Even though it may seem unusual at first glance, there is a fashion trend at work in buying plants and this fashion, as in the case of clothing, is changing in time.
Some plants are “fashionableâ€, and stay in the top of our preferences, and this happens both in the case of apartment plants and of those from the section of garden flowers.
The way we choose plants for our apartments or gardens take more than looking at the offers at the local garden store and it is always influenced by our preferences mixed with whatever we read in a magazine.
My preferences for example change from year to year, and they are the ones that cause, after all, the enrichment of my indoor garden – the little greenhouse I have inside my burlesque apartment.
If I stop and remember how I started to build this little greenhouse in the first years of my first job after graduating, (and here I would have to consider that it was built on the foundation of exchanging baby plants with my colleagues and friends) I would have to say it was a refreshing and enjoyable experience.
I remember that the inside of my kitchen, bedroom, office, hallway and all kinds of spaces that could accommodate my plants, were jammed in large pots a fichus, geranium plants, and sometimes, a mother-in-law tongue cactus and of course all kinds of water plants next to my Parma violets.
If I think for a bit what the feature that connected all of them was, that all were resistant to cold and that was then a very important feature because the heat during winter in my little apartment, through those young years, was quite inexistent.
I remember a cactus that my mom brought me as a gift, and it is still alive in my greenhouse 20 years later, that has survived all of my movements and changes of scenery only because it was used to the usual low temperatures during the winter as well as with a period of rest I gave it during the cold season which concluded every summer offering me a large number of flowers.
If I think hard I can describe every flower that I ever had in my little apartment garden. Inside my house grew ferns, cyclamens (cyclamens flowers that I saw sometimes sold in bouquets), a bonsai which was a luxury item; I has cinerary, aspidistra (iron plant – that I could do a lot of stuff with and as I recall it was quite unpleasant but however I kept it because of its resilience).
I had palm trees (but not very sophisticated), some fat plants, some Japanese roses (with the red, simple flowers), and I shouldn’t forget, the classic “priest’s ropeâ€, which was spread all over my kitchen.
As my social status changed over the year and I moved to a larger apartment, my old indoor garden improved with a variety of plants offered by flower shops.
Inside my dwelling appeared all kinds of “sophisticated†plants like dieffenbachia, Spatiphilium, and several other plants, especially cultivated for this kind of apartment gardens.
Now my little green space covers one corner of living room, making it shine, and every evening when I come home, a look at my plants gives me energy and the power to smile at the thought that not only the fortunate ones, having a house with a garden can have the opportunity to enjoy the beauty of a peaceful piece of green heaven.
