FUNCTIONAL USES OF INDOORS PLANTS.

Plants aid in creating a mood when used as a focal point in a room. To create different moods, lighting may be used on such a plant emphasizing it as a centre of interest.

Indoor plants are used as room dividers; when they are placed strategically, they help in creating a feeling of a distinct space, they also reduce the of noise levels in the room.

As you choose plants for use as room dividers; make a good selection. This can only be achieved if you know the characteristics various plants and their forms.

Characteristics of plants are their biological attributes that make them suitable for a particular setting i.e. shades loving plants are suitable for indoors and conversely for light loving plants.

When we consider form; it has to do with their shape, height and other attributes that make the plant suited either for indoors or outdoors.

Large indoor plants, hanging baskets, small potted plants on the shelves are combined in the plant arrangement as you define space in a room.

To achieve attractive plants arrangements; pots chosen should suit the room decoration, be of the correct size, colour and should be in harmony with the form of plant contained in them.

Plants effectively conceal architectural eyesores for example; waste water pipes, cracks in walls, old buildings- they almost go un-noticed when beautiful plants are arranged on or around them.

HOUSE PLANTS: MAKING A CHOICE BASED ON THEIR CHARACTERISTICS.

• House plants should have a capacity to tolerate shade of diverse levels of intensity.
• They should have evergreen foliage so as to retain a permanent decorative texture.
• Leaves should have a beautiful form or shape and colour. Green leaves can be attractive especially, if the shape is unusual or interesting e.g. Monstera deliciosa. Leaves of a different colour other than green are very attractive e.g. Coleus blumei, Caladonium spp, Begonia rex
• Indoor plants should not have a fast growth rate; such a rate would require regular change of the size of the pot.
• They should also have a compact growth habit as space becomes a limiting factor in any house e.g. coleus blumei.

HOUSE PLANTS: THEIR VARIOUS SHAPES.

1. Broad leaved grassy plants

They are the most widely grown of all foliage house plants e.g. chrophytum comosum.

Several growing plants also have grassy leaves of these types e.g. narcissus sp, billbergia nutans.

2. Bushy plants are a vast collection of varieties that do not fit in other groups. The standard pattern is an evergreen plant of several stems, arising from the corm or base with a growth habit that is neither vertical nor horizontal.

They may be small and compact like peperomias or tall and shrubby like aucuba. Some plants are bushy, producing side bushes. Others must be pinched out regularly to induce bushiness e.g. coleus blumei, begonia rex

3. Upright plants bear stems with distinctive vertical growth habit. They vary in height from an inch to the tallest house available.

Medium sized upright plants are essential components in a mixed group of plants since they provide a feeling of height, thus help in offsetting the horizontal effect created by rosette plants, trailing plants and low bushes.

The upright plants are often displayed as solitary specimens serving as effective focal points. e.g. ficus elastica, diffenbachia picta, dracaena sanderana, yucca.

4. Trailing & climbing plants

Trailing plants bear stems that grow parallel to the ground. For them to grow upright they need support; they are left to hang downwards if grown in a hanging basket.

They are used as; climbers trained on canes, strings, vertical poles, trellis walls or grown in wall mounted pots to frame windows and trimmed on stout supports to serve as room dividers.

Trailers spread horizontally thus are ground covers in the indoor garden or the can be left to trail the side of pots of hanging baskets. e.g. philiodenron scadens, hedera helix, scindapsus aureus, sedum marsanianum, hoya carnosa.

5. Rosette plants bear leaves that form a circular cluster around the central growing point.

Most of them are low growing, they combine well with bushy and upright plants in pots and groups in the indoor gardens e.g. sanseveria hahnii, African violet saintpaulia ionatha, aloe humilis.

6. Ball plants are leafless and have a distinct globular shape.

All cacti belong to this group; their stem surface may be smooth or curved with air and spines e.g. echinocactus grusonis and most mammilaria.