The Four Surprising Physical Benefits of House Plants
It’s January and we’re spending lots of time indoors. That means artificial heat, little daylight, and more inhalation of polluted air that contains volatile organic compounds. The first two conditions lead to drier skin and lowered immunity against diseases like colds and the flu. The third, inhalation of VOCs, can lead to respiratory issues, headaches, dizziness, hormone disruption, and even organ damage and cancer. VOCs are nasty. They’re the toxic fumes and dust emitted via gases from furniture, carpets, paint, and plastics. We can’t see or smell them. They’re barely…
How to Make a Mandevilla Thrive Indoors
One morning this last fall, my friend Angela called to say she had some orphaned plants she wanted me to have because they needed a good home. You may remember Angela’s a dear friend who’s a container designer and regularly switches out arrangements for clients. In this particular instance, she’d redesigned some summer pots for fall and had a bunch of leftover babies. Before I could blink, she was pulling into my driveway with a miscellaneous collection of pots and paper bags. The goodies contained bromeliads, crotons, a spider plant,…
5 Tips for Growing a Successful Variegated African Violet
If you’ve followed this blog at all, you probably know that I’m charmed by African Violets (Saintpaulia). I mean, I did write a whole novel about a magical one! That’s because I adore everything about these little guys. I love their fuzzy leaves. I love how they grow in almost perfect, rounded whorls, and I love their cheery upright flowers. The colors vary from purple to magenta to pink to yellow, white, and so on. And the flower forms range from single to double to fringed to striped and more.…
A Little Problem Solved with a Peace Lily Plant
In Spring several years ago, we adopted a big black dog. He was a Belgian Shepherd mix about six months old with pointy ears and a pointy nose, the largest dog my husband and I had ever owned. I’m 5’6” and he came up to my mid-thigh. Since all of our dogs have had or have names that start with vowels, Arrow, Iris, Olive, we named him Ezekiel. With a brassy bark and sharp brown eyes, he looked more like a Zeke so we started calling him Zeke. Zeke liked…
