Most so-called “houseplants” were selected for this purpose (to decorate the home indoors) on the basis of their resilience.
It is no accident that many come from tropical places where a plant isn’t forced by cold weather into dormancy (or killed outright), as happens here in the North.
Bonnie Blodgett
Indeed, the definition of a perennial might be “a plant that puts itself to sleep in order for its roots to survive when the rest of it freezes to death.”
Such distinctions as “perennial” and “annual” and “woody” are of secondary importance to gardeners in the Tropics. When winter never happens, perennials can take a rest after doing the arduous work of flowering and bearing fruit without having to sacrifice their foliage, as woody plants do, or vanishing altogether as perennials do.
This may be one reason why tropical plants are not ranked (on the desirability scale) on the basis of their floral beauty, as happens so often to plants in northern regions.
As to the latter, I am thinking, above all, of the rose, which is technically not perennial (i.e., herbaceous) but deciduous (i.e., woody).
A rose’s stems (aka branches) are made of sturdier stuff than perennials are made of, and as a result do not die back in winter. This is why roses are classified with hydrangeas and lilacs, and not with, say, salvias and poppies, the so-called “herbaceous” plants that can be either perennial (long-lived) or annual.
There are both annual and perennial salvias and poppies, but there is no such thing an annual tree or shrub. If a rose is planted and dies after one summer, it has died of natural causes, such as lack of hardiness where it was planted, not because it was designed by nature to have a single reproductive cycle.
Put another way, perennials can be grown as annuals, but “true” annuals can’t be grown as perennials.
But to nongardeners who just love flowers, in the same way they love nice furniture or a fine perfume — for purely esthetic reasons — all genera and the species within are pretty much the same. Nongardeners buy their flowers in pre-cut, plastic-wrapped bundles. They are not interested in growing them from scratch, much less growing them in winter, much MUCH less reading about all this in a gardening column.
Another type of plant esteemed for its flowers is the bulbous type. It grows from a bulb, a tuber or a rhizome.
In this group we have of course the spring-blooming hardy tulip and daffodil. We also have the tender amaryllis, the Christmas cactus and the dahlia.
The latter type must be overwintered indoors either in a cool, dark basement where they can focus on storing energy for when they come back to life in spring, or in a sunny window where they can be coerced into holding onto their leaves and even flowering from time to time. This is done with the help of fertilizer and judicious use of the watering can.
A plant can belong to any of these categories and qualify as an indoor houseplant — again because so many are tropical and look amazing for reasons other than their flowers.
Where else but the Tropics does nature allow a plant to have leaves the size of an elephant’s ears?
Such flamboyant specimens as the actual Elephant’s Ears (Colocasia), which is a bulbous plant, and the evocatively named Fiddle Leaf Ficus (its leaves are shaped like violins), which is deciduous (woody), are the ones we think of first when we hear the word “houseplant.”
Little do most of us know that these plants can flower if given the proper encouragement. In the case of a plant like the Fiddle Leaf Ficus, as well as the banana plant and the various citrus-producing plants (I grow all three types indoors), that encouragement is a warm room with lots of windows and a 20- to 40-foot ceiling (depending on the plant) and full southern exposure.
If this is putting you in mind of the Como Conservatory, then you are getting the point.
You would need to build a conservatory of your own, as some ambitious home horticulturalists do, and keep it heated and humid in accordance with tropical climates, if you wanted to dine on fruits like bananas, figs, and grapefruits plucked from your very own indoor garden.
(There are exceptions: the Meyer lemon, for example, will produce fruits in conventional houses, being naturally short in stature. I have yet to meet the northern gardener who dines on homegrown bananas, however.)
An article I came upon recently whose author had chosen 10 houseplants to recommend on the basis of their floral beauty, acknowledged this tendency we have to think of houseplants as foliage marvels that don’t, alas, flower but … imagine if they did! Surely the blooms would be stupendous.
Alas, the opposite is generally true. Often the flowers of towering jungle plants are, as Martha Stewart might patronizingly put it, “insignificant.”
What that actually means is that while such flowers may be exquisite, they are (like those of the fall-blooming toad lily) only properly appreciated in all their intricate delicacy through a magnifying glass.
And what THAT means is that as a decorative item they are not only insignificant but virtually worthless.
In case the one plant for which thousands of homeowners ARE willing to build a specially designed window is upsetting you by going unmentioned so far, I must agree that orchids ARE in a class of their own.
I don’t mean in the sense of good, better, best — though for some the orchid is the ne plus ultra when it comes to floral beauty. The trouble is that in all other respects orchids tends to be underwhelming.
Indeed, most of the time orchids are dormant, making that specially designed window fairly dreary what with all the all dead or dying stems.
Ah, but when the moment arrives that its buds, arranged in a straight line along a gracefully drooping stem, begin to open one after another so as to keep the show going for weeks on end, one extravagant flower at a time, I admit there is nothing lovelier than an orchid.
At least to my eye. We all have our personal preferences. And because we humans are not only variable from one to the next but also consistently fickle, we relish our own fluctuating infatuations.
I remember once when, as a beginning gardener, I pronounced the poppy preeminent among flowers, owing to what I’d recently noticed was its uniquely tissue-paper-like texture.
At that moment of discovery, a single novel feature made the poppy seem superior to any and all other flowers known to man.
My fleeting obsession with poppies, as it turns out, was the product not just of my esthetically attuned brain, but also to my never having closely examined one before.
Humans are wired to love the novel as much as we love the beautiful, which I why we update our wardrobes even more often than we redecorate homes. It is how we stay engaged and stimulated by the world around us. Quality may be timeless, but fashion rules!
