Growing plants is an excellent way to stylize your home. With houseplants, you can achieve a greener space that you and your family can enjoy! In choosing from a wide variety of plants, make sure to pick those that you can grow beautifully given the amount of time you can use to care for them, plus your gardening skills. While Zanzibar plant, Pothos, Snake Plants and Peace Lilies are great beginner houseplants, you might also want to check out these unusual plants that can spruce up your interior and exterior spaces:
1. Nerve Plants
The nerve plant, widely cultivated as a houseplant, is a continuous, evergreen plant with elegantly veined, deep green leaves. Although silver-white is its most prevalent vein color, nerve plants with red, pink, white, and green vein variants are also easy to find. The nerve plant, also known as Fittonia, is a low-growing creeper, best suited for terrariums or bottles.
If you forget to follow your watering schedule, your Fittonia’s leaves will look wilted. Fortunately for you, Fittonia does not need anything else but love and care. It will cheer up again once you water it. You can shop for nerve plants at online plant stores such as Florafolia if you’re interested to add this beauty to your plant collection at home.
2. Hoya “Lucky Heart” Plants
The Sweetheart Hoya plant is a Hoya plant known for its thick, succulent, cardiac leaves. It’s also known as the Valentine or Sweetheart Wax Plant. The Lucky Heart Hoya plant is an indoor plant that only needs low maintenance to survive. It’s moderately drought-tolerant due to its fleshy, delightful leaves that can survive even with only one or two rounds of watering per month.
To keep it alive, allow it to receive some sunlight and make sure to water thoroughly when the soil is slightly dry to the touch. Then, drain the water completely.
3. Staghorn Fern
In its natural environment, the staghorn fern grows epiphytically in rainforests, which means that it clings to trees in a non-parasitic manner. It requires no soil around its roots because the water and nutrients are mostly absorbed through its fronds or leaves.
Like other ferns, the staghorn fern does not have seeds. Ferns are among the oldest of the plants, and they still reproduce the typical way—through their spores. These spores are tiny and disperse, emerging on the edges of the plant’s face like spots. You can collect them from the ferns, allowing them to grow safely into small seedlings that can be replanted.
4. Desert Rose
A slow-growing herb with a thick, delicious stem and deep pink flowers, the Desert Rose is something you should add to your garden. It belongs to the family of Apocynaceae, originally from Africa, Madagascar, and the Middle East. The only Adenium present in widespread cultivation is Desert Rose and is commonly a hybrid that produces different flower colors such as Adenium Arabicum, Adenium Boehmianum, Adenium Obesum.
5. Purple Shamrock
With its lovely and eye-catching violet leaflet, Oxalis Triangularis or Purple Shamrock can be considered the star of the show. You will enjoy good growth and color during all seasons throughout the year, provided the right indoor growing conditions.
While the strongly colored leaves are the show’s stars, the plant generates tiny pink or white flowers during spring. The blooms of Purple Shamrock last a couple of weeks. Another feature of the leaves is that they open all day long and close in the evening.
6. Red Aglaonema
Aglaonemas, with beautifully formed leaves, are often colorful and vibrant. Aglaonemas are suitable for a plain, contemporary living room or office, and a dim room or a cozy study area. They are perfect for less-than-optimal light conditions or forgetful plant owners because of their tolerance for humid and dry environments and the fact that they can grow with low light.
The bright, indirect sunlight is perfect and will make it possible for the Red Aglaonema to grow its beautiful red and pink leaves. Be careful not to expose the Red Aglaonema to a full sun because, in some situations, the leaves might burn. Your Red Aglaonema can survive in low-light areas, but the colors of its leaves may not be as deep and rich.
7. Donkey’s Tail
Donkey’s tail, with fleshy, tear-drop leaves is a popular succulent that’s easy to grow. The plant develops slowly and gradually but can achieve trail lengths of up to four feet in six years. This succulent can be cultivated and propagated throughout the year, but it can be best planted outdoors in early spring. Late summer can give rise to red, yellow, or white flowers, but the plant seldom blooms when placed indoors.
Indoors, the succulent may thrive in a bowl or terrarium with no water, where moderate sunlight bathes the plant. You can also make a succulent window box as an alternative to a terrarium. Let your Donkey’s Tail adjust to your home’s climate by allowing them to grow in partial shade before placing them under full sun.
Takeaway
Pothos and Snake Plants are beautiful houseplants, but why not add some more to your plant collection at home? Whether you’re a beginner or pro in growing plants, you can find the most suitable plants for your home and take care of them properly. Time to think beyond the pot and get your house embellished with these lovely unusual houseplants.
