What do you look for in a houseplant?

I love flowers in the dead of w*i*n*t*e*r but I also choose plants with cool foliage to look at when they aren't blooming.

What do you look for when choosing a houseplant?

Usually flowers, and if they have nice foliage when not blooming its a bonus. 90% of my plants are flowering.

Like most, I love pretty blooms, and if they are fragrant I love em' even more ... but I also adore variegated foliage!

Yes, fragrance is something I look out for too!

I am, indeed, a 'foliage fanatic'.

Um...yes please? I can't decide! Bonus if they have both.

I prefer the foliage since the flowers dont last long enough for me
Carey has the right answer

I love texture and shape for some reason.

Foliage. Don't like the fuss of flowers falling off indoors.

I never go looking for a particular plant, just to browse to see what they have. When I see one I like to look at that I don't already have, I get it if I don't recognize the name as one that I already know wouldn't do well in the conditions I have. Anyone who sends a non humidity loving plant to AL for sale should be given a time-out... in the humidity!

It's always a thrill to find something after all these years, either mysteriously old or new by both sight and name. If I'm looking for anything in particular, it's only as specific as seeing something for the first time, especially if it was in an old house plant book but one I've never seen for sale, or something so common in old movies but not in person, like Rhaphidophora tetrasperma (mini Monstera.) Someday!

purpleinopp said: Anyone who sends a non humidity loving plant to AL for sale should be given a time-out... in the humidity!

completely! Same goes for Fl.

I look for interesting foliage, unless it's an orchid...Then the bloom is also a must! Fragrance is always an added benefit!

Foliage it has all the time, blooms are only sometimes. If at all. Gene

Yep, foliage for me too. I'm not always successful with flowers

Some plants I keep around only for their reliable blooms, like Kalanchoe blossfeldiana & houghtonii. The foliage isn't much to look at, but the flowers are stunning, show up readily inside during winter, and last a long time. They really put holiday cacti to shame in that regard. I'm not much attracted to that foliage either, or that of many epiphytic jungle cacti like Selenicereus and Epiphyllums. But if they ever bloom though, it will have all been worth it, every sweaty watering, repotting, moving of a heavy pot.

Billbergia is another one like that. The foliage just looks like some kind of weird grass. But when a bloom shows up, it's time to ooooh and aaaah.

Amaryllis. Foliage from almost any kind of bulb is a real snooze. More "giant grass" appearance.

I don't keep Callisia fragrans around because it's attractive, and even when it blooms, the flowers could be easily over looked. That one's all about sniffing the tiny, inconsequential looking blooms.

My eye finds foliage. All flowers seem to be the same just different colors. They are there for awhile and then they are gone. But a beautiful foliage plant is every day all year.

Second is if it is fragrant. Fragrant is worth the few days, week, month to take up space in the house.

How about aromatic foliage? I have several house plants that have aromatic foliage. Alpina Nutans is one. Gene

Aromatic foliage is a bonus!

As colorful as any flowers. All stuff that's not hardy here, saved inside for winter.


So many shades of green.




Foliage that's like a giant flower.
Bright yellow/green Dracaena

Pink Cryptanthus

Neoregelia

@purpleinopp
That is a perfect example of the plants that make me smile in the winter. They are as pretty as a flower and it is constant. I think the only flowers I have in the winter are Armarylis, Cane Begonias and the Orchids I pick up in the winter that promptly die the next year. But the orchids usually stay in bloom for 3=4 months by then it is Spring.

This is my favorite because it does not mind shade and it seems to be happier in the house. I take it outside every summer but it does better inside in the winter.
Stromanthe Sanguinea Tri-color


The other plant that does better inside than outside is this one. FIRE-FLASH -- CHLOROPHYTUM ORCHIDANTHEROIDES

Speaking of better inside than out, reminded me of Streptocarpus. That's a bloomer I love. I had them under a light shelf in fall, they grew great and set lots of buds, then I moved it to my bedroom where each flower lasts a long time, and the total display even longer. But I killed them by putting them out in summer- too hot.
I have a hard time keeping a few plants inside in summer when everything else is out and that's where all my focus is.