Most of the 50 plants of my collection are hosted in the living room of my appartment. They mostly grow on the ground, but some are cultivated in suspension and cover parts of the walls (scindapsus aureus, tetrastigma voinierianum, ...).

light

This rectangular, 30 m² room benefits from a double exposure, North-East and South-East. Large windows allow for high luminosity, the whole morning for the window oriented to the North-East, and from 10 am to 5pm for the one oriented to the South-East. During spring and summer, the window oriented South-East is prevented from direct sunlight by a birch tree, which looses all its foliage from October to March.

 

temperature

Growing plants in a living room implies that no resting period during winter is possible, as lowering the room's temperature may induce severe perturbance to human beings living there, like wives. Thus, all plants support all year long a temperature ranging from 16°C (at night, in winter), to 30°C (warmest days in summer). This constraint prevents from growing some species which absolutely need a resting period, and makes it more difficult to succeed with plants which would undoubtedly do better if they could rest a few months around 10°C.

 

humidity

Humidity is not that a problem, given that the heating system is not located in the ground, and that plants are grown really close to each other, and then create their own tropical micro-climate. Humidity rate ranges from 40% (in winter times, or on excessively warm days in summer), to 70% (after watering). Average is around 50%.

 

Left, a typical 21°C and 50% humidity, observed in november.