House Plants

As the weather gets warmer, I spend more time in the house, at least during the hottest part of the day.  At one time I had lots of indoor plants to keep me company.  I started collecting them when I was in high school, although my collection didn't explode until my future husband and I got our own apartment in West Los Angeles.  He built a floor to ceiling set of shelves to hold plants for me.  Unfortunately, I've no photos of it, or my former plant collection.  When we bought our first house after we'd both completed graduate school and were working full-time, the plant shelf unit was retired and I spread the plants I had throughout the house.  With the house I finally got my own garden and that shifted my attention to outdoor plants.  It was a tiny garden but, given that I was a certified (or certifiable) workaholic, it gave me a sufficient outlet for my growing plant addiction.  When we moved again two decades later, several months after I retired, we got a house roughly the size of our former townhouse sitting on a half acre lot, which is large by local standards.  At that point, my focus shifted almost exclusively to outdoor plants.

As as my house plant collection shrunk, I began cutting more flowers to bring inside than I ever had before.  

I featured this arrangement in my last In a Vase on Monday post but, since then, the second Lilium 'Pretty Woman' opened.  I usually have at least 3 fresh flower/foliage arrangements in the house each week.

Still, during the brutal peak of summer I wish I had a more robust collection of indoor plants.  I'll never have a collection anything like those compiled by many of the hard core house plant influencers but our home interior could certainly use a little more green.

Here's a look at my current, rather paltry, indoor plant collection.

The ever reliable Chinese evergreen (Aglaonema commutatum) on the fireplace hearth in the main bedroom

Velvet Calathea (Calathea 'Rufibarba') in the laundry room

A large spider plant (Chlorophytum comosum), also in the laundry room

Song of India (Dracaena reflexa) and neon pothos (Epipremnum 'Aureum') in the front entry

Another pothos in the main bathroom

Variegated Peperomia (Peperomia obustifolia) in my home office

Peperomia obustifolia 'Golden Gate' on the buffet cabinet in the dining room

My current favorite house plant, Philodendron 'Birkin', in the living room

Another Philodendron 'Birkin' and Fatsia japonica in a basket in the bedroom

My largest and possibly oldest indoor plant, Schefflera arboricola, in the front entry

A variegated peace lily (Spathiphyllum 'Domino') on a bedroom dresser

A dried arrangement of plant material from the garden on the living room mantle.  The contents include bunny tail grass (Lagurus ovatus), Cape rush (Chrondropetalum elephantinum), and seedheads of a South African lily (Aristea inaequalis).

Maybe I'll add a couple of large house plants during the course of our interminably long summer.  Do you have any favorite houseplants you can recommend?

 

All material © 2012-2022 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

Road Trip: Carpinteria

A friend and I made our annual road trip north to Carpinteria this weekend to visit 2 nurseries we like.  Carpinteria is mid-way between Ventura and Santa Barbara.  It took me a little over an hour in light weekend traffic to get to my friend's house and, once there, we had close to a 90-minute drive to get to Carpinteria.  When we arrived it was nearly noon so I'm afraid my photos are sun-bleached.

Our first stop was Seaside Nursery.  This is a no frills nursery focused on California-friendly plants.  A large portion of the property is dedicated to demonstration gardens, segmented into sections focusing on California natives, succulents, South African plants, Mediterranean plants, Australian plants, and Asian plants.

California poppies dominated the native garden section.

Eschscholzia californica

California poppies backed by Lupinus chamissionis

Dry creek bed and bridge leading to poppy field

There was a lot in bloom in the succulent garden as well.

An explosion of Aeonium

The Asian section was subdued, as one might expect.  The last time we visited the water lilies were in full bloom but we were too early for that this time.

Creek with bamboo and thirsty Gunnera

There were several metal goats munching on plants in front of the main nursery.

Succulent-eating goat

After we finished our rounds of the demonstration gardens, we toured the nursery area.  My friend didn't buy anything.  I didn't need anything but that seldom stops me from buying plants.  Among other things, I picked up several succulents (all, sadly, unlabeled), a California native bush lupine (Lupinus chamissionis, shown backing the poppies in the 2nd picture of this post), and some coyote mint (Monardella villosa).

After a lunch break, we went on down the road to Island View Nursery.  This nursery has changed its focus within the last couple of years.  It formerly offered a wide range of both outdoor and indoor plants but the stock of landscape plants has been dramatically reduced and the open area previously used to display shrubs and perennials is now used to display stone.  The nursery still has giant metal sculptures on display, though.

Tyrannosaurus rex and baby

Giraffe

Camel and horse

The nursery's focus now clearly appears to be on its indoor plant selections.

Bromeliads and palms

Orchids

Houseplants

Small succulents

Although the selection was vast, few prices were posted and, if there were any baskets or carts to carry a shopper's selections, I couldn't find them.  I'm not sure who they're catering to but the nursery  wasn't set up for the casual shopper.  Nonetheless, I did manage to pick up a few more succulents and a couple of ferns.

We stopped at Sperling Nursery in Calabasas on our way home, one of my favorite haunts.  I didn't take any pictures there but I've posted some before, which you can see here.  I really didn't need any more plants but I still picked up 2 succulents.  Hey, I had a 20% off coupon I couldn't just let expire!