Garden Plot: Variety of indoor plants can spruce up the home

My garden isn’t heavy on flowers, especially in the winter months. One of the things I missed most during the pandemic was having fresh flowers in the house. I wasn’t comfortable having someone select my flowers for me, so I went without. My son sent me six monthly flower deliveries, which were nice but somewhat monotonous with the same tropical foliage and a few flowers.

Houseplants can substitute for flowers and sometimes they’ll rebloom, a nice added benefit. Potted orchids are long-lasting flowers, and Phalaenopsis are the easiest to get to re-bloom. I cut the flowering shoots down to the last node or two, put them where they get good light but not all-day blazing sun, water them every week or so and wait. In a few months, they’ll send up new shoots followed by the blooms, which will last so long you’ll be sick of them by the time they finish their two-to-six-month cycle. Some of mine look as good as new ones, which have been coddled and fertilized in a greenhouse set to just the right temperature and humidity.

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