Let’s go POTTY
When it’s cold and miserable outside, plants can really light up a room. All they need is to know that you care, says Alan
Alan Titchmarsh
The golden rule with pot plants is “be ruthless”. Oh I know, nobody likes throwing out a leafless stick that still has a spark of life. You never know, it might recover and make a decent specimen again one day, but it probably won’t – and meanwhile it’s a real eyesore. No, chuck it out – and replace it with something else. Nowadays, the choice is enormous.
Foliage plants such as ferns, aspidistras and palms are great value and last for years. Also look out for curiosities such as the sago palm, which belongs to an ancient family of plants called cycads – as eaten by dinosaurs. And it’s not too early to buy your Christmas cyclamen, poinsettia and indoor azalea – they will keep flowering for months if you keep them cool. There are plenty of cheerful winter-flowering plants, including tazetta daffodils, pot chrysanthemums, various kalanchoes and bizarre looking tropical plants such as anthurium (which has red flowers shaped like an artist’s palette) and curcuma (an exotic relative of ginger, with showy bracts). But the most popular pot plant of all right now is the beautiful moth orchid, so that’s the one to put at the top of your list.
Take the trouble to display pot plants with flair. Choose a few really good specimens and stand them in pot covers that match the style of your room, then position them in a disused fireplace or stand them on a piece of furniture along with a table lamp or a suitable ornament – a chunk of driftwood or a polished stone does the job.
If you have a collection of handsome small plants or new “tots” from the garden centre, arrange them together in a shallow bowl then pack synthetic moss, polished
pebbles or coloured glass nuggets (the sort sold for flower arrangers) round them to hide the pots. Besides looking good, small plants grow better in a group, as they generate their own microclimate.
Once they are set out, look after them. It sounds obvious, but people spend summers tending tubs and hanging baskets out on the patio then seem to have a blind spot when it comes to house plants. It’s not until the poor things moult all over the carpet that they have a fit of guilt, fill their saucers right up and leave them standing in water for weeks.
There’s nothing indoor plants hate more than this boom-andbust cycle. Most have simple needs – good but indirect light, steady warmth, regular feeding and the right watering regime. The extra attention will pay off and by starting now, you’ll have everything looking its best before Christmas.