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Let's talk about house plants

miss direct

miss direct

misfungled
Which house plants do you have? Which are easy to look after and can cope when you go away? I'd like to get some more plants for my house but don't know where to start. Is it better to buy fully grown plants, or get cuttings and grow yourself? There are some fancy plant shops near me, but the prices are eye watering. Where can I get reasonably priced plants?

My pride and joy is my pink tradescantia. I've had it for about a year and it was a cutting - it's now really quite big, pink, and trails. Survived me spending months away (with someone else taking care of it.)

Would like to see plant pics too!
 
I have hardly any light in my house :(
I have some cacti on the only sunny windowsill that I sowed around 1991 ...
I had a tradescantia I rescued from Aldi then allowed to die several times (I would repeatedly root and plant the still alive end bits) ..
In my dream home I have a two storey atrium full of sub-tropicals - and who know I may yet get that ...

At the moment I have my LED-illuminated seed-raising facility - but I can't justify running that all year ...

At work I used to have a ficus benjamina I rooted from a bit I nicked from the Dean's office that managed to almost flourish with mostly weak fluorescent light ...
If I ever had houseplants they would be outside in the warm months of the year - which is definitely true of my hanging baskets of spider plants which hang from hooks in the back bedroom window all winter - suffering through lack of water ...
 
I never used to really like pelargoniums but I've got six largish ones now, brought on from cuttings, which have must have lasted10 years with virtually no attention - all out in flower now except the lemon geranium which doesn't need to be out in flower because it smells lovely. I have a campanula which is doing really nicely, I did have a flaming katie which was stunning but it only flowers once unless you fiddle about hugely with it, a passion flower which isn't doing hugely well I think because I don't water it enough, a few others I don't really know the name of, and two aloe vera which are in huge pots and already overgrowing them and marching triffid like into the rest of the conservatory, and I don't really know what to do with them. A couple of nasturtiums which I need to pot on, and spider plants which are very forgiving when I forget to water them,
 
Moth orchid, gasteria - speckled leaf sort -, and Christmas cactus. The 8 foot yucca lives outside now, or part of it does. When it wouldn't fit in the house we had to saw it into pieces which all grew. All of these four, while not thriving particularly well when neglected, will certainly survive. I think there's jam or something on my camera lens so photos wouldn't tell you much 🙄 Mine are or were all grown on an east facing window sill, soaked once a week in the summer and maybe fortnightly in the winter if I remember.
 
Most office plants where I worked were in suspended animation through lack of light and being pot-bound. and never fed ...
I disappointed a colleague once when I failed to extract any life from their dead palm tree ...
 
MrCurry said:
I never know how much / how often to water houseplants. I know I’ve killed plenty over the years with overwatering or under. I don’t know how some people apparently just “know”.
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The general rule with watering is to allow to dry out and then water thoroughly - but that can be an issue where the plants are barely growing at all ..
 
MrCurry said:
I never know how much / how often to water houseplants. I know I’ve killed plenty over the years with overwatering or under. I don’t know how some people apparently just “know”.
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Your plant needs to be in a saucer thing for plants - can't think of the word - and you add enough water so that it runs into the tray, leave it for half an hour and empty out any water that hasn't been absorbed. Don't water at all if the compost at the top sticks to your fingers.
 
I just started buying Cactai in lockdown and then I started rescuing plants from the supermarket i work at. I don't know names of stuff really, I have 2 yukkas, what I think is a sort of praying plant, lots of aloe Vera plants. I have asked for a snake plant and cheese plant for my birthday. I really want some air plants to suspend from the ceiling in the kitchen too. 👍😍 As a kid I didn't get why my mum loved plants so much, but finally in middle age I get it. 😂❤️
 
I was given a potted lily 2.5 years ago. It did well indoors but I moved it outdoors 2 months ago it was just getting very big and I didnt like the smell...
It's knocked back a bit but is doing ok in a sunny spot.
 
I also have a sort spindly thing, that unfortunately Magoo would pull at when she was a baby. I thought it was dead tbh, but it's come back, but the trauma is evident in the change of colour on the leaves. Oh and about 6 orchids that I put in the bathroom once they have stopped flowering.
 
onenameshelley said:
As a kid I didn't get why my mum loved plants so much, but finally in middle age I get it. 😂❤️
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Yes, for me it's an age thing too. And a sort of settling in one place thing. Have moved around so much in the past that investing in plants didn't seem sensible.

I did some investigating online and have ordered some plants from plants for all seasons: a swiss cheese, a peporomia, and an Epipremnum Aureum Pothos. Looking forward to meeting them. Better check if they come in pots.
 
moose said:
Also a cheese plant I've had since 1990 which I don't really like, but can't quite bring myself to get rid of (and the pot's too heavy to move) Our house is too dark for much else.
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That's one of my things about growing sub-tropicals indoors - the cheese plant will get very tall and fruit eventually in conditions we can't supply ...
We're mostly just seeing a tiny aspect of the plant.
The Victorians were big on that sort of thing - aspidistras are probably interesting in the right conditions - even ivy ...

