What’s not to love about Col­orado fall weath­er? Warm days and cool nights are per­fect for check­ing out the chang­ing col­ors in the high coun­try. Pack a lunch, hike some trails and let nature inspire your cre­ative plan­tophile side.

Then, when you are back home in your apart­ment or house, get your green thumb going with some imag­i­na­tive indoor plant gardens.

Before get­ting start­ed with an indoor gar­den, can you con­tin­ue grow­ing out­door con­tain­ers that have been on your deck or patio all sum­mer by mov­ing them inside?  Absolute­ly, and right now is the best time to bring back out­door vaca­tion­ing house plants, herb con­tain­ers, cac­tus and suc­cu­lent con­tain­ers, and any oth­er plants that can work in your indoor spaces.

Only bring in healthy plants, and check for dis­ease and insects. If any are detect­ed or leaves are sick­ly from some­thing (even if you can’t iden­ti­fy the cul­prit), just toss the plant, since prob­lems spread quick­ly among house plants.

Since apart­ments and hous­es usu­al­ly have less light than out­side con­di­tions, shade-lov­ing annu­als like bego­nias, fuch­sia, cal­a­di­ums, orna­men­tal pep­pers and coleus are some of the eas­i­est to grow indoors. Con­sid­er tak­ing cut­tings from out­door plants to grow new plants.

Grow­ing plants indoors is becom­ing as pop­u­lar as bak­ing your own bread. Both go hand in hand, since there is noth­ing like nosh­ing on a toasty hunk of arti­san bread while admir­ing your lat­est green works of art. Invite friends over to join in the plant­i­ng fun (and ask them to bring addi­tion­al plant sup­plies and some jam for the bread).

Easy dish gardens

Plant­i­ng in a con­tain­er or dish is super easy. A con­tain­er gar­den can be any type of group­ing, includ­ing indoor foliage and bloom­ing plants, culi­nary herbs, cac­tus and suc­cu­lents, fairy gar­dens and what­ev­er else inspires you.

Location

Light mat­ters with indoor plants; some need more light than oth­ers. Read the plant tag and locate dish gar­dens and oth­er indoor plants as rec­om­mend­ed. Light inten­si­ty is often mea­sured in foot-can­dles, which is the light illu­mi­nat­ed on a 1‑square-foot sur­face from the light source such as a win­dow. Col­orado State Uni­ver­si­ty has a guide for dis­tances from win­dows for high, medi­um and low light con­di­tions.

Sup­ple­men­tal arti­fi­cial light­ing such as an LED grow light on a timer can help plants tremen­dous­ly. Check local gar­den cen­ters and spe­cial­ty indoor plant stores for light­ing supplies.

Choosing plants

Just like when plant­i­ng out­door con­tain­ers, use the tried-and-true rule for a mixed dish gar­den. Com­bine thriller (tall), filler (round around the mid­dle) and spiller plants (edg­ing). Small­er dish con­tain­ers may need just one of each, with more for larg­er dish­es. You don’t have to fol­low this three-tiered rule. Sin­gle-plant spec­i­men con­tain­ers (like the tiny orna­men­tal pep­pers) are fun, fun, fun (and come in assort­ed col­ors). Go for bright col­ors on house plants and var­i­ous shades of green. Toss in var­ie­gat­ed leafed plants to kick it up a notch. The key is to plant the plants close­ly so they look filled in on plant­i­ng day.

The short list of more tra­di­tion­al foliage and bloom­ing plants to con­sid­er for mixed con­tain­ers include:

• lemon cypress (tall)
• anthuri­um (tall)
• euphor­bia (tall)
• arrow­head plant (filler, spiller)
• ivy (spiller)
• coleus (tall, filler)
• cycla­men (filler)
• cro­ton (tall, filler)
• poin­set­tia (tall and filler for holiday)
• kalan­choe (tall and filler)
• cycla­men (tall, filler)
• peace lily (tall and filler)
• pothos (filler)
• and many more

Pop­u­lar sin­gle-spec­i­men plants include:

• bromeli­ads
• sea­son­al cacti
• strep­to­caru­pus
• clivia
• orchid
• pelargo­ni­um
• snake plant
• palms
• and many others

Herb plants can be grouped in one dish con­tain­er or plant­ed indi­vid­u­al­ly. Pop­u­lar indoor herbs include:

• chives
• oregano
• basil
• rose­mary
• pars­ley
• lemon balm
• thyme
• sage

Suc­cu­lent and cac­tus dish gar­dens can be a mix of vari­eties, heights and tex­tures. Pop­u­lar plants include:

• jade
• echev­e­ria
• kalan­choe
• sedum
• lithop
• fau­caria
• agave
• aloe
• and more

Divi­sions and pot­ting up are long-term main­te­nance tasks with indoor plants — but that’s an arti­cle for anoth­er time.

Assembly 

The first and best choice is to use con­tain­ers that drain through a hole in the bot­tom. Many types of con­tain­ers work, includ­ing ter­ra cot­ta, glazed, con­crete, met­al and glass. If using a non-drain­ing con­tain­er, be very care­ful not to over­wa­ter, which is the No. 1 cause of indoor plant death. Make sure the plants are short­er in their orig­i­nal grow­ing con­tain­er than the depth of the dish you’ll be plant­i­ng them in.

