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Horticultural Help |
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Interiorscapers: The Real Indoor Plant Experts If you have done any research on how to care for your indoor plants, you have probably run into conflicting information: Keep the soil moist vs. let the soil dry out; repot every spring vs. keep it potbound; yellow leaves mean over watering vs. yellow leaves mean under watering; and so on. Why do the plant experts so often disagree on the basics of plant care? The answer lies with the background of the particular plant expert. There are many indoor plant professionals. There are botanists who study tropical plants in their native habitats. There are botanical gardeners who tend tropical plants in greenhouses that are carefully regulated for light, humidity, and temperature. There are professional growers who operate large production nurseries in warm-weather states and grow millions of indoor plants every year. There are retail garden center operators who specialize in outdoor (temperate zone) plants, but also sell indoor (tropical) plants. All of these plant professionals freely dispense advice through books, articles, and in conversation. But the sage advice they pass on reflects their particular professional experience with plants. Unfortunately, their professional experience is probably very different than the experience that you have with plants in your home or office. There is a category of plant professional that does have professional experience with plants in the home and office environment. Those professional are called interiorscapers. You may not have heard of them, but you have probably seen them. They are the individuals who you see tending plants in shopping malls, offices, building lobbies, restaurants, and stores. The
interiorscape business barely existed 30 years ago. As the interest in
keeping plants indoors expanded in the 1970’s, so did the interiorscape
business. Plants became an important part of the interior décor of
smartly designed indoor spaces A need for experienced plant people to care
for these plants emerged along with the interest in plants. The custom
of the boss ordering the secretary to water the plants was on its way out. Interiorscapers were confronted with the challenge of keeping tropical plants alive and looking attractive in environments that were often hostile to plants. Low humidity, poor light, and varying temperatures were among the challenges that interiorscapers learned to master. In addition, they had to cope with treating plant pests in a safe manner, and safeguarding against the introduction of coffee, soda, gum, and other debris added to plants in public settings. Early efforts to master these challenges were not too successful. Interiorscapers were expected to guarantee their work. That meant that every time a client’s plant died or became an eyesore, the interiorscaper had to replace that plant with a new one at the interiorscaper’s expense. For many interiorscapers, the cost of the constant replacements forced them to choose another line of work. However, the successful ‘scapers developed new techniques to care for plants so that they would stay alive and well in these challenging environments.
Over
the years, interiorscapers have learned to adapt the conventional
plant care techniques developed by professional greenhouse growers to the
special needs of plants kept in homes, offices, and other indoor spaces.
They discovered that matching plant species to the available light was
critical for plant longevity. They learned that many plants could survive
very well in light and humidity far below the levels to which they were
accustomed. They discovered that the plants they tended needed less water,
fertilizer, and repotting than was expected. They developed new methods to
discover and treat plant pests without the use of hazardous pesticides. In
effect, the interiorscapers revolutionized the way plants
are cared for outside the greenhouse and nursery and inside homes and
offices. Regrettably, many of the techniques introduced by interiorscapers have not been widely disseminated. The conventional techniques are still commonly reported in books and articles and passed along by nursery operators and retail employees. If you need good advice on selecting appropriate plants for your home or office or if you want the best advice on how to care for your indoor plant, seek out an interiorscape professional in your area. Some are willing to do on-site consultations for a fee. Look for a listing on this site or look in the Yellow Book under “Plants” to find an interiorscaper near you.
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