What's to be done indoors?

What’s a sustainable gardener to do when it’s too hot to work outside? Skulking indoors on a 90-degree day, I found my thoughts turning to indoor gardening.

African violets are stalwarts among my houseplants

     A lot of the very forgiving houseplants that survive in my house, such as a venerable monstera (Monstera deliciosa) and resilient African violets (Saintpaulia ionantha), hail from tropical regions near the equator where they grow in the shady understory of the rainforest. They’re equipped to handle low light. On the brightest windowsill, plants can’t get more than 6,000 lux, in contrast to 100,000 lux outdoors in full sun.

This orchid gets enough light to bloom in an east-facing window

    As in the garden, I’ve come to recognize that many kinds of plants aren’t going to grow inside my house. Better to enjoy the houseplants that thrive here than try to pamper the ones that don’t. Conditions that prevail in my house—dry air with human-friendly temperatures--aren’t right for all low-light plants. For example, I’ve failed several times to keep gardenias alive indoors. They need high humidity and low temperatures, around 60 degrees during the day and 55 at night. That I’m not willing to provide.

Gardenias like Houston, not Massachusetts-photo ljmacphee

    I try to exclude leaf-eaters from the house by keeping plants healthy and ruthlessly discarding any that look wan or infested. My houseplants have to be able to survive without pesticides, just like my garden plants. Insects aren’t the only menace. I recently moved an African violet upstairs from the basement because something was chewing mammal-sized holes in its leaves while it was reconditioning under LED grow lights. 

Chewed by mice?

     I suspect this was a member of the mouse lineage that had previously gnawed on my young succulents. So far mice haven’t chewed the leaves of amaryllis plants (Hippeastrum cvs.) that I’m fattening up under the same LEDs, coaxing them to rebloom next winter. They must not taste as good.

With no cat in the house, mice keep showing up

    Some of the houseplants—easy orchids, a treasured streptocarpus, a crown of thorns (Euphorbia milii) and a some anthuriums--are summering on wire shelves on the driveway that runs along the north side of the house. The monstera I’m trying under the roof of the front porch. These plants soak up the indirect rays to store energy for the cold months—and they also get chewed on by insects they wouldn’t encounter indoors.

Monstera summering on the front porch

     Meanwhile, I’m stuck inside in the air conditioning, my outdoor gardening enthusiasm extinguished by the heat. This could be the time to learn how to make seedling pots out of newspaper.

     I’ve had no luck starting bush beans in the vegetable garden this year. Something chews the leaves to bits as soon as they emerge, possibly Mexican bean beetles (Epilachna varivestis). 

     Maybe I can fool the leaf-chewers by planting now, out of sync with their life cycle, and still have 60 days for beans to ripen before the cold sets in. I’d like to give the bean seedlings some protection by starting them indoors and planting them out when they have a few leaves. During the heat wave, they and I can enjoy moderate temperatures indoors.