PLANTED CHAIR
When I was living in shared apartments many years ago my flatmates and I had a collection of indoor palms, philodendrons and ferns displayed in cane baskets in our flat. We weren’t alone in our love of indoor plants. Friends around the corner had a chain of hearts (Ceropegia woodii), which grew so abundantly they trained it around the picture rails of their 1920s style living room.
But none of us had anything like the display I saw recently in a story about a hipster’s tiny garden flat filled to overflowing with lush, leafy indoor plants. UK resident Matthew Pottage is the curator of the Royal Horticultural Society’s Wisley Garden. He has more than 100 containers filled with plants. Some are not the usual plant pot. One is an upholstered old-style chair like one your granny had. Matthew has sliced open the worn upholstery, removed the stuffing and filled the chair with a mini-garden.
Not only didn’t we think of doing this to what back then was probably still an expensive antique, we didn’t have the amazing plant that is the central feature of the planting. Matthew has teamed Zanzibar gem (Zamioculcas zamiifolia), also called the ‘ZZ’ plant, with a variegated creeping plant, which he is allowing to invade the chair.
Zanizibar gem is one of the most tolerant of all indoor plants for low light and a plant that’s only become available in Australia in the past decade or so. It’s top of my list of unkillable indoor plants (although I did kill one a few years back when I left it outside and we had an unexpected frost). Don’t expose it to cold, water sparingly, dust the glossy green, cycadlike leaves regularly and it will live forever. (But note, all parts of the plant are considered poisonous).
Popular plants
As with other 1980s fashions, indoor plants are back but they never looked like they do now in crazily shaped terrariums, wrapped in rope and suspended as kokedama balls or mounted on the wall as a vertical garden.
Social media has helped drive the popularity and creativity of indoor plants. So has the use of indoor plants in retail outlets and cafes. It wouldn’t be exaggerating to say the indoor plant craze has saved the nursery industry and led to rejuvenation in garden centres and the rise of new businesses. Just when nurseries were closing, plant sales lagging and owners scratching their heads about how to get young consumers (so-called Millennials) into garden centres, indoor plants took off.
One of the most popular indoor plants is the fiddle-leaf fig. For some time now fiddleleaf figs, particularly large specimens, have commanded a small fortune as they’ve been in high demand and low supply. Other popular (and more affordable) choices are sansevieria (mother-in-law’s tongue), which is turning up in a huge range of foliage shapes and colours, philodendrons of all sorts, succulents, ferns, ficus (rubber plants), the cast iron plant or aspidistra, pilea and monstera.
It’s not all about greenery. The peace lily has foliage and flowers and is easy to grow. It thrives and even blooms in low light. Orchids, particularly phalaenopsis or moth orchids, are the best colourful flowering indoor plants. These elegant plants are long flowering and bloom throughout the year with long-lasting sprays of white, pink or mauve flowers. They are excellent gift plants and are more affordable now than in the past.
To keep these plants in bloom, simply cut back the flowered stem to just below where the last flower bloomed. Keep in bright light, fertilise occasionally and water every now and then and the stem will probably send up another flower spike.
Spring clean indoor plants
As the days get longer and spring grows a little warmer, it’s time to turn your attention to indoor plants. Most indoor plants benefit from being repotted now into the same or a new pot but with fresh potting mix. Use a premium potting mix for indoor plants. Re-pot orchids and succulents into specialist growing mixes that provide the good drainage they need.
Keep plants in well-lit spots in the house rotating any that are in dark positions into better-lit spots. Gently wash the leaves of any indoor plants that are looking a bit dusty and prune off foliage that’s damaged, brown or carrying signs of pests or disease. Be ruthless and get rid of any plants that are badly affected by pests such as scale or mealy bug. Pests are hard to get rid of once they establish in indoor plants. If you don’t want to throw them away (houseplants often have the same status as much-loved family pets) they’ll need extensive R&R on a brightly lit balcony or in a sheltered spot in a garden and treatment with horticultural oil and insecticide.
Succumb to spring fever by buying a few new plants to add to your collection or expand your collection by dividing clumping plants or cuttings from succulents, philodendrons and others that are easy to strike.