The inside story to a lush home

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She uses more than ornaments to decorate her home. The plant lover hangs a pot of orchid and a pot of fern in her kitchen.
She also places curly bamboo in vases in her bathrooms and has more plants in her living room.

The apartment does not have a balcony, so her plants are all indoors.

'Plants give character to the home,' says Mrs Manini, 36, a relations manager with
an Italian luxury goods brand. She adds that she has always grown up surrounded by plenty of plants.

'Since the family cannot be outdoors all the time, we thought we'd bring some of it in,' says the mother of two. Her husband Fulvio, 45, a senior
wholesale manager, loves plants as well.

As Mrs Manini shows, even if you do not have a balcony or you live in a flat with no direct sunlight, it is still possible to grow plants at home.

She buys from local nurseries plants that grow well in the
shade.

Brand manager Calvin Ong, who is in his late 30s, is another home owner who spruces up his home with flora, even though his three-room HDB flat in Toa Payoh does not get any direct sunlight.

'Almost nothing grows inside here,' says Mr Ong,
who lives alone.

While he has artificial flowers in his home, he says 'they are not as beautiful as real ones, which add life to the home'.

So he displays a plant called the kusamaki, or luo han song as it is known in Chinese, in vases filled with
water. It has long thin leaves and is very hardy.

Mr Ong has two vases of them - one on a table in his living room and another on top of a cabinet in a spare bedroom.

'They require only topping up of water every week and can last about three
months before the leaves dry out,' he says.

Indoor plants require less watering. Mr Wilson Wong, founder of gardening website Green Culture Singapore, says plants placed in shady areas do not grow as fast as those in the sun. Hence, they need less
nutrients and water.

This means watering the plants only when the soil feels dry and using slowrelease fertilisers.

While there are no hard and fast rules as to where to place your indoor plants, plant experts say a well-ventilated location is
always best. So do not rush out to buy indoor plants for your storeroom with no windows.

Mr Wong dispels a common myth about indoor plants: 'It's not true that indoor plants can grow in areas deep inside the home that are away from the window or
balcony.'

Indoor plants do not need direct sunlight but they still require some light, adds Mr Lee Meng Kwan, assistant general manager of sales and marketing at World Farm, a nursery in Sembawang.

The two plant experts say indoor plants should be
placed in areas by the windows where they can receive filtered sunshine for four to six hours daily to recuperate and rejuvenate.

They should be left there for a week before moving them back to their shaded location. Indoor plants should get some sun
every other week.

Ms Brenda Loke, 33, a marketing communications and public relations manager, does this regularly even though she lives in an intermediate terrace house in Changi.

Every Sunday, she moves her six pots of money plants from shelves
in the dining area to a nearby spot to get 'the 'sunning' that they need' through a skylight. She lets her plants 'tan' from noon to 3pm when the sunlight is strongest.

Her dining area's plants add green to her home, so it 'doesn't look too bland'.

For home owners who worry that indoor plants may attract insects, World Farm's Mr Lee says this is unlikely. 'Insects are usually attracted to the nectar from flowers. Most indoor plants are the non-flowering type.'

Nevertheless, he adds, home
owners should regularly get rid of any stagnant water that accumulates near the plants to prevent mosquito breeding.

There is another misconception about growing greenery indoors: People think plants should not be in the bedrooms because they take in
oxygen at night.

Says Mr Lee: 'Plants do use a small amount of oxygen at night, but during the day they create more oxygen than they use at night.'

Still, instead of overcrowding your home with many pots of plants, a big pot in a choice corner of
the living room is usually enough to jazz up the area, he says.

Hang it from the ceiling

And who says you can place potted plants only on the floor or on table tops? A New Zealand company encourages home owners to hang plants upside-down
from the ceiling.

Designed for indoor use by Kiwi brothers Jake and Patrick Morris, the Boskke Sky Planter uses an internal reservoir system to feed water directly to the roots of the plant.

Founder Jake Morris explains that the water is released
gradually into the soil and the flow rate varies depending on how thirsty the plant is and how dry the soil is. The system also supposedly uses 80 per cent less water than conventional planters.

'As the water is released gradually, the soil isn't
flooded with water which would result in excessive dripping,' he says.

The ceramic planters, which cost from $75, come in four sizes to fit any plant. Each also comes with a locking disc that holds the plant and soil in place, so there will be no
mess on the floor when it is hung upside-down.

The Boskke Sky Planter is available here from Imaginative Growth ().

Apart from its quirky design, Imaginative
Growth's country manager Bryan O'Connor says the planters will suit tiny homes with little space.

'Unlike other hanging planters, this one allows you to see the plant, rather than the bottom of the pot,' he says.

'Insects are usually attracted to the nectar from flowers. Most indoor plants are the non-flowering type'

Mr Lee Meng Kwan from World Farm plant
nursery on the perception that indoor plants may attract insects

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