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Old 01-11-2003, 11:55 PM
Bry Bry is offline
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First recorded activity by GardenBanter: Sep 2003
Posts: 51
Default Frugal silk plants? Or real house plants?

I have quite a few plants now, so I'll quickly list some and how easy I've found them to grow.

A 4 foot Chinese fan palm in the conservatory: It's not a fast grower, so be prepaired to wait or buy a bigger plant, but it is very elegant and likes bright direct light. So far, it's proven to be very tough.

A 7 foot Kentia palm in the hallway: This does grow fast, so buy a smaller one for less and grow it to save some cash. It seems to like indirect light from several angles, so double aspect rooms are perfect. It will grow towards the light sources, but unlike most plants it looks equally good from behind, so you don't need to rotate it.

A 5 foot yucca in the bathroom: It's tough, grows fairly fast and seems to like the humidity, I'd highly recomend it for a bathroom that can spare the space for one.

Several larger peace lillys: All of mine are in suprisingly dark corners that get indirect light at best, places little else could grow. I find they take an attractive shape in corners and even grow quite fast. Ignoring them (aside from a little watering) is the best way to make them thrive...

Potted ivy on top of several fireplaces: I like to pot a long thin tub with small leaved varigated ivy and put it in the middle of a mantle where it cascades down. Ivy is verging on immortal from my experience, little can kill it, not even drought or dousing with roundup entirely stops it! The only thing I do is clip the ivy to the desired length once in a while, and feed if I'm feeling generous and have time to spare.

A 6 foot rubber plant: This grows at an excellent rate given plenty of sunlight, I highly recomend it for people who don't like to fuss over plants.

Anyway, that's a good starting list of very different plant types which seem to grow with minimal care. And the link you asked for is:

http://www.plantpal.co.uk/

It does say two weeks between watering, but I only water once a month and the plants seem to survive nicely. Although some larger plants do have two in each pot and many smaller plants are in bigger pots to accomodate the watering device. I've also mulched the tops of the pots to concerve water, and I use plastic pots inside the decorative ones as ceramics allow water to evaporate faster.