happy notes for every day

Indoor Gardening - Displaying healthy plants in air-conditioned environments

Plants can be therapeutic - growing plants indoors is good for you!
Care for them and you will be rewarded with real organic matter amongst high tech surroundings.
They improve air quality, emanate an aura of health and freshness and lift your spirit!

The right container and the right combination elevate plant life to living sculptures, a piece of art created by nature.

The overall style and atmosphere a room implies or exudes can be dramatically altered or influenced by a focal plant of vibrant color or a large architectural plant of striking form and shape.

A few, easy-to-follow-guidelines and success is guaranteed!

Keep it simple - a few, well chosen, perfectly placed and well cared for plants are immensely rewarding. The “less- is- more” philosophy applies: one bold, large plant in a small/medium sized room is enough where as small plants are very appealing grouped together.

A successful combination of the right plants in beautiful containers enhances a room’s interior.
Room styles - informal or formal, classic or modern, rustic or eclectic - define to a great extent the choice of container and plants.

Today’s often contemporary interior spaces are about less clutter and lots of light - the perfect setting for plant display: in a predominantly white, minimal space a simple orchid in a beautiful plain pot makes a spectacular statement of elegance and purity!

To form balance and harmony, keep scale and proportion. The plant has to complement the room’s size and height and the style of furnishing: big, bold architectural plants need space, and small arrangements are best suited for more intimate spaces.

Color can make for a striking focal point and has great emotional impact: white is calming and pure and red is hot and fiery. Echoing existing colors in the room i.e. a coral red cushion on a sofa in a red flowering plant creates an atmosphere of harmonious vibrancy, as contrasting colors can bring drama and excitement to a design.

The scent of flowers or foliage is a great additional benefit and especially foliage plants add a rich palette of texture and pattern to a room.

As for containers: they need to complement the interior too, as a beautiful vessel will enhance the overall impression and display the nature’s piece of art to the fullest.
Choosing the right container is extremely important, plain containers will not detract from the plant and blend in well.

By adding top mulches - anything you like and manifests your style - like pebbles, shells, chippings or bark to colored glass pebbles (marbles) and buttons, you can add interest, maintain humidity for the plant and prevent weeds from growing.

Gazebos in plain white ceramic are simply elegant, beautiful baskets enhance the rustic and tropical theme, terracotta is always a good choice; but glazed pots retain water better and are more suited to air-conditioned rooms.
Repeat the color scheme of your rooms in your plant pots and keep one choice like modern metal containers or bright red ceramic ones to one room each.
A foliage plant may gain from an interesting pot, as with a flowering one an already decorated pot can detract from the flower and be simply too much.

As a simple and general guideline: with a large pot one third should be planting and two thirds the container; as for the smaller ones, the opposite equation applies.
But scale and proportion, with a little practice, can be manipulated to great effect!

If you group plants - do it in odd numbers or in a grid of even ones.

Plants need - just as we do - daylight, food and water and some care and grooming.
Most houseplants prefer bright, filtered natural light. Look careful at your room, judge the level of light correctly, watch how sunlight travels through the room during the course of a day and visualize the effect you wish to achieve: and then venture out and find the right plant!

Giving them an environment as close as possible to their natural habitual needs is vital.
When you arrive home, place the plant at the intended place you bought it for.
If you just made a spontaneous buy, find a position which suits and complements most of the plants needs and remember for both occasions: allow two or three weeks for it to settle in. Plants may initially shed flowers and leaves due to transfer shock, but if you keep on providing the right care, they will recover quickly. Do not move them again until the have acclimatized - and, as long as there is no proof that it is not helping: talk to them, let them know they matter!

In general, flowering plants need higher light levels then foliage plants and plants with dark green leaves require less light than those with light green and silvery leaves.

Air-con room temperature should be kept at a level of about 21 - 24 C. To keep the necessary humidity levels up, ornamental trays, filled with a layer of gravel chips, pebbles or clay granules and water will assure enough humidity and allow the plant to feed without the plant sitting in water (as over watering is the killer no. 1 for most houseplants).

For the plants and your health: no standing water ever, regular watering instead!
If there is a constant level of water in the tray, add a few drops of mosquito / dengue prevention chemicals (to be found at any nursery with a water plant and water features division).


Grouping plants together will also raise the humidity level around them and regular fine misting will too.

Air the rooms - a little breeze ones in a while is enhancing the air quality and the plant’s life.

If you have a balcony or an outdoor area, put them out in the rain at least once a month - it saves you the tedious work of dusting their leaves and this little natural event will be highly appreciated by the plant itself… always remember, there is no such thing as an indoor plant...!

Grooming is a must, too - shape the plants regularly as pruning and dead heading will enhance new and healthy growth and increase production of new flowers.

The right place and the right care will ensure a healthy plant - but in the eventuality of a pest problem: localize it, remove the respective plant and go easy on the chemicals!
A few suggestions for specific environments and design effects:

Shade lovers:
Dieffenbachia, Marantha, Calathea, Caladium, Anthurium, Ferns

Sun lovers:
Adenium, Ananas, Celosia, Kalanchoe, Eucomis (Pineapple Lily), Stephanotis


Bright light, no direct sun - most houseplants fall into this category:
Dramatic flowers:
Tacca, Bromeliads like Tillandsia and Guzmania, Medinilla
Scented flowers:
Hedychium, Eucharis and Jasmin, Eucomis and Gardenia
Orchids:
Vandas, Phalaenopsis (Moth Orchids) , Cattleya hybrids and Dendrobium
Palms:
Phoenix (Date palm) Rhapis (Lady Palm) Cyrtostachys (Sealing Wax palm)
Small plants
Episcia, Selaginella, Pilea , Fittonia and Soleirolia
Bold foliage:
Alocasia, Monstera, Philodendron, Xanthosoma, Anthurium and Grevillea
Colored Foliage
Calathea, Codiaeum, Dracaena, Marantha and Solenostemon
Air-Purifiers:
Draceana fragrans, Ficus benjamina (Weeping Fig) , Schefflera arboricola, Spathiphyllum wallisii (Peace Lily)



Gabriela Sidler Andermatt ©


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