I would never want a ficus elastica - and the moraceae are one of my favourite plant families - fig, mulberry - (it used to include hops and cannabis - which have now been made cousins once removed or something)

Coincidentally I was looking over at the flower shop yesterday wondering if there were any house plants I could use in the garden ...

I have - or had a fatsia japonica in the front garden which I raised from seed from a monster outdoors at work - in fact I think there were seven originally ...
I thought I'd killed the last one in the front garden planted in a hopeless spot, but it recently resprouted from the base - sadly the shoot somehow snapped off with minimal roots when I lifted it the other day - I've potted it up and might use it in the front garden - even if it's actually in suspended animation ...

When I move I hope I will have an atrium and likely also a sunny gravel bed where I can grow hardy cacti and agaves etc ... I suspect if I have house plants, they will be in constant rotation so they get decent conditions most of the time ...
 
moose said:
I have many cacti, some of which I've had for 25 years or more. Also a cheese plant I've had since 1990 which I don't really like, but can't quite bring myself to get rid of (and the pot's too heavy to move) Our house is too dark for much else.
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Aspidistra/Cast Iron Plant. They don't need much light at all and as the name suggests they're pretty bomb proof in terms of forgetting to water etc.
 
I love my plants. I don't have that many but they cheer me up. A couple of peace lilies (they were one plant but I've had it since 2001 and it was really outgrowing its pot), an elephant ear plant and a maidenhair fern (don't recommend either of these as being low maintenance, they're awkward attention seeking bastards), a cactus, a large glossy foliage floor standing thing that I can't remember the name of and a prayer plant. Youngest has a scabby looking pelargonium in his room that he bought for 50p from a corner shop because he felt sorry for it but has nursed into flower :)
 
I have a couple of orchids. One of them is very strong and flowers often, producing really beautiful lush flowers. The other is a spindly little thing which very rarely flowers. Oddly, they are both treated exactly the same and are both in a sunny spot on the kitchen window sill.

I also have a peace lily which is really temperamental. Sometimes it's upright, proud and strong and other days it wilts and flops and looks really pathetic. I find that taking it into the shower with me and then leaving it in the steamy bathroom for half an hour seems to help.
 
None. I have had a few and killed them somehow.

Now I take the view that plants live outside and I live inside

Maybe I should reconsider after I move
 
ElizabethofYork said:
I also have a peace lily which is really temperamental. Sometimes it's upright, proud and strong and other days it wilts and flops and looks really pathetic. I find that taking it into the shower with me and then leaving it in the steamy bathroom for half an hour seems to help.
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They very obligingly do that when they want watered. They're a very thirsty plant and you need to water them quite often.
 
miss direct said:
Is it better to buy fully grown plants, or get cuttings and grow yourself? There are some fancy plant shops near me, but the prices are eye watering. Where can I get reasonably priced plants?
Click to expand...
It depends. Do you want to spend time taking cuttings and looking after them and potting them on, or do you just want a plant to fill a space, that's already big and that doesn't need much care beyond a bit of watering now and then?

Smaller plants will obviously be cheaper than bigger ones. Shops like B&Q / homebase / IKEA / aldi are often cheaper than specialist houseplant shops - lots of people say to avoid them, I haven't had any more issues buying cheap plants from places like that personally but you should always check for pests and stuff like root rot no matter where you're buying from. Try asking for cuttings on Freecycle or similar if you don't know anyone to get some from.

Cacti and succulents will cope with not being watered for a while if you're away, but you really need to repot them into a much more free-draining mix than the coir etc they're usually sold in. Sansevieria are more tolerant of overwatering (though I'd still repot them) while still coping well with longish periods of drought.

weepiper said:
They very obligingly do that when they want watered. They're a very thirsty plant and you need to water them quite often.
Click to expand...
Overwatering can also cause them to wilt, helpfully :D
 
I've got low windowsills (12" above floor level) and 2 dogs. They would forever be getting knocked off and damaged. :(

I do have a potted lilly on the normal height kitchen windowsill I was given as a house warming present 26 years ago. It could probably do with repotting by now :eek: and getting rid of the fern that has self set and is taking over.
 
One thing to bear in mind is that I think you said at some point you wanted to have a cat?
Although this might not be feasible while you are working away a lot, if it is still in your future plans then take into consideration toxicity of any houseplants that you might get now or in the future.

Lillies are absolutely lethal to cats even just through being in close proximity (due to the pollen) and anything of that family should be avoided (including as cut flowers).

Others are unsafe if ingested - eg aloe veras may be soothing for wounds and burns, but are a strong purgative if ingested and can in some cases cause organ damage.

Here is info for lots of common indoor plants from Cats Protection:


And from this page you can also find links for outdoor plants and cut flowers: Plants Poisonous to Cats – Our Guide | Cats Protection
 
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