WHEN I was asked to pick my very favourite houseplants for National Houseplant Week 2021, I thought it would be easy, writes Jack Ogg. But there is such a great selection available for the amateur indoor gardener today that narrowing them all down to just five proved more difficult than I’d imagined.
Still, here are five of my all-time personal favourites…
1) The Golden Barrel Cactus (Echinocactus grusonii)
As part of my job as senior gardener at York Gate Garden in Yorkshire, I look after a ‘cactus and succulent house’ which is filled with lots of weird and wonderful arid-loving plants. But if I could only grow one xerophyte all year round, it would have to be Echinocactus grusonii.
This cactus is endemic to rocky volcanic slopes in Mexico, which gives a good clue as to where it is happiest when in the home. Give it a south-facing sunny window, and be sparing with water (I don’t water mine at all through the winter months), and you will have a happy houseplant.
A word of caution: Echinocactus bares hundreds of inch-long needle-sharp spines. I can’t possibly imagine how it gets its common name of mother-in-law’s cushion.
Pros: It won’t mind if you forget to water it for a few weeks.
Cons: Very sharp spines.
2) Moth orchid (Phalaenopsis)
Phalaenopsis orchids have become increasingly popular in recent years due to their ease of care and their lengthy flowering period. Why buy your significant other a bunch of flowers that likely won’t last a week when, for the same price, you could buy a moth orchid whose flowers could last up to a month?
Phalaenopsis come from a wide area of tropical Asia, primarily the Philippines and Indonesia, where they grow as epiphytes (meaning they grow on other plants) high in the tree canopy.
As they originate from jungle conditions, you’d be forgiven for thinking these orchids need high humidity, but modern breeding has actually made these colourful plants highly tolerant of shady spots in the house.
From my experience, they seem to most enjoy the bathroom, although whether it’s the extra humidity from my wife’s showers or the soothing whale-song music and scented candles from my long hot baths, I’m not sure…
The one thing that is a death sentence for these plants is wet feet. I take my plants to the kitchen sink once a week, give them a good drink, and then leave them on the side to drain before returning them to their chosen spot.
Pros: Cheap, wide variety of colours and long flowering.
Cons: Phals need a long rest period before re-flowering.
3) Air plants (Tillandsia)
If you worry about over-watering the compost of your chosen plants, or maybe you’re kept awake at night with nightmares of spilling the dark stuff on your immaculate new cream rug, then Tillandsia – or air plants – might just be the houseplants for you.
As the name suggests, these plants grow without any soil, with their leaves acting as miniature sponges soaking up all the water they need.
Tillandsia are bromeliads in the same family as pineapples. They grow on the bark of trees – and sometimes even on telephone lines. On a family holiday to Disneyland Florida a few years ago, I spent more time staring up into trees at all the wonderful air plants then I did watching Mickey Mouse.
You can find Tillandsia for sale glued to bits of driftwood or sea shells, but I prefer to have my plants just hanging from wires in a sunny window.
I often grow them just for their wonderful silvery colour and their lovely architectural shapes, but they also often produce brilliant-blue flowers as an added bonus, and some species have wonderful perfume to boot!
Some gardeners recommend soaking Tillandsia in water once a week, but I prefer to give them a good misting with a 99p hand-held sprayer.
Pros: No compost needed, scented flowers.
Cons: Slow growing.
4) Christmas/Easter cactus (Schlumbergera)
As the name suggests, this plant is in the cactus family, but that’s where the similarities end. Schlumbergera grow on trees and on rocks in shaded forests in Brazil and they have long, spineless, segmented stems.
In the winter, the tip of every stem bears up to three long, brightly coloured tubular flowers. In their native home, they are pollinated by hummingbirds, while several different colour forms are available: red, white, pink, purple and, most recently, an orange variety.
Christmas cactus can be very long-lived – my auntie had one that lived for over 40 years and measured almost a metre across!
A shady window is their preferred spot in the house. They are very forgiving as houseplants and like to dry out between watering, so I water mine every two weeks and I’m always very careful to never over-water.
One very important rule is that, when your cactus starts making its flower buds, you must not move its position in the house or they can abort all the forming flowers.
Pros: Beautiful, large, colourful flowers.
Cons: Can’t be moved when in bud.
5) Swiss cheese plant (Monstera deliciosa)
My personal favourite indoor gem and, in my opinion, the queen of all the house plants: Monstera deliciosa. The name literally means monstrous (Monstera) and delicious (deliciosa) and it is so called for the delicious fruits it makes in its native tropical forests of Mexico. Apparently it tastes like just about every single other fruit combined, hence its less common name of the ‘fruit salad plant’. Sadly, I’ve never been lucky enough to try one for myself.
The Swiss cheese plant is a large climbing plant which is normally grown up a moss pole, with the plant using its large, thick aerial roots to cling on. Monstera has huge heart-shaped leaves with different-sized holes all over the surface. I have read differing reasons as to why it has these holes. Some say it is to stop its giant leaves from being torn apart by tropical heavy rainstorms.
My favourite theory is that Monstera makes a very large leaf in order to shade out its competitors and to gather as much light as possible without going to the effort of making an entirely solid leaf. Whatever the reasons, this hardy, adaptable, shade-tolerant plant is making an understandable comeback. It is, thankfully, no longer relegated to 1960s avocado bathrooms.
Pros: Grows well in shady rooms, forgiving of neglect.
Cons: None. What’s not to love?
* For more on Jack, visit his page on Instagram: @jackogggarden
