Are you ready to go beyond simple begonias and common ivy in your kitchen, living room or office? The world of houseplants is much bigger than the selection at your local hardware store. Thanks to the efforts of online plant suppliers and plant collectors in remote areas to find new specimens for our homes, you can grow plants that are usually only found in places like Madagascar or South Africa. Although these plants are uncommon, if not rare, growing them indoors is no harder than any other houseplant.
Desert Rose
The desert rose, Adenium obesum, grows in arid regions of Africa and the Middle East. As the name suggests, desert roses thrive in hot, dry environments. While the plant’s shape resembles a bonsai tree, the swollen trunk is meant to conserve water during droughts. Give your desert rose full light and good drainage. Plants naturally go dormant in winter, so don’t panic if defoliation occurs. Place it in a cool, sunny window by a window, and when outside temperatures rise above 70F, give it a rest on the deck to encourage new growth.
Banana Shrub
Banana bushes are named for their sweet tropical smell, but they are not related to fruiting banana trees. A member of the magnolia family, Michelia bears similarly cup-shaped flowers on compact shrubs, usually no taller than three feet in container cultivation. Banana trees are mid-range plants that meet all their needs. Provide her with part sun, moderate watering, and an average room temperature and she should thrive.
Climbing Sea Onion
Climbing onion (Bowiea volubilis) is a great specimen for a novice houseplant because it adapts to a variety of environments and avoids neglect. Onions grow strong shoots from the top leaves in spring and rest in fall. Climbing onions need a small trellis to support their growth. Give your climbing onion full sun to keep it dry.
Club Moss
Club moss is understated and blends well into modern homes. Salaginella grows well in low light but needs a moist environment to grow. This is the perfect plant in a mini terrarium and will bring joy to your windowsill year-round.
Coffee Plant
Arabica coffee is practically the same plant that keeps you in Java, despite the caffeine headaches you might get as you wait for enough berries to ripen on your coffee trees for a profitable harvest. The coffee tree belongs to the gardenia family and has attractive, glossy green leaves, so you can expect fragrant white flowers before producing the coffee bean’s red berries.
Coffee trees like moist conditions and moderate light. The plants can grow quite tall, but you can trim them very thin and they will grow back to flowering size within a year.
Lifesaver Plant
Huernia zebrina is one of the most exotic plants. The waxy flowers look like plastic, but these very real plants come from South Africa. Like other members of the cactus family, lifesaving plants need sandy soil and full sun for optimal vigor. Place these delicate plants on your windowsill and you can admire their curious formations up close.
Cement Leaf Plant
Also known as gem leaf, limestone plant and carpet leaf, this succulent exotic plant requires rocky soil and high light conditions, like its South African native. If you’re lucky, your Titanopsis calcarea might even have yellow flowers between its warty leaves during the winter months.
Sensitive Plant
Not surprisingly, sensitive plants once supported the belief that plants have nervous systems and feelings. Although we now know that the sudden movement of leaves in response to touch is a function of the movement of water in the plant’s cells, the mimosa’s response still fascinates viewers. This sensitive plant is considered a weed in the tropics; lots of sun and moderate watering will do well for this unusual houseplant.
Bat Flower
Unique to bat flowers for their moody dark petals and long whiskey growth are classified as pre-leaves, which are thin, distinctive bracts that grow from the flower stem. If you can grow orchids, you can grow Tacca chantrieri. Both like filtered light, high humidity, and good air circulation.
