| Jan. 25th, 2009 06:45 pm House plants in the ground Intellectually, I know that most house plants come from wild plants; and that no wild plant originally comes from inside any building. However, I'm still often a bit startled at first to see something I think of as a house plant growing in some garden.
I first observed this after moving to the Chicago area. Most of the time I was growing up, we had geraniums in the house. Over the years we had several different colors, and even had some "lemon" geraniums -- which smell more like lemon than geranium when you rub their leaves. But in Chicago, and I presume elsewhere, geraniums are sold not as house plants, but as outdoor annuals. At first this seemed strange since I knew for a fact that in a house, geraniums could live for several years. But cold weather obviously kills them.
But geraniums as garden annuals is just the start. Now that I live in a sub-tropical Mediterranean climate, I'm seeing more house plants in gardens than I've ever seen before.
Just outside the front door of the house we are renting are two spider or airplane plants, one variegated and one solid. The solid one has just sent out some runners, so there may soon be more.
Airplane plants, or as they are more commonly known: spider plants, were another common house plant growing up. They were usually in hanging pots where their runners could drape artistically below the main pot.
Also, I've seen a number of what I'm sure are snake plants used around here.
One of the house plants that I selected, but my mom took over caring for after a couple of years, was a snake plant. When I bought it, it was a single blade about 6 inches long. That plant, or possibly its descendants still live in my parent's greenhouse porch, but now in a 2.5-3 foot pot and has blades a couple of feet long.
I'm sure if I look around, I'll find other plants that I'm used to thinking of as house plants growing in gardens around here -- and that is without counting some of the larger plants that my mom now has growing in their greenhouse. 4 comments - Leave a comment   |
