Blooming Beauties Add Warmth to Home : Indoor plants take a bit more care than outdoor varieties, but are worth the effort.
One of the great joys of living in Southern California is being surrounded by beautiful, colorful flowers all year round.
Naturally, it’s easier to raise a blooming rainbow outdoors in a garden than it is indoors in a living room (or dining room, kitchen, bathroom or den), but you can create a vibrant canvas of color inside your house or apartment as long as you can provide your flowering plant with a bright, sunny location.
Although most flowering plants are very delicate and only last a few weeks indoors, here are some blooming beauties that I’ve found to be relatively hassle-free and which, with proper care, can accent your house or apartment with color all year round.
My almost-guaranteed-to-grow flowering plants include:
AFRICAN VIOLET: (Saintpaulia ionantha). The African violet is probably America’s most popular house plant--and often its most frustrating. Many indoor gardeners complain about being unable to coax their violets back into bloom once the “store-bought” blooms fade and die.
It’s true these plants need a bit of extra attention, but the small amount of time and trouble is well worth the effort.
African violets produce flowers that range from violet to white to pink to variegated, but all require the same care to do well:
--Keep your African violet on a sunny windowsill (western or southern exposure is best) or under artificial lights for at least 12 hours a day.
--Set them on pebble-filled dishes with water covering the pebbles to create maximum humidity.
--Keep the soil moist, watering from below to prevent breaking and rotting stems.
--Spray with tepid water (cold water causes leaf spotting) and feed once a week with a liquid house plant food.
AMARYLLIS: (Hippeastrum vitatum). This spectacular flowering bulb plant is usually seen in great abundance around the Christmas season. The amaryllis produces as many as five large, lily-like flowers on each stem, in colors ranging from white to red to pink to coral to some really exciting variegated shades.
To reuse the bulb, wait for the flowers and foliage to die, store the potted bulb in a cool, dry place and check it about once a month. When you notice new growth beginning to emerge, bring the pot back out near a light source, starting watering and feeding, and the blooming cycle will begin anew.
To prolong the blooms as long as possible, keep the plant in a cool spot that gets bright, filtered light.
AZALEA: (Rhododendron spp.) For years I was skeptical about growing azaleas, best known as outdoor perennials, indoors, even though they’re gorgeous flowering accents and great gift plants.
Now, after repeated personal successes, I can tell you that although your azalea will most likely be dormant during fall and winter, it will produce dazzling blooms year after year indoors if you follow these care instructions:
--Make sure it gets good, bright western or southern light.
--Keep the soil slightly moist, spray it daily, and feed it once a week during the spring and summer.
It’s also a good idea to prune your azalea at the end of the blooming season. This will encourage lush new growth and ensure flowering the following season.
BEGONIA: There are hundreds of different types of begonias. Some are grown from tubers or rhizomes, others from fibrous roots. The basic begonia is probably B. semperflorens, or wax begonia, which is usually sold as an outdoor annual.
But the begonia I like best for indoor culture is the elatior variety, or Reiger begonia, which is grown for its profusion of rose-like blooms in coral, yellow or red. This plant will bloom year-round if properly tended: The keys are giving it bright, filtered light and keeping the soil slightly moist.
If possible, your begonia should be placed outdoors in the shade during spring and summer to help stave off mildew, a common problem when the begonia doesn’t get enough air circulation.
CYCLAMEN: (Cyclamen persicum). This low-growing winter bloomer has round, gray-green leaves with a very attractive silver design. It produces lovely, delicate, butterfly-shaped red, white or pink flowers on the ends of fleshy stalks that are 4 or 5 inches long.
To prolong blooming and to keep the foliage looking its best, keep the plant in bright, filtered light, keep the soil damp, spray daily and, most important, keep the plant cool.
Cyclamens relish temperatures as low as 40 degrees at night. When the flowers die and your cyclamens’ foliage turns yellow, usually in mid-April, take the pot to a cool, dry place such as a closet and leave it there until October.
Then bring the plant out and begin watering, moving it ever closer to a sunny window, until it will begin to produce new growth and new flowers. By December it should be in full bloom again.
GARDENIA: (Gardenia jasminoides). This plant is also known as Cape jasmine, but to paraphrase the bard, “a gardenia by any other name would smell as sweet.” It would also be just as temperamental. It’s not that growing gardenias is difficult--they just require some very specific care to protect the buds and ensure flowering.
Bright light and high humidity are important, and gardenias need to be kept slightly moist, but the key to culture is warmth. Cold drafts will cause the buds to drop off. If possible, give your gardenia plant an outdoor vacation, in the shade, during June, July and August.
ORCHIDS: Popular mythology says that orchids are difficult to grow and cost-wise are out of the reach of the average indoor gardener. Those are just myths. Although many of the more than 100,000 species of orchids do need greenhouse conditions, many others will do very well in your house or apartment.
And as for the idea that orchid plants are prohibitively expensive, that was once true, but no more. Modern reproductive techniques have brought plant prices way, way down. The varieties that do best indoors are cattleya, cymbidium, phalaenopsis, vanda and oncidium.
Generally speaking, orchids need as much light as possible without injuring the plants. Some orchids, such as the cattleya, need lots and lots of light. Others, such as phalaenopsis, prefer a shadier location.
Because orchids are subject to root rot if they get too wet, don’t overwater your orchids--keep them slightly moist, but not wet. And make sure they’re planted in the more porous osmunda or fir bark instead of regular potting mix.
Humidity is critical to grow orchids successfully and can be achieved and maintained either by placing a small humidifier near your orchid plants, spraying the plants regularly with room-temperature water or keeping them on saucers filled with pebbles and water--or all three.
As for temperature, some orchids, such as plalaenopsis and most vandas, prefer warm--no lower than 65 degrees at night; some, like cymbidiums prefer cooler temperatures, between 60 and 70 degrees in the daytime and night-time temperatures as low as 45 or 50. The temperatures for growing cattleyas and oncidiums should be kept somewhere in between.
Finally, air circulation is extremely important in growing orchids. This is most easily produced by purchasing a small fan and placing it near your plants.
PEACE LILY: (Spathiphyllum “Moana Loa”.) This is one of the most useful plants available to the indoor gardener. Kept in a bright spot and watered frequently, it should produce a profusion of white, lily-like blooms all year round.
Even if you haven’t got a good, bright spot, get a peace lily anyway. These plants have beautiful, dark-green foliage and do very well in shadier spots, although they usually won’t flower unless cultivated under optimum conditions.
Other flowering plants with which I’ve had varying degrees of success indoors include the miracle-leaf plant (Kalanchoe blossfeldiana), a readily available succulent; camellia (C. japonica), Cape primrose (Streptocarpus spp. and hybrids), firecracker plant (Crossandra infundibilformus), geranium (Pelargonia spp. and cultivars), gloxinia (Sinningia speciosa) and Chinese hibiscus (Hibiscus rosa-sinensis).
It’s true that all of these flowering plants take a bit more TLC than their outdoor cousins, but even if you have an occasional failure, remember: that bunch of cut flowers you’re thinking of buying might last as long as a week, while, for even less money, a flowering plant is sure to last at least a couple of months.
