The Indoor Garden

Slipper orchid. Cover photo: fragrant cattleya.

My nose is on strike* – allergies? Dry climate? Ancient mummy curse? Who knows. So today you get a brief (well, brief for me) natter about plants. Specifically, houseplants. If that bores you to tears, no worries, please come back again tomorrow.

I moved some succulents cross-country with me in 2021, and gave everything else to the Maine crew. Succulents are the perfect plants for my sunny, arid climate; I could leave for a week or two and know they’d be fine. But over the past year+ the plant family has grown (pun intended) and, well, I’m here to extol their virtues.

When I wake up in the morning, I wander around with my mister (one of those extended-spray skincare micro-mist bottles which is great for my purposes). I check in on everyone, add a little water as needed, make sure they’re getting the right light, adjust accordingly … I’ve discussed this with Musette. It’s very soothing. Very … healing, dare I say, in these parlous times.

It’ll be another couple of months before I can throw myself into outdoor gardening, find out what survived their first winter, do some pruning and a bit of clean-up, and then enjoy sitting and looking at the results of my labors. But my indoor plants are here for me right now, and it’s a moving meditation, caring for them. When I’m watering and fussing and misting and tidying, I’m thinking about them and nothing else. I can watch them send out new leaves while it’s still snowing outside.

Fragrant brassavola orchid hanging in the kitchen window.

We added some orchids to the menagerie after Carolyn mentioned there’s an orchid greenhouse here in the desert (“… wait, what?!?”) so off we went. Then I found some fun apothecary-style lidded jars in the clearance section of HomeGoods so I’m experimenting with terrarium life, adding small moisture-loving plants that I couldn’t grow otherwise. And of course there’s the impulse buys of plants with interesting, variegated foliage which I can’t resist when I spy them in Home Depot or Trader Joe’s.

I counted the houseplants this weekend, out of curiosity. We’re at seventy-something (I kept losing track.) Is that … a lot? Or not really? We’d have more if we had more room, more light, more windows. Good thing I have a plant-loving housemate so we don’t have to hire a plant-sitter unless we both decide to take a trip. But if I needed to hire a plant-sitter, I absolutely would.

Apothecary jar terrariums, Stenorrhynchos orchid in the small Wardian case, and slipper orchid in background.

What does this have to do with fragrance? Well, not much, except: some of them have fragrant flowers or foliage (e.g., the cattleya orchids, scented geraniums, hoyas), and collectively, they make the house smell different. I’m sure it’s partly the moisture. I have humidifiers running like mad, trying to hit a range of 30-40% humidity indoors rather than 10-15%– but it’s also the plants themselves and their loamy soil. It’s lovely.

So, do you have houseplants? A green thumb, or a black one? A burgeoning collection / addiction to any particular type of houseplant? Or are you quite happily plant-free?

*I’ve pretty much been wearing LUSH’s Chelsea Morning the past couple weeks because it’s easy to live with and I can actually smell it, unlike a lot of other fragrances I’ve been trying to sample.

All photos are mine.