Larry Hurley’s Photo Of The Week: Houseplants

Anyone can grow tropical plants indoors, you just need to be aware of the plant’s needs. Some are easier than others. I’ve never been able to successfully grown weeping figs or fiddleleaf figs in the house. They are, after all, large-growing trees that thrive in the tropics in full sun, tolerant of dry soil, and at least the weeping fig can be invasive. I never had proper windows with enough light, and the plants responded by dropping most of their leaves. Every morning a scattering of leaves on the floor, another reminder of failure. Anyway.

Your local garden center can steer you toward the easier plants, and just because they are common, it doesn’t mean that they can’t be eye-catching. The Spider Plan in the photo was in our home in Maryland, at the corner of a south-facing window in the winter where it caught some direct sunlight. In the summer, I had it outdoors in a mostly shaded spot where it got a few hours of sun in the early morning. The tips on the older leaves of Spider Plants will usually turn brown for whatever reason: dry air, dry soil, overfertilization, old age. Don’t obsess. You should just expect to do some trimming or even removal of the oldest leaves. If the air is dry, the plant may lose water from the softer tissue at the tips of the leaves faster than it can replace it, hence the tips dry out and die back. We had an Aprilaire humidifier on the furnace, so the winter air in the house was relatively pleasant. Your plants and sinuses will appreciate that, and no sparks when you walk across the carpet.

Spider Plants send out stems at the ends of which “babies” grow. These can be separated from the mother plant and rooted out.

Going off on a small visual aid tangent: It’s the way your garden perennials grow. Set the Spider Plant on the floor. Imagine that it is a perennial Beebalm or Goldenrod planted in the ground. The stems would grow under the soil and next spring you would have Beebalm or Goldenrod shoots sprouting up from the ends of the stems.