Show #49/7810. Tiny House #2

Indoor Plants

Justin, thanks for joining us. Really appreciate you being here. Eric would like for Justin to kind of walk us through each of Victoria’s selections and tell us what's special about the plants and help us understand why these plants would work great in our home.

The first is a colorful Aglaonema, this guy is one of the very best for beginning consumers. It tolerates low light like a champ, doesn't need anything special in terms of humidity. It can go a couple or three weeks without water if it needs to, although, of course, it's happier when it's watered regularly. It has colorful leaves all year long. One point, if you feel a house plant leaf in general, the thicker and sturdier the leaf, the more durable the plant is going to be, the thinner the leaf, typically the more sensitive to water it's going to be.

In front is a Calathea. Calatheas are a more thin leaf plant, so they are a little more temperamental about not enough versus too much water. Calatheas are loved because they have this really, really beautiful variegated foliage. This is a selection called Pink Star, which has that nice pink in the middle with the darker, almost purple edges. With a lot of plants with the purple coloration, like this, the brighter the light, the better the purple coloration. If one were to put this in low light, which it will tolerate, you’re probably going to find that coloration goes more towards the green side than the purple side. The brighter light helps pulls out those nice, nice strong pigments.

Next to it is a plant called Alocasia Reginae. One of the common names for it is silver velvet Alocasia, because it has kind of silvery leaves on the top, but they're burgundy on the bottom. This is a newer variety, it was discovered maybe 20 years ago, but it's just now finding its way into horticulture. So that's really exciting. It's leaves can get more than a foot, maybe even 18 inches in size as it grows, so it becomes this really spectacular statement plant, it’s closely related to elephant's ears but it doesn't get as huge, which makes it a great house plant.

Next to it is the Silver Dragon Alocasia. It’s a close relative, which you can probably tell by the the leaf size and shape. It has really thick leaves, they almost feel like they're they're plastic, and that tells you it's nice and durable if you forget to water, if you don't get a chance to fill the reservoir once a week. It has this gorgeous kind of silvery foliage with darker veins. Justin likes plants with silver highlights like this, because they're so fun to accent with other plants. Because silver is a neutral you can combine it with anything. One can put it with pinks, purples plus it looks really fabulous with greens too.

Another newer one to horticulture is Golden Crocodile Philodendron. It’s called crocodile because the leaves have toothed edges. When this guy gets going, the leaves can get almost 3 feet long. It’s a spectacular, spectacular plant and has this bright golden yellow color. It's kind of a fun one too because you can train it to grow however you want. You can let it climb. If you put a pole by it has aerial roots that develop along the stem and they'll latch into the pole, and it will be this magnificent vine. But if you let it grow like this without a support, it’s just going to be more of a bushy plant. Even though it will get fuller and fuller and bigger it's not going to need a support.

The next plant is botanically known as Rhaphidophora Tetrasperma. It's a mouthful, so the common name is Mini Monstera because it has these fenestrations with these windows and leaves. It is a fairly fast growing, climbing plant. After a couple of months it gets taller and taller and taller and will really benefit from support. If it gets too big for you, you can trim this one back any time you want. It takes really, really well to pruning.

In the middle is Money Tree, botanical name is Pachira aquatica. It is actually a tropical tree from South America. It has fun braided stems, if you want you can let that continue as it grows or let it form a more natural multitunk tree. It’s a really, really forgiving plant. It’s common name Money Tree comes from the legend that a farmer who was kind of down on his luck, got some seeds, planted them and they ended up growing. He made a lot of money selling the seedlings and the fruits of the tree, so it was considered good fortune, hence the name Money Tree.