Decorating Your Home
Whether your home is simple or formal, modern or conventional, house plants, like flowers, contribute greatly to its decor. To achieve a dramatic effect with plants requires definite planning, and the success with plants and the picture to be created depends upon choosing the right plants for the right places.
Many of the same principles which govern outdoor gardening apply indoors as well. You would not think of growing most flowering plants in your garden without sufficient sun. The same is true indoors. Therefore, your sunniest windows must be reserved for flowering plants and vines.
On the other hand, if your windows face north and east, there are many interesting foliage plants and vines which will thrive there. It also means that such plants will do well on coffee tables, room dividers, mantels and in fact wherever there is light, though not direct sunlight. A spindly, sickly plant can never be decorative.
The second important point to consider is color. Here again the indoor garden can be compared to gardening outdoors. If you have a flower border, with various kinds of plants, there is never enough of one kind in bloom at the same time to present a colorful picture. This is even more important indoors. A sunny window containing one red geranium, one yellow calla lily, one pink begonia, one blue browallia, one salmon patience plant and one white-flowering maple can never give a feeling of unity no matter how beautiful each individual plant may be. In contrast, an entire window filled with plants of one kind or of tints and tones of the same color will produce a dramatic effect.
There is a charming example of unified planting in a formal traditional house in Connecticut, which has a large bay window that was planted completely with various kinds of flowering begonias. The window is above a radiator, which is covered with asbestos, on which is a huge copper tray filled with pebbles and water. Thus the plants which rest on the pebbles receive the needed humidity. A wooden panel covers the edge so that only a mass of plants is visible.
In a modern home, I recently saw plumbago, with its sky-blue flowers, used in a fascinating manner. A large modern kitchen had a plant divider between the working area and the children’s dining area. This divider contained numerous plants of plumbago, whose flower repeated the same pale blue of the silestone countertops. Plumbago is a rampant grower, which can be trained as a vine or clipped to form a shrubby plant. It was a wise choice for this kitchen as it blooms intermittently all winter.
At a friend’s house on a snowy February day I was impressed by a display of salmon-colored patience plants grouped en masse on a white wire plant stand. Against that wintry background they presented a gay splash of color. A mixed collection of various colors could never be as striking. Another interesting window I know extends the entire length of a library. Featured are bromeliads, with the graceful Queen’s tears (Billbergia nutans) predominating.
Those who live in modern houses, with vast expanses of glass, have unlimited opportunities for a really spectacular display. Picture a passion vine, with its lobed foliage and enchanting mauve flowers, four inches across, planted at’ either end of a long window. A fine wire placed up the sides and across the window will provide support for the tendrils. Passion vine is a vigorous grower and flowers intermittently all winter.
Another attractive vine to use in the same manner at a sunny window is the cup-and-saucer vine (Cobaea scandens). This, too, is a rapid grower and comes easily from seed. The seeds, about the size of a dime, are inserted edgewise, otherwise they will rot. Plant one seed to a five-inch pot. Even without its beautiful blue or white blooms, resembling those of canterbury bells, this vine, with its dainty foliage, forms a graceful frame for any window.
Discover 100’s of Topics - 1000’s of Articles at Plant-Care.com for example:
