                                          Photo taken by dinesh_valke
TheGardenLady received this question from Elena:
I want to spruce up my college dorm with something living, but I would also like to spruce up my dining hall meals. Last year I tried pepper plants, which unfortunately suffered because I was unable to change their soil. I was hoping for some general herbs- basil, rosemary or fennel. Preferably something that wouldn’t require special lighting, frequent soil changes, or religious watering. I am good at caring for plants, in general, but cannot guarantee that I won’t be absent for up to 4 days at a stretch. … For decoration, I usually keep cacti for this reason. I’m also at school in Cleveland, so light quality in the winter can be very poor, aside from artificial light.
Once again, with school comming up soon, students want to decorate their dorm rooms with flowering plants or herbs. Some of TheGardenLady’s suggestions are in the articles What Flowering Plant is Good to Grow in a Dorm Room? and Growing plants in your dorm room. Most of the plants that grow in low light don’t have flowers such as
- Chinese Evergreen
- Cast Iron Plant
- Calathea
- Prayer Plant
- Button Fern
- Creeping Fig
- Pothos
- Philodendron Vine
- Remember that flowering plants like lots of light and/or sunlight besides their special temperature needs when they are grown indoors.
- Herbs, especially, need sunlight to manufacture the oils in their leaves that make them so tasty. That is why grow lights were invented for indoor plant growing. Most rooms do not have enough light for flowering plants.