Colorful house plants

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Flowering plants in a kaleidoscope of hues can be the exclamation point in rooms that are furnished largely with neutral tones. And nothing’s a more effective color cure in the winter months than a window garden full of bright, blooming house plants. Some—like poinsettias, azaleas, and cyclamen plants—must be bought from the florist unless you have a home greenhouse. They’ll keep considerably longer than most cut (lowers, but can’t last forever. Others—such as African-violets and the ever blooming begonias—will thrive through all twelve months of the year under average home conditions. Also, you can force your own crop of spring-flowering bulbs for a succession of colorful bloom indoors.

Combine Colorful house plants and flowering plants

An easy way to extend the impressiveness of a few flowering plants is to combine them with your faithful foliage performers. Two or three pots of bloom will bulk twice as large in a nest of handsome green. The grouping across the page is a good example of how you can stretch the effect with foliage. Pink cyclamen, yellow and white azaleas, and red poinsettia are the only plants bought as seasonal accents. In combination with pink and purple African-violets, several varieties of foliage begonias and other year-round foliage plants, they look like twice as many. Check individual requirements for light, water, and warmth to be sure the plants you want to combine will stay healthy and good-looking in home location you’ve chosen for a window garden.

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If you like the dramatic emphasis that a living plant in bloom gives to a decorating scheme, plan ahead for it! Of course, you can buy beautiful seasonal flowering plants from your florist, and some can’t be grown successfully except under greenhouse conditions. But there are many varieties which you can grow yourself. In fall, you can lift and pot the late-blooming garden plants—chrysanthemums, for example—and bring them into the house to be enjoyed after frost. When faded, replace in garden if soil’s not frozen. Otherwise, tie plastic bag around pot, store in cool, dark spot until spring. Also in fall, you can plant spring bulbs in pots, sink them outdoors, and bring them inside for brilliant color accents long before the garden varieties have pushed their way through the winter-bound earth.