Herself's Houseplants

This is not a plant I’ve grown indoors myself but I ran across an interesting news story and it caught my interest.

Primrose has been grown by English indoor gardeners since 1908 when a missionary found it growing wild in a rice paddy and brought the plant back with him.

Today primrose flowers can be found in thousands of colors and combinations of colors. It is an easy to grow plant indoors. Give it a bright, drafty window and water when the top of the soil is dry about a half inch down. Do not get water on the leaves, water from the bottom, water can spot the leaves if it is too cold.

Dead head primrose to keep it blooming frequently. To dead head a plant remove the flowers and stalks with no more blooms coming as soon as they begin to fade.

If your primrose is not blooming, give it more light.

Watch for mealy bugs.

Thanks for the photo!

Golden Hawaiian bamboo

I have this dining room – living room – front entry way that all connect and have 18′ ceilings. I’ve been trying to figure out what to plant in the entry way that would not get totally lost and decided to try bamboo.

This plant is a new acquisition, so I may re-write some information here over time. Right now I’m relying on book and internet sources.

I chose this bamboo because it was cheap. My experience has been that when plants are cheap it is because they are easy to grow and fast growing. So I hoped that would mean it would adapt to indoor living easily. Many bamboo sellers say it will do well potted indoors.

I should also have checked light conditions. This bamboo likes lots of light so may not do well inside. If you have not yet chosen a bamboo for indoors pick one that is both cheap ( easy to grow and fast growing ) and shade loving.

Outdoors in the sun it will grow 55′ tall with 4″ culms. In a pot ( 25 gallon is the recommended size ) indoors it should max out at 15′ or so if it gets lots of sun. If it gets too tall you can just top it off.

This bamboo wants to be in a sunny window, and watered frequently. While you can not over water a bamboo, do not leave it sitting in water. It prefers acidic water so add a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar per gallon of water for watering.

When you first bring bamboo home it will drop about half its leaves. Do not panic. This is normal.

Bamboo will want to be re-potted once a year or so. Otherwise should require little care.

As a general rule the larger the leaves are on a bamboo the less light it needs and the better it will do as an indoor plant.

In general bamboo drops its leaves when too wet indoors, and the leaves curl when too dry.

See also:
Choosing plants for decoration