Calamondin Orange (Citrus mitis) is a fun plant to grow, and it will be happy in a south-facing window. This tropical will return to Ben’s household plant collection to encourage his son Peter’s curiosity about flowering and fruiting plants. The “toddler-sized” oranges (smaller than a golf ball) are seriously sour, though the small white flowers have a sweet enough scent to make up for it. Note that Calamondin orange trees that are grown indoors will need to be hand-pollinated to trigger fruit production.
The Phalaenopsis Orchid (Phalaenopsis spp.) is a long-blooming, easy-care, beautiful addition to every
indoor garden. In a household with limited table or shelf space, orchids lend themselves well to being suspended on walls or in baskets, like how they attached themselves to tree branches in the wild. As epiphytes, orchids do not require soil to absorb water and nutrients. In the wild, roughly 70% of orchids grow on trees or rocks, which can be creatively mimicked in the home. Absent a growing medium, hanging orchids require watering at least every other day by misting or running under a stream of water. Dunk into a container of diluted fertilizer weekly during growth periods.
Peace Lily, also known as White Flag (Spathaphyllum) produces an abundance of deep green foliage, tolerates our dry indoor air this time of year and thrives out of doors in indirect light all summer. It produces an attractive, long white “spath,” which many people mistake for a flower, but it is a bract that surrounds the flower. The colour lasts for many weeks. Indoors place in low to high light: it is tolerant of both. This tropical is an excellent low-cost “bang for your buck” as it’s also insect-resistant and generally low-maintenance
Fiddle Leaf Fig (Ficus lyrate) is a trendy favourite, and for good reasons: It’s easy to find at most garden and plant shops, easy to grow, tolerates low to high light, thrives out of doors all summer in indirect light and produces an abundance of large, fiddle-shaped leaves. It grows vertically, making it perfect for filling in a corner in almost any room, except maybe your basement, away from a window.
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Mark Cullen is an expert gardener, author, broadcaster and tree advocate
and holds the Order of Canada. His son, Ben, is a fourth-generation
urban gardener and a graduate of the University of Guelph and Dalhousie
University in Halifax. Follow them at markcullen.com, @MarkCullen4
(Twitter) and @markcullengardening (Facebook) and look for their latest book, Escape to Reality.
Follow them at markcullen.com, @MarkCullen4, facebook.com/markcullengardening and biweekly on Global TV’s national morning show, The Morning Show.
