It is quite possible to turn your home into a rainforest or an orchard. The main thing is to choose the right plants and maintain suitable conditions for them.
Many people boldly call a conservatory a composition of large plants in the corner of a hall or living room. No one will prevent you from thinking that a few of your favorite plants on the windowsill are your miniature winter garden. But strictly speaking, a winter garden is much more complicated. It requires a separate room, at least a glazed and insulated loggia. But the main thing that makes the collection of indoor plants a real winter garden is the techniques of gardening art, applied indoors, as well as imitation of natural landscapes.
Not all beautiful indoor plants are suitable for a winter garden. The fact is that there are stably decorative crops (ficuses, palms, arrowroots, ferns) and replaceable ones, that is, those that die after beautiful flowering (hybrid cineraria, calceolaria, exacum) or lose their decorative effect (cyclamen, garden hydrangea, azalea, poinsettia ). They are restored – with certain efforts on our part – only after a year. It is clear that it is stable crops that can form the basis of a winter garden.
All plants grown in the winter garden can be divided into:
- subtropical (cold winter content, with a temperature of 5-10 ° C)
- tropical (warm content in winter, 18−22 ° C).
Accordingly, the winter garden can be both subtropical (lemons, oleanders, araucaria, cypress trees, yews, Colchis ivy, etc.), and tropical (bromeliads, arrowroots, palms, many aroid).
The main factors in the selection of plants
The best option for a winter garden when the windows of the room are oriented to the south, southeast or southwest. Any light-loving crops can be safely placed here – palms, succulents, citrus fruits, hibiscus, abutilon, etc. It is only important to remember: only cacti and succulents can withstand direct sunlight, therefore, with a southern orientation, all other plants will have to be shaded – use blinds, awnings, curtains.
It is good to arrange gardens in rooms with east-facing windows. Plants receive gentle morning sunshine and ample light throughout the day. But with a western orientation in the summer, they will overheat. The most unfavorable position is the windows to the north. But even in this case, by choosing the right plants, you can create a very beautiful shady garden in which many types of ficuses, fatsia, ivy, shefflers, representatives of the aroid family will feel good.
In addition, the garden space can be light and cold or light and warm. Dark and warm and even dark and cold. And for each of them you will have to select suitable plants.
Air humidity
This is another important condition. The optimum humidity for most indoor plants is about 75-80%, and for humans – 45-50%. This means that in a winter garden that mimics the humid tropics, we will not be too comfortable. Therefore, if you intend to use a tropical garden as part of a living space, you will have to seriously think about the choice of plants, looking for species that can normally exist at a low level of air humidity (these are all the same ficuses, representatives of the aroid family, fatsia, succulents, etc.).
From all that has been said, it follows that, no matter what winter garden you choose, you should always start with taking into account the existing conditions, and not with the architect’s plan or your cherished desire.
But you shouldn’t forget about your desires either. At least in order to understand what type of garden you need. If you want to collect a unique collection of orchids, rhododendrons or ferns, then he will wear scientific and botanical character… Therefore, everything in it must be subordinated to the creation of optimal conditions for plant life. A person among them will not be too comfortable. If you care about comfort for yourself, then you need to stop at the garden recreational typecreated specifically for relaxation.
It can be based on geographic principle… For example, create yourself the African tropics. Plants such as dracaena, pandanus, croton, aglaonema, strelitzia, etc. will prevail here. Or the subtropics of China and Japan – with azaleas, aucuba, euonymus, gardenia, hibiscus, cryptomeria, aspidistras, ophiopogons.
For lovers of cacti and succulents, a garden is suitable, imitating desert landscape America. Here prickly pear, cereus, glorious yucca, American agave, sedum creeping will find a place for themselves. And fans of the desert landscapes of Africa will choose aloe tree, dracaena canary, fat tree, agapanthus, kalanchoe bekharskoe.
But in a conservatory, created on a geographical basis, plants alone are not able to realize their plans. Entourage is needed – design elements, small architectural forms that emphasize the belonging of the garden to a particular geographic zone.
Style
It is equally interesting to create a winter garden in accordance with the architectural style. Here, interior details come first, and plants play a secondary role, only emphasizing the style proposed by the designer. So, for a winter garden in the Romanesque style (stone walls, hearth, stained-glass windows, chests) such “heavy” plants as platycerium, apical cordilina with purple leaves, African agapanthus, elastica ficus are suitable.
The swift, geometrically verified lines of the Gothic can be emphasized by plants with the same leaf and habit forms – cypress, Meyer’s asparagus, dizigoteca, poliscias, dissected hibiscus are suitable.
If you are attracted by the Renaissance era, decorate the garden with Andre anthurium, caladium bicolor, golden black philodendron, indoor bananas, zamioculcas.
Fruit garden
And for practical people, we can recommend a fruit winter garden. It grows citrus fruits (lemon, orange, grapefruit), laurel, Arabian coffee, pomegranate (preferably a dwarf form), American agave (you will make pulque), crested pineapple, avocado, figs (ficus carica), monstera, wine grapes. But all of them mainly belong to subtropical species, that is, in winter they need a low temperature (about 10 ° C), so you cannot walk in such a garden in slippers.
You can create a pharmacy winter garden by planting medicinal plants in it: heart-shaped nephrolepis, cherry laurel, common date, alamanda laxative, tree aloe, black pepper, etc.
In short, there are many options. There are plenty to choose from. The main thing is that both you and your plants feel good in the winter garden.