Orchids are unique in that they are parasitic. In their natural habitat, they attach themselves to trees. In our homes they must be given everything that would be available to them in the rain forest, which is why caring for orchids is itself a complex and engrossing activity to some people and a colossal bore to others.
So while we are as variable as plants are, the difference between plants and people is that our personality differences cannot be classified the way Linnaeus classified plants’ traits.
Put another way, being Caucasian doesn’t make you any more or less intelligent, funny, artistic or volatile than being of African descent. It just means you have lighter skin owing to the pigmentation process. That’s about it.
The article I mentioned recommended the best of the relatively few common houseplants whose flowers are more attractive than their foliage. The list is not surprising. It recommends all the old favorites, and I will list them here because they do deserve special treatment. They are as wonderful as they are ubiquitous. At the top of the list, were it arranged according to my personal prejudices, I would put the so-called flowering begonias. Why? Of all the plants on the list begonias are the least commonly grown as indoor houseplants and, in my opinion, most deserving of it.
I am referring not just to the begonias whose flowers are dismissed as unremarkable compared to their leaves—such as escargot and pond lily — but the begonias we grow in the garden mainly for their abundant and often delicately beautiful flowers.
These range from the short-stemmed bedding (or wax) begonia to the longer stemmed Angel Wing Begonia, so named because of the shape of its reddish-pink flowers and often grown in a hanging basket.
Yes, these can be brought indoors too.
(The tuberous begonia’s flowers are, of course, spectacular, resembling a bit the gorgeously many-petaled Old English roses bred by the late David Austin. But, being tuberous, they belong in the bulb category and are stored in the basement with the dahlias during the winter months and therefore useless as houseplants.)
Perennial begonias can be coaxed into blooming indoors, even blooming nonstop, though they do tend to drop their petals. This qualifies them as “messy.” If you are the anal type (again, there is no taxonomic classification for you just because you are fastidious), you will need to regularly sweep up.
Next on my list would be jasmine. It can be coaxed to bloom in winter, even after a summer of vigorous flowering. But it must be given a break in the fall, the equivalent of a blackout shade, to ensure that it is never exposed to light, even a streetlight, during nighttime hours.
Anthurium gets its place on the list by virtue of a flower that is not a flower. It, like the orchid, is parasitic and requires humidity and plenty of moisture. However, in lieu of an actual flower it produces an inflorescence called a spathe in shades of red or pink or, occasionally, white and (rarely) green.
The Desert Rose (Adenium) blooms spectacularly and quite willingly indoors, but like so many such plants it turns into an eyesore (bare stems, dropping leaves) between times.
Lipstick plants (Aeschylnanthus radicans) need partial shade. They (again, like orchids) grow on trees as “epiphytic” guests, so they need a mixture of sphagnum and potting soil to grow in, as well as warmth and humidity. A regular temperature of 65 to 70 degrees F might entice them to bloom
Bleeding heart vine (Clerededrum x speciosuym) is likelier to bloom in direct sunlight and, while blooming is sporadic, a single flower can last months.
Kalanchoe flowers in a range of red, yellow, pink and orange. It’s another one of those flowering tropicals whose leaves and stems are as straggly as the flowers are stunning. Keep snipping off the blooms and they’ll keep coming!
Cyclamen, too, looks like death after it blooms (usually December through April) but you can rejuvenate it. Just bring it outside and let it renew itself after it’s done with dormancy.
Same story with Amaryllis. The trick to getting yours to rebloom year after year is fertilizer. It needs to be repotted from time to time, or it will limp along for years without managing to push up one of those stalks with the telltale bulge that lets you know it contains a bud. I keep mine outside in summer to help it store as much energy as possible for winter blooming, The payoff is that every year I get one additional flower. I am now up to four.
African violets don’t mind dry indoor air. They do mind being overwatered and overpampered generally. A windowsill that gets light but not direct sun is ideal.
Christmas cacti (Schlumbergera truncate) must have bright light and cool nighttime temperatures (55 and 65 degrees F).
The fragrant Hawaiian Wedding Vine (Marsdenia floribunda) has long tubular white flowers a bit like those of jasmine. It needs full sun in moderation. An east-facing window is perfect.
String-of-Pearls (Senecia rowleyanus), like all succulents, must have well-drained soil and cool night temperatures. You can restart new plants from cuttings.
Crown-of-Thorns (Euphorbia milii) is thorny, as the name suggests, and can be poisonous. Beyond that, what’s not to love? This is one of those so-called “flowering” plants that actually produces eye-catching bracts.
Poinsettia (Euphorbia pulcherrima) is another such plant. Its “true” flowers are the inconspicuous yellow buds adjacent to showy red, white or pink bracts. With the proper care, a poinsettia may get bushy enough to pass as a shrub. It requires steady warmth and loathes drafts. An east-facing window is its ideal habitat.
In sum, there is a reason why “flowering houseplants” is almost an oxymoron. We can certainly grow them, but most of us choose instead to focus on plants that look beautiful all the time with little fuss.
Just as in the garden, that means that as we mature, moving up from novice to seasoned professional, we tend to focus less on the ephemeral (flowers) and more on the part of the plant that is consistently present and pleasing to the eye.
We become “all about foliage.”
Does that mean we don’t still worship at the shrine of the perfect bloom? Hardly. We just learn to make compromises. We get practical. We mature and grow wise.
And then, just like our plants and every other living thing on the planet, we die.
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Originally Appeared Here
