Al Heavens is a Haddonfield, N.J.- based, nationally syndicated, home-improvement writer and author whose newspaper columns, magazine articles and books have been the first word on remodeling for 50 million readers for more than three decades. He is the author of What No One Ever Tells You About Renovating Your Home and Remodeling on The Money: Fifteen Innovative Projects Designed to Add Value to Your Home and was “The Gadgeteer” on Discovery Channel’s Home Matters program.
When it comes to greenery, I prefer the outdoors.
So much so that, at the end of last summer, I bought a greenhouse kit and assembled it in the backyard.
This winter, the heated and insulated 8-foot-long, 6-foot-wide, and 7-foot-high greenhouse, in full sun for seven hours a day, produced fresh basil, cilantro, lettuce and, believe it or not, cucumbers. By mid-March, 15 six-week-old heirloom tomato plants were heading for outdoor planting later this spring.
While people are surprised by the cucumbers, which only need five hours of winter sunlight to thrive, the Emperor Tiberius ate a cucumber every day of the year, grown by Roman gardeners using a setup akin to the modern greenhouse.
Although I have been gardening since I was a child, tutored by an Italian-born uncle, the pandemic has added considerably to the numbers of people interested in greenery – someone referred to them as “#PlantMoms” – inside as well as outside the home.
By the way, according to the Internet, Plant Moms are people who raise primarily flowers and succulents (drought-resistant plants that thrive in arid climates) as if they were their own biological children.
There is historical precedent. Prince Charles talks to his plants. I have been known to converse with the tomato seedlings in the greenhouse. Yesterday, I apologized to them for the whiteflies as I sprayed them with Safer Soap.
Using plants as an element of interior design is nothing new. The Victorians favored Boston ferns, jasmine, fuschia, citrus, palms, and the Jerusalem cherry. During the 1970s and early 1980s, every apartment I visited would have at least one ficus – the weeping fig or ficus benjamina — and two or more spider plants hanging from hooks in the bathroom.
I once rented a house in Rye, England, that was built in the 15th century. On the second floor, English ivy climbed from the side of the building through the windows and along the interior wall of the library. It would seem, then, that the trend of trying to bring the outdoors indoors was well-established during the reign of Henry VII.
Actually, this trend began in China around 1000 B.C., according to the sources I have come across in reading, and the intention was the same as it is today – to be close to nature as much as you can year-round. Unlike the outdoors, where things grow wild, the indoors affords an opportunity to control growth … in a sense, to try to establish rules for nature.
I have already mentioned the Victorians, and they were probably the first group in history who believed that humans were capable of controlling their environment. The word “ecology” dates from the late 19th century, and the Victorians were aware of the effects of human activity on climate change, even if they did nothing to mitigate it.
When the Victorians recognized that the lawn was, in reality, an outdoor rug, it did not take much of an effort to transform the machine used to cut carpeting in a factory into the first lawnmower in 1830 (coincidentally, the inventor lived in the same English village as my great-great-grandfather).
Greenhouses and conservatories became popular as glass became cheaper, better, and larger. In previous centuries, glass had been expensive to produce, and the average home had small windows (in pre-Revolutionary America, it was a tax issue as well). If you compare a Colonial-era house with one built in the late 19th century, you will be struck not only by the greater size but the number of windows (there were 31 in my last house, which was built in 1906).
The larger homes of the Victorian era along with larger windows fostered the use of plants in interior design, and how plants are used, or even the kinds employed, have changed little in 150 years.
So now we know the why and when. The most important question for us, however, is “how.”
Let me first acknowledge that I am not an indoor gardener, with the greenhouse being the obvious exception. We have grown ficus trees – both acquired from Ikea of all places — in warm, sunny rooms over the years – and amaryllis at Christmas, but curious children and dogs have not made cultivation and, with it, survival, easy.
I have, therefore, gone back into the files to see what others have told me over the years, and this is what I have come up with:
The key to the success of using plants in interior design is the availability of natural light. What you need to understand, however, is that the intensity of the light reaching the plants is reduced significantly by the window glass, and the farther away from this light source a plant is, the chances of survival decline exponentially.
That said, the experts believe that plants can grow almost anywhere, including in-wall planters and bathrooms. Still, you will have to remember to give whatever plant you choose the room to grow. That is why it is important to do complete research when choosing your plants.
Analyze the space you are thinking about greening. Look at the space you are thinking about lighting up. Choose the best spot and go from there.
A lot of gardeners, both indoor and outdoor, tend to overplant the space, and the result is often failure. My rule of thumb is when the seed packet states: “Plant xxx every three inches,” I always add an extra inch. That way you do not have each plant competing for the same light and nutrients.
Every plant has a specific set of requirements for growing. Full sun means just that out of doors, but when growing plants indoors, avoid direct sunlight. Excessive heat can mean that plants that bloom in the summer, for example, may not do so if the temperatures are too high. They may need to be placed in a shadier indoor spot in the heat of the day and then moved back into the light as evening nears.
The plant needs to have enough space to accommodate this shift in location, however slight it might be (now you begin to understand why they are called “PlantMoms.”)
Rather than adding plants to your interior design, some designers suggest designing the room around plants. For example, adding plants along the perimeter of the room can soften the rougher edges.
Plants should complement the background colors of the room as well as those of the furnishings.
Victorians loved exotic plants, so much so that the dwarf palms that graced their parlors are known as “parlor palms.” Unfortunately, they also introduced invasive species that eventually overwhelm native plants or create environmental issues.
For example, Japanese knotweed, introduced in the late 1800s to the United States and Britain, crowds out native species and limits plant and animal diversity.
Earlier, I mentioned spider plants in bathrooms. Many people believe that the warm and humid environment of a bathroom is great for plants, but it often can overwhelm them. One plant that is perfect for the bathroom is the orchid. The asparagus plant, bamboo, the begonia, and the Chinese evergreen are others.
It would certainly help if there was a window in the bathroom, especially for begonias, which need natural light to bloom. This is where thorough research from a variety of sources plays a key role in decision-making.
Water consistently but avoid watering immediately after bringing the plant home to avoid over-watering and getting the plant off to a bad start.
Try not to cluster plants, not only because they might not look right and could start competing for nutrients, but also because some species might foster diseases in others.
And whatever you do, do not introduce plants into your home that are poisonous, especially if you have dogs or small children – neither of whom really understands the word “no.”
One thing I should mention before I close. Plants can reduce stress and anxiety. Some give off oxygen at night that can help you sleep better. They filter the air. They can help fight colds and allergies.
No wonder there has been a boom in #PlantMoms over the last year. Indoor plants seem to be a perfect antidote to the pandemic blues.