I’ve been intrigued by adding plants to my house for a while now. There are few benefits of them that especially peak my interest namely, increasing air quality and general self sustainability. Plants can be a great addition for those seeking better air quality, they’ve been shown to sequester any heavy metals and reduce carbon dioxide from the air into harmless by-products. Its a topic that NASA explored as part of its possibilities for long term space habitation. (for a more detailed summary see this article). While I understand that any tiny houseplants I manage to keep alive won’t completely purify the air, they will (hopefully) add some benefit.

This is one succulent I’d love to have up by my desk. Image from www.gardenista.com/

My eventual goal for the home is to have a nice spread of succulents on the 2nd floor since they require less light, water and day to day attention. In the kitchen I envision a few herbs that I can use for cooking. For the rest of the house I envision the occasional fern or other plant with a high filter rating and is rather hearty (again less hands on time needed). And in the backyard I’d love to have a few pots to attempt to grow simple things like tomatoes (I love home grown tomatoes) and zucchini. That’s a long list and I can’t guarantee it’ll all happen on this house. I’ve spent a lot of time figuring out where was the best place to start this plant adventure.

Last spring my mom sent me some bulbs that I planted outside with my 2nd attempt to grow lavender (year 2 attempt at lavender). The bulbs did well and are now hibernating in my basement for winter. I managed to take no pictures of those guys so hopefully if they grow again in the spring I’ll snap a picture. And I don’t want to talk about the lavender I’ve attempted to grow twice.

With that little experience under my belt, I happened across a few tiny ferns on clearance when my local Walmart closed two weeks ago and for $1.50 I figured this was worth a shot. They lived on my windowsill successfully without dying for a week so I upgraded them to pots this past weekend.

Green onions in their onion mug

Using some pots I had in the basement, a mug, some coffee grounds, and the potting soil I had stashed in the basement last season, these guys have a new home. I also am attempting to see if I can grow these green onions (the start of my kitchen herb garden). See their new home in appropriately decorated mugs. As a side note there was a large number of coffee mugs in the house when I moved in. They are fantastic and I was looking for a great opportunity to use them. I’ll have to move the one fern from the mug (I think it needs a bigger space), but until I can get out and find one I like, it’ll have to do.

This fern has found his official spot above the TV

This is a start. Eventually I’ll be looking into using gray water to water the non-edible plants. But that is a topic for another day. Perhaps when there is less snow on the ground.