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With Christmas finally put away, I moved all my house plants and some of the plants I'm wintering over around in the house to get the best light.
Our house is really made for plants. With the outdoor temps now hovering at 5-10 degrees and worse windchills here in Chicagoland, saving some plants inside is GREEN and cost effective. This is an Hibiscus with orange flowers I severely cut back and stuffed in a pot and brought it in the house, late in November. I knew it had been nipped by frost so the cut back was necessary. Hibiscus have quite woody stems, so I crossed my fingers.
We are getting new growth now.
The top four leaves and the nubs are all new...Yay! They aren't horribly expensive, but definitely not cheap.
This grass was from our pond grass. Very few garden centers had water plants this year, but I was told this was for both water or dirt. I don't remember the name as I split the pot into four chunks. Now, it's doing very well in the planter, and is thick and deliciously green.
This is a very old plant---I sacrificed and only brought in a couple of pieces to restart. It is actually my mom's plant from my grandmother's funeral from early 1990's. It crawled through my mom's kitchen curtains and actually attached to the wall---it was that vigorous. It hasn't done that well since I cut it back this year. I will fertilize now and see if it gets some new growth. It has very leathery leaves from being outside. The very hot temperatures this summer were hard on many plants.
My herbs have been cut back pretty heavily from use. I've never had much luck with basil inside, but the Thyme is doing well. So nice to have tasty fresh herbs in the kitchen in winter.
We had a pig roast in September, Thanksgiving in November, and Christmas where I used almost all my Rosemary. Hopefully it will re-sprout when I fertilize.
My one year-old Christmas Cactus, bloomed the week of Christmas. We had a dozen large blooms or so. It really was pretty. I'm going to put it in a big pot in Spring and fertilize then.
This is from some cuttings on my Purple Heart plant I have in the bedroom. I'm doing the cuttings for a friend, and it is on the kitchen table. Our kitchen gets lots of light and in a month we will be starting seedlings and all these plants will end up in the living room. I change the water often because we have iron laden well water. Very hearty and healthy, but prone to iron 'bloom' in sitting water.
This gnome is going to the garden, it's an adorable gnome on a Corgi, my friend painted for me. He looks great as a kitchen decor item. I'm not totally ready to give up my 'Winter' gnomes, and they are sprinkled about the kitchen.
In the bedroom I have two Mandila hanging from the ceiling. All the plants will get fertilized later in the month when there is more light coming in. Try not to fertilize plants when they are stressed. We did very little fertilizing last summer because plants were barely able to maintain the leaves they had---or grow new ones.
One of the hanging pots also has a Sweet Potato Vine. It's usually much darker burgundy, but with limited light, it has stayed lighter. I covered the pots with some gift bags in blue to blend nicely in our blue bedroom. This is a southern exposure, but lots of trees block the afternoon sun...so I supplement with grow lights.
Here's a Philodendron and a huge Ivy Topiary-'Tomato Cage Tree' that went bonkers last summer, and is still growing fiercely in the house. It's really huge and full now and was lovely with little seed lights on in the extra bedroom for the holidays. The pot has grown very light in weight, the ivy has basically 'eaten' the dirt. I will have to transplant again, and I will do a light fertilizing once a month to help replace the nutrients lost from the disappearing soil.
How to make an Ivy Topiary Tree, HERE.
While it was there, I had this grow light on it and another lamp on all night long.
This is the light I use in the blue bedroom to help on cloudy days. They are temporary and rubber covered handles which don't harm the wood cornices.
The lowest pot on my shelf is the shade loving Rex Begonia. The scraggly green is a New Guinea Impatiens, I'm going to try and make cuttings and see if I can propagate a few plants when we do our seedlings.
This plant is a form of 'Purple Heart Plant' or Tradescantia. It gets very purple with lots of light...you can see it struggling here (North side) under the lamp. As soon as the Christmas Tree is packed up (IT TAKES DAYS) to pack it up and wrap all those ornaments, and everything else is down, I'll move it to the living room. anyway, it keeps growing.
PLANTS improve the air quality in your home. They basically remove toxins from your environment. Not to mention, anything Green is always a mood lifter during the winter months.
Plants I no longer bring inside:
Springerii (Asparagus Fern)inexpensive and too messy.
Spider Plants (you can always get a spider plant free from someone)
Rubber plant (Too big, I gave them to my d-in-law)
Dracena (they just get too big for my small home)
Spike plants (inexpensive and take up too much room)
How are your plants doing this Winter?
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