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Your support makes all the difference.HOUSEBOUND gardeners have to be realistic before indulging in dreams of a bower indoors. If you are out at work all day and spend a lot of time away, it is not sensible to spend money on plants that need constant attention; greenery may only be possible if you settle for the 'Indestructible' list below. Those who like fiddling about with growing things can be more adventurous.
Gardeners manques who are prepared to devote time to taking cuttings and picking off dead leaves will want planting schemes that suggest out of doors. If you find the green tips of five crocuses in a pot more exciting than a 6ft rubber plant, consult the list headed 'Hard Work'.
There is a third course of action which is rather extravagant. Plants on the Hard Work list that are marked 'E' offer a wonderful display but only last indoors from three to six weeks. After that, you either throw them away or you have to give them a period of intensive care in a greenhouse or outside.
Most plants secretly like a spell in the fresh air in the summer months and even the 'indestructibles', like begonias and the unstoppable cheese and rubber plants, are transformed by this treatment. If they can sit on a windowsill or on the steps outside the door, they will show their gratitude by looking healthier than you ever imagined was possible.
The other consideration which will govern the choice of plants for the house is the amount of light and heat available. On sunny windowsills, cottage favourites like geraniums will be happy, and in bathrooms and kitchens where it is steamy, ferns feel at home. Change these around and they will probably die. Plants that can cope with dry conditions in nature, such as cacti, will be better in hot rooms than those that enjoy cool places - such as primroses. You can keep a primrose in a hot room if you spray it with a mist every day, but it will not be happy and its leaves will brown and shrivel in the end, while a cactus could enjoy a centrally heated sitting room for years.
Houseplants come well labelled these days, so it is not difficult to discover their preferences, but it is a good idea to buy a plant from an environment that has something in common with where you will put it. The cyclamen, brought from the greenhouse where it has been grown to a cold market stall, will probably have suffered a trauma from which it may not recover when you bring it home to its final resting place.
If you are buying plants it is also important to check that when you ruffle their leaves clouds of whitefly do not rise to the air. Look too, under the leaves for little brown scales on citrus fruit. Taking diseases home will not only shorten the life of the new plant but will threaten those of other residents.
The best chance you can give to any plant struggling against difficult conditions is to treat it kindly. Talking to plants as you water and feed them may sound silly, but there is strong evidence to suggest that growing things will respond.
INDESTRUCTIBLES
Indirect light
Begonia rex
Crassula arborescens
Ficus robusta
Howeia fosteriana
Sparmannia africana
HARD WORK
Indirect light
All bulbs (E)
Abutilon (E)
Clivia (E)
Jasminum polyanthum (E)
Direct light
Azaleas (E)
Cyclamen (E)
Francoa sonchifolia
Genista fragrans (E)
Myrtus communis (clipped)
Pelargoniums
Plumbago capensis
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