friday's gardenings

So I have two questions from readers about houseplants. Instead of making one huge gargantuan post, I am going to split it between two. So here's the question for today.

Hello sister-in-law. I have a question. We have a lot of plants in the house, but they are all fake. I think it would be neat to have some REAL green stuff. I have a friend who has ivy at the office (a little one) and I know that is a common inside plant. Do you have some other ideas that are fairly low maintenance and not exactly picky about water? We're both not very good about keeping stuff alive so something resilient would be good. :)
Ben

Okay, here are my Top Ten houseplants (there might be more than 10). These are the most common, most resilient plants you can grow. In no particular order:

Rubber Plant - stiff, thick leaves; different colors; next on my 'to purchase' list!

Dracena* - soft, graceful grassy foliage on a trunk; grows slowly, but will get tall

Kentia Palm/Parlor Palm - a really graceful plant, will get large if it's in a big enough pot

Pathos - a vine-type habit, dark green glossy foliage

Spider plants - grassy foliage, a variety of colors

Ivy* - different colors of foliage; good, hardy plant

Philodendron* - a nice looking vine type habit plant with shiny leaves

Peace Lily - dark green, glossy leaves, white 'flowers'

Dumb Cane - dark and light green mottled, smooth foliage

Sago Palm - kind of poky foliage; interesting habit; grows outside in Southern California

Snake Plants* - aka Mother-in-Law's tongue; upright habit, usually green and yellow grass-like leaves

Cast Iron Plants* (Aspidistra elatior) - dark green upright grass-like foliage

Cactus* - I'm going to assume y'all know what cacti are
(sorry about no pictures. just 'Google' any of these names and you'll get a good idea what the plant looks like)

*Termed as ‘almost indestructible’ plants. So if you kill these, then I don’t know how to help! (wink wink)

And there are many more. Some people really like the Ben Fig trees. These are the ones that most people have fake ones of because with the real ones, the leaves ALWAYS turn yellow and fall off. So, unless you want to rake leaves in your living room, I would avoid this one.

I have a Sago Palm, Pathos, Dumb Cane, Peace Lily, Philodendron, Ivy, a Kentia Palm, some cacti and a Draceana (aka Ernie; the one at the top of the post). Five or six of these are in one large basket that I got from Tyler's grandma's funeral almost five years ago. And Ernie (we named him that) we bought just after we got married. Others I have accumulated over the past five years. I just love having plants in the house. I have at least one in every room, except the boys' room.

If you don't have any houseplants and would like to start, try any one of those on the list. The pathos plant grows really long vines so you can drape them on a mantle, or on a plant shelf in your kitchen if you have one. You really cannot kill a cactus. The only way it could die is if it contracts a disease or you drown it. The one I have only gets watered about two or three times a month.

I'm going to talk about watering for just a second. Then next week I will go more in depth about how to keep your plants alive and looking good.

Most houseplants die from over-watering. You try so hard to keep it alive, that you drown it. All houseplants thrive on a certain amount of neglect. Water them when the top ONE inch of soil is dry, at least. I usually water a ten inch wide pot about 16 ounces (a tall glass) maybe every two weeks. I do live in a more humid climate - so if you live somewhere dry, mist your plants with a sprayer once a week. This will also help keep the leaves clean so the leaves can breathe. Almost all plants need water, but all of them need air. If their roots are so saturated that they can't breathe, then they will die eventually. And I'm serious, roots need to breathe air. And so do their leaves. Leaves on plants have tiny holes that breathe in air. This is how they convert carbon dioxide to oxygen, which cleans the air, and gives us air to breathe. There are so many benefits for having indoor plants! Even just one can make a big difference.

Signs that you are over-watering:
-the ends of the leaves are turning brown
-the plant looks constantly wilted, no matter if you just watered it
-there is a bunch of water in the tray underneath the pot (don't leave plants sitting in water)

Okay, more to come on houseplants next week!

Have a question about plants/gardening? E-mail me at martnicole(at)hotmail(dot)com.

Have a good weekend!