Use new, ster­ile, gen­er­al-use pot­ting soil and a tiny bit of slow-release gran­u­lar fer­til­iz­er to keep the plants hap­py. Cac­tus and suc­cu­lent dish­es require a sharp drain­ing pot­ting mix labeled for their pur­pose; that is sold at gar­den centers.

The plants you choose, sold in 2- to 4‑inch pots, will be plant­ed in the dish with soil. Larg­er pot­ted plants (1 gal­lon) could work, but you’ll need to use large con­tain­ers. Anoth­er option is to sim­ply place plants close­ly togeth­er in the dish con­tain­er; no need to remove plants from the pot they came in from the store. (Replace plants if they out­grow the dish space, or plant in soil.)#newsletter_ad {float: right;width: 40%;padding: 0.5em;border-left: 2px sol­id #EDB207;margin-bottom: .2em;margin-left: .5em;}@media (max-width:416px){#newsletter_ad {width:100%;}

Once you have the con­tain­er and plants, place the plants in the emp­ty dish while still in their con­tain­ers to see what look you like and how they can be arranged. When you’re sat­is­fied, remove the plants from their con­tain­ers and plant one at a time (I start with the mid­dle plants). Start with a shal­low lay­er of soil on the bot­tom, then fill in soil around each added plant. Con­tin­ue plac­ing plants next to and near each oth­er. No need to be super gen­tle with the root ball unless the roots need a lit­tle teas­ing to break them up if they are gir­dled or in a cir­cled mess from being in the con­tain­er too long.

Cac­tus and suc­cu­lents will be in a coarse mate­r­i­al that often falls away when removed from the con­tain­er. This is OK, since they are shal­low-root­ed and will estab­lish quick­ly. Fill in soil where there are gaps, using a tea­spoon for hard-to-reach places and tongs, and pro­tec­tive leather gloves or oven mitts when han­dling cac­tus. Leave a good ½ inch to 1 inch from the top of the con­tain­er so soil and water do not over­flow. When com­plete, gen­tly water the foliage dish or herb plant group­ing. Wait a few days to water the suc­cu­lent or cac­tus group to give their roots time to heal and adjust to their new home. You can top the soil with small dec­o­ra­tive rock, peb­bles, moss or sim­ply let the foliage be the show. Keep plants away from cold win­dows dur­ing the day and night.

Fairy gardens

These are for young gar­den­ers and are an excel­lent activ­i­ty for the home-bound. Small plants are plant­ed direct­ly in the soil, along with place­ment of tiny fairy char­ac­ters and acces­sories that add to the sto­ry you cre­ate. Inde­pen­dent gar­den cen­ters spe­cial­ize in fairy gar­den supplies.

Container gardening in glass

Plant­i­ng a small, attrac­tive indoor gar­den under glass can be done on any bud­get and in a short amount of time. Styles, sizes and plant ideas can fit in decors from tra­di­tion­al to mod­ern. First, choose your look and gath­er the mate­ri­als. Use cov­ered glass con­tain­ers or some­thing with an open top, such as an over­sized brandy snifter, chic glass cylin­der, fish­bowl, fish tank or wide-mouthed jar. Shop craft or thrift stores and garage sales for bar­gains. There might already be the per­fect con­tain­er on a shelf in your clos­et or basement.

Cov­ered glass con­tain­ers will need less water­ing: every two weeks or so with reg­u­lar lid open­ing to allow ven­ti­la­tion. An open top allows air cir­cu­la­tion, so will need water­ing about every 10 days or when the soil appears dry.

Mate­ri­als include drainage items for the bot­tom of the glass (1 to 2 inch­es deep) such as glass beads, aquar­i­um grav­el or peb­bles. Next, sprin­kle a hand­ful lay­er of hor­ti­cul­ture char­coal chips (sold in gar­den centers).

Depend­ing on the size of the con­tain­er, place a 2- to 4‑inch lay­er of fresh pot­ting mix over the char­coal chips.

If quar­ters are tight in the con­tain­er, use a small spoon, tongs or chop­sticks to nes­tle and posi­tion the plants. A small paint­brush can be used to gen­tly brush off excess soil on the plants.

Plant choic­es vary from dwarf, slow­er-grow­ing house­plants that do well in low light and high humid­i­ty. Look for bold col­ored foliage to add con­trast and vary the plant sizes to lend interest.

Air plants

The genus tilland­sia is the ulti­mate in unique, easy-care indoor plants. No soil is need­ed, ever. In time, they will even bloom. All they need once a week is a 15- to 30-minute soak in a buck­et of water (mist­ing now and then gen­er­al­ly isn’t enough). Give them bright light, but no more than an hour a day of direct sun from a win­dow. Dis­play tilland­sia (one or more) on sand or dec­o­ra­tive rocks in a pret­ty bowl, hang­ing glass bub­bles or a cre­ative sculpture.

Local, inde­pen­dent gar­den cen­ters sell ter­rar­i­um and dish gar­den plants, air plants, plus cac­tus, suc­cu­lents and herbs for mak­ing indoor dish gar­dens. Have fun putting togeth­er your own design or sign up for an online class or when in-per­son class­es resume where the sup­plies and plants may be includ­ed in the fee.

Resources

• Bring­ing house­plants indoors
• Inte­ri­or plants and light
• Col­orado Cac­tus and Suc­cu­lent Society
• Gera­ni­um cuttings
• House­plants
• Suc­cu­lents (includes assem­bly video)

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