Live Beautifully, Inside & Out

HOUSEPLANTS

When it’s mild & sunny outside, there’s no better place than the garden. But gardens can grow indoors. Houseplants give us color & fragrance with their blooms, & texture & mass with their foliage. Large ones can balance a room or anchor a corner just like a piece of furniture. Houseplants also humidify dry winter air, & some even absorb air pollutants. But in the end, what makes growing houseplants so rewarding is that it satisfies our desire to see beautiful plants even when it’s cold & dreary outside.

African Violet (Saintpaulia)

Type: Houseplants

Environment: Part Sun / part shade

Height: 3"-4" tall

Growing Season: Year-round (slows in winter)

Leaf: fuzzy, slightly ovate

Flower/Fruit:

Avoid getting water on leaves. Best watered from the bottom.

Anthurium (Araceae)

Type: Houseplants

Environment: Part Sun / part shade

Height: 10-12 inches

Growing Season: Year-round (slows in winter)

Leaf: Dark green, oblong leaves, heart shaped at base

Flower/Fruit: Red, Rose, Pink, or White, shine as though lacquered

Native to tropical American rain forests. Exotic plants with handsome dark green leaves and lustrous flower bracts. The higher the humidity the better.Makes unusual indoor plants.

Croton (Euphorbiaceae)

Type: Houseplants

Environment: Full sun / part shade

Height: 6-24 inches

Growing Season: Year-round (slows in winter)

Leaf: oval, lanced shaped, or very narrow; edges may be straight or lobed

Flower/Fruit:

Indoors Crotons are usually seen as a single stemmed plant. They are grown principally for their showy large, leathery, glossy leaves, which may be green, yellow, red, purple, bronze, pink, or almost any combination of these colors. New cultivars include skinny and twisted leaved varieties.

Kalanchoe (Crassulaceae)

Type: Houseplants

Environment: Full sun / part shade

Height: 8-12 inches

Growing Season: Year-round (slows in winter)

Leaf: fleshy, typically green leaves and tiny shaped clusters of flowers in shades of yellow, red, orange, pink & white.

Flower/Fruit:

Place in a south-facing window and let them go fairly dry between waterings. Feed with a gerneral-purpose liquid houseplant fertilizer monthly from spring until fall. Reduce watering in winter, but dont let soil dry out so much that the leaves wither.

Peace Lily (Spathiphyllum)

Type: Houseplants

Environment: Part Sun / part shade

Height: from dwarf varieties to 8 footers

Growing Season: Year-round (slows in winter)

Leaf: slinder stalks, generally large leaves, oval or elliptical, narrow to a point

Flower/Fruit: fragrant in some species, consisting of a leafelike white or greenish white bract surrounding a central clud-shaped structure of closely set tiney flowers.

Peace lilies are among the few flowering plants that grow and bloom readily indoors; grow them in loose, fibrous potting mix and feed weekly with diluted liquid fertilizer. Mist frequently. If plant does not bloom, move to a brighter spot, but avoid hot, direct sun. Often called the "closet plant" because of its ability to survive in dimly lit areas of your home.