosen by the gods to be Heaven's garden.  The Pacific Northwest in the US comes so close it's scary.  You have cloud cover, cool weather, no extreme temperatures, and beautiful soil.  (I actually brought back of your dirt to work into my compost bin hoping your critters would go forth and multiply.)

 

If you're in London, your River Thames produces crazy cool organisms that are carried by wind (I checked.... not lyin') and that beautiful, moldy, stinky stuff at low tide is food from the powers that be.

 

This may make you gag but I have been known to bring in spiders from the garden and lay them on my potted plants.  A free lunch really does exist.

 

But all in all, as much as I love bringing the outdoors in, I keep it to a minimum.

 

The spiders don't pay my bills.

 

😉

 

 

Huaai0
Level 10
British Columbia, Canada

@Lizzie I'm thinking about artificial plants. 

Graham-And-Michelle0
Level 9
Auckland, New Zealand

Yes I love to have house plants. For some time now we have been using artificial flowers, silk mostly,

and I think the real plants just add so much more ambiance not to mention health values.

my favourites are the amaryllis but also a coffee tree, they have wonderful glossy green leaves,

fragrant white flowers and then red berries, which of course can be harvested ! Not that you get enough off one plant. Old favourites, African violets and maidenhair ferns , are quite hardy and the AF s flowers for ages. There has been a orange flowered succulent type plant which has stayed fresh and covered in blossom for most of this summer. I just trim the spent blooms and keep feeding it and it just keeps looking fabulous.

 

Lizzie
Former Community Manager
Former Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

Lovely to see your response here @Graham-And-Michelle0

 

It's great you get nice little red berries off your coffee tree, perhaps you can place a few on the top of a nice dessert? 🙂

 

I like the sound of your orange flowered tree plant, the blossom here in the UK is starting to show its face as we head into our Spring. I love this time of year, there is such a freshness about it. The dafodills have already arrived which is great to see. 

 

Do you find the change in seasons and therefore temperature in your house affects your house plants at all? 

 

 


--------------------


Thank you for the last 7 years, find out more in my Personal Update.


Looking to contact our Support Team, for details...take a look at the Community Help Guides.

Cormac0
Level 10
Kraków, Poland

@Lizzie

 

I must because of static electricity the air in Poland is very dry and creates a lot of static so the plants ameliorate this.

 

 

Huaai0
Level 10
British Columbia, Canada

@Lizzie@Wendy-and-Frank0

 

Just FYI, after seeing this post, I ordered artificial lavender (8 bundles) on amazon.ca and the order will be delivered to my door tomorrow. Love lavender...

@Huaai0,

 

You mean plastic lavender plants?

 

You can put a clay pot and saucer in a guest room and grow rosemary in it.  It's very pretty and smells divine!

 

You can sprinkle lavender seeds (easiest thing in the world to grow) into a pot and leave them in your space.

 

Herbs don't like a lot of tender care so you don't have to go crazy watering and fertilizing.

 

And because seeds are so inexpensive, when the thing looks tired, compost it or eat it.

 

 

Robin4
Level 10
Mount Barker, Australia

@Lizzie....I know...."Oh no, not you again to highjack yet another of my threads" she says!!

 

Well yes we do have the odd plant....and I have to report that the garden has recovered from the visit by a guest with two Burnese Mountain dogs a couple of months ago. For weeks after this 'road construction machinery with a heartbeat' savaged their way through my garden beds things are back to normal. Being a hot but wet summer the roses have been spectacular but we have seen the last of them for the season, and we are about to give the garden its winter coat.

This is the time for Easter Lillies and, we have over 500 in various stages of bloom around the garden......

IMG20170308192930 08.jpg

 

They make a beautiful display and generally come up in large clumps of many blooms together. But, there is always one that sets the breed apart!

It is late in the season Easter being almost on us, and there is this one plant that cannot make up its mind as whether it is a plant or a snake charmers Cobra.....

IMG20170319184637 2.jpg

 

I am sure when it makes up it's mind which way it wants to point it will be a beautiful flower, and I go and hiss at it daily!!

When I was young I did not give a 'bulls roar' about plants and flowers! I guess age does strange things to you!!!

Cheers.....Rob

Robin, thank you for keeping us up to date with your spectacular garden.

Here your Easter lilies are known as Naked Ladies.  But what that makes your twisted snake charmers assistant I can't begin to guess! 

Happy gardening.

@Graham-And-Michelle0

Well our potted  'Naked Lady' has finally worked which way the sky is and has shown her true colours.....

IMG20170328105014 2.jpg

 

Your collection looks great guys. I never had much luck with African Violets, I think I over watered them...they seem to be a plant that just likes to be left alone. Is that a row of Agapanthus I can see outside the window in the top shot? 

They are beaut but there are so many of them here now that they are clasified as a noxious weed would you believe!

12 a.jpg

 

Cheers.....Rob