It would be nice to grow a columnar
apple tree in the living room. But then you have to add
enough light for fruiting and take care of pollination some way. So that is not what I mean here.
However, pretty much anything that does NOT fruit is going to be easy to grow indoors. Think GREENS, Y'all!
You can plant a tall or vining thing (He Shou Wu; Cinnamon Vine; maybe a Giant or regular bamboo...if you have enough light, you can try a fruiting plant that doesn't need a pollinator. Telegraph Supreme is a cucumber that grows well in greenhouses as it is self-fruitful) in a big patio pot (wider at the top) and train it up a pole or something and then fill the base with something else (Brazilian spinach! Parsley! Chives! Sage, Spinach, lettuce, amaranth if you have a warm house, kale if you don't). A lot of lettuces and amaranths come in COLORS: reds and purples. Of
course, with lettuces and spinach you will have to resow; you may wish to use only cut-and-come-again plants or perennials. A single, huge rosette of bok choy in a wide-top patio pot ( or a row of them!) is gorgeous, and you can stealthily harvest the outer leaves for an extended period, they just keep expanding, like the Universe in general
. A stand of Giant Mustard, or Rainbow Chard, or maybe a whole row of it in one long window-box type pot, sure looks amazing, and these love the cold; group them on the floor in front your glass patio doors in winter. Just some ideas, but this is what I'm getting at. I personally like to be able to Really Appreciate my house plants!!
One houseplant I adore is the whole pelargonium family called scented geraniums. Oh my goodness, what sensory delights await you if you haven't made their acquaintance!! I love Attar of Roses and The Peacock, for
rose scent; or Rober's Lemon Rose; but there are also
apple, spice, citrus, and others. Many of the lemon ones are incredible; these were heavily used in the Victorian era for scenting finger bowls, baths, and flavoring/scenting jelly, pound cake, and other table items. Some of them have rangy habits; or inconsequential, or few, flowers...but the leaves are the whole show for me; and if you have some straggly-shaped ones just push them together with the others...because once you get one, you will want more.
I have seen these on Etsy but by far the best place to get them, for me, has been Richter's Herbs in Canada. You NEED their mail order catalogue. RichtersHerbs.com. The online catalogue has more offerings in it; but the actual hard copy is just about my favorite reading material!! If you are on here reading this you need to go online and check it out: they have many unusual fig
trees,
medicinal plants like Insulin Plant, Andrographis, He Shou Wu and Roseroot, potato/bunching onions, a dozen kinds of elderberry plants, edible and medicinal herb plants you never even HEARD of, and seeds as well...and a lot of other stuff. This is a second-generation outfit, and the combination of accumulated plants, seeds, and information there will stagger you! (no, they don't give me anything to say that. It's simply true)
You can also plant sprouts or micro greens seeds in a few inches of soil, in almost anything (glass loaf pans, sushi trays, etc) and put them in the dark for a few days; on day 4 or so take them out and finish in sunlight. It does not need grow
lights! Turn every day or so til they are the size you want. This you can do on a single-container level on up to filling the house with trays; depends on how much you can use. The only downside is that hulls will fall off and look messy; if you are a neat person, use your Dustbuster every day. Or if you are like me, clean them up at the end XD
If you live in a Northern clime you may wish to invest in a germination mat, and maybe use it all winter... It is basically like a heating pad, but for low temps like 70 degrees F. Many seeds sprout well in low temps (40 degrees F) and grow well in chilly temps as well...we start our kales and collards and beets/chards and mustards in September here in MS, and they grow all winter if we can keep the
deer out of them. They don't like the mustards; though in a pinch they will even eat those! Anyway, in a chilly Northern home, those cool weather greens will stand you all winter.
Have you noticed how cheap those black oil sunflower seeds are, that they
sell for birds and pets? Well, those things are crazy to germinate; found that out long ago underneath the bird feeder in the
yard; and they make some incredibly delicious and nutritious sprouts!! Yup, the hulls are especially messy. Just dust-buster it.
That is about the extent of what I have to offer as a piquant starter on this topic; I expect to hear a lot of amazing revelations, from here...I just love Permies!!
