Houseplant Information
Providing a framework for the growth of the kangaroo vine to cling to also sets off the pleasant green leaves of this Australian native to best advantage.
All these sources of knowledge can, no doubt, solve many problems but, to my mind, the best way to learn about the everyday problems of plant growing is to be responsible for a plant display at any major flower show. There you will hear astonishing tales about success and failure, and some of the incredible things that can happen to a humble rubber plant or sansevieria.
My job takes me to many such flower shows, and requires me to answer a vast number of letters on the subject of indoor plants. Some letters are amusing, others quite sad; some concern premature loss of leaves while others are from perplexed householders who have room ceilings too low for rampant monstera plants.
The majority of flowering pot plants will do much better in the lighter and cooler hallway – certainly in these conditions they will remain in flower and give pleasure for a much longer period than in a stuffy room. Cyclamen, azaleas, hydrangeas and primulas would give an infinitely better account of themselves. In very hot conditions the cyclamen can prove to be extremely difficult, and azaleas will come into full flower and pass their best much more rapidly.
The real enthusiast will utilise every corner of the house in order to grow the maximum number of plants. So they are everywhere, but for the life of me I cannot see what advantage there is in having the bedroom filled with plants. My view is that one should have plants in rooms that are used most frequently, where they can be enjoyed to the full. Yet I can think of one customer who calls at the nursery annually to purchase a considerable number of pot plants for his home, and each time he brings in his treasured Anthurium scherzerianum for its yearly overhaul. This is very much a bedroom plant as far as the customer is concerned. When he first brought it in we were inquisitive to know what the fine layer of white dust on the leaves could be. We soon discovered that it was talcum powder which, if anything, seemed to improve rather than mar the plant’s performance, though it did not exactly improve its appearance!
This will provide an excellent framework on which old plant growth can be trained by hand, and on which new growth can twine naturally as it develops. The kangaroo vine, Cissus antarctica, is another plant that will attain fairly large proportions in time and will enjoy a cooler position in which to grow. In very hot rooms C. antarctica quite quickly develops dry, brown leaves and is eventually reduced to a cluster of unattractive leafless stems.
