Plants for the House & Garden: Bridging Indoors & Outdoors for Year-Round Enjoyment

House and Garden Relationships

Rigid indoor/outdoor divisions are unnecessary barriers to contemporary living — even in old houses. Garden furniture often needs indoor storage, but permanent seats in key spots (kitchen door, vegetable plot, flower bed) integrate garden into daily life. "Too busy gardening to sit in the garden" suggests misplaced motives.

We garden to embellish home, enjoy plants, harvest better-tasting food, support household economics, exercise enjoyably, and connect with the living earth.

Bringing the Garden In

Greenhouses are controlled plant environments; houses are "machines for living" (Le Corbusier). Paradoxically, plants humanize and soften interiors. Houses, sheds, greenhouses can grow plants impossible outdoors — bridging the divide.

"House plants" conventionally means tropical forest-floor species adapted to low light (light = energy for metabolism). Many survive adequate temperatures. Better: group complementary species in a jardinière (any container) — luxuriant foliage creates mutual benefit. Hydroculture makes this near-foolproof. But few flower.

Flowering Bridge: Bulbs & Shrubs

Bulbs in pots/bowls each autumn — often abused when hyacinths flower at base of 45 cm leaves or daffodils abort. Usually unjustified — failure = bad cultivation. Garden helps: except "prepared" bulbs (artificially broken dormancy), all need long root development before shoot growth. Best method: plunge pots (drainage essential) in coarse sand/weathered ashes in shady outdoor spot, however cold. Check for ~5 cm top growth supported by pot-full of roots.

Heated greenhouse = seasonal fine plants indoors. Cold greenhouse/lean-to? Underrated. Winter temps (except coldest areas) support nearly/fully hardy plants for house use. Pot wallflowers, Brompton stocks, polyanthus in September. Small alpine bulbs (early outdoor blooms spoil) — scent at nose level amazing (dwarf iris perfumes alone could fill a treatise). Post-season, plant outdoors to bulk garden (except Iris danfordiae — doesn't rebuild flowering bulbs). Try tender bulbs: lachenalias, veltheimia.

Larger scale: half-dozen early-flowering shrubs in pots plunged by shed/veg garden — Viburnum × burkwoodii, Forsythia ovata, Deutzia gracilis, small laburnum. Occasional feeds build buds. Bring indoors late winter = exotic burst.

Reverse pattern: buy flowering shrub for house (azalea, Cytisus racemosus), post-flowering neglect kills it. Immediate plunging in shelter prevents this (post-frost — indoor soft foliage = next year's flower risk). Azaleas need lime-free water — limy soil gardeners: grow rhododendrons/camellias for house this way to bypass calcifuge barrier.

Summer Luxury: Tender Exotics Outdoors

House protection supplies tender exotics for summer terrace — agapanthus, fuchsias, angel's trumpet (Datura suaveolens) = luxury. Traditionally overwinter under glass; light shed/spare bedroom works. Withhold water gradually late autumn, bring under cover at hard frost (light frost OK, ideally out till late Nov). Reduce woody shoots. Keep barely moist, suspended animation till gentle spraying end of March.

This interaction maintains plant interest in both places. Neither should be typecast — that breeds convention and boredom.