Gardens
Plant Parenthood
A Fairway gardener finds success raising orchids year-round in a dedicated plant room.

Winter’s cold spell stops most gardeners in their snowy tracks. But not Mary Anderson. In her plant room, plants carry on — no, thrive — in the controlled environment. When Mary and her husband, John, hired RDM Architecture to draw up plans and RM Contracting to complete their whole-house renovation two years ago, the first rooms to be considered were the kitchen and the plant room.

“My entire life I’ve had a plant room, even as a kid my parents always had a separate room for plants. That’s probably where this idea came from,” Mary says. “It’s the easiest way to garden because you can control the environment. If it’s stable, there’s less stress to the plant and less disease, and you’ve got a garden year-round.”

The small room is located on the second floor above the new garage, where it formerly was a sunny enclosed porch. “It could have been a larger space and I would have filled it up, but I had to look at the time I wanted to commit,”  Mary says. Currently she spends an hour a week watering and four hours cleaning up every month. Plants that don’t do well get kicked out and replaced: “It grows or it goes” is Mary’s motto.

A deck off the plant room is where the Andersons grow tomatoes, potatoes and other herbs that their dogs (Doberman Ariel and Cockapoo Truffles) always got into before the deck was raised and separated from the main part of the house. In the winter, the plants move inside, tucked in tight quarters with friends’ loaners dropped off to overwinter.

Everything a plant needs is inside: heat, air circulation and humidity. The HVAC is connected to the room, but Mary also uses supplemental heat, a fan and drainage trays that hold water, keeping the air moist. Window film was necessary on the western windows because the greenhouse effect would raise the temperature to 110 degrees Fahrenheit. “Orchids like what people like: in the 55 to 75 degree range,” Mary explains.

Orchids, in particular, do well in this room. Mary has 14 different species but favors Phalaenopsis, which she says have the longest blooming time and are the easiest to grow. “You can practically abuse them,” she notes.

“People say orchids are hard to grow, but they are no harder than many flowering houseplants. My bonsai are much more challenging — you’ve got to mess with them constantly. Bonsai require daily attention, whereas orchids need only weekly attention. People also say orchids are expensive, but for $20 you’d never have a flower arrangement last three to four months and look good the entire time,” she continues.

Orchids can easily live 10 years. “My oldest plant is 31 years old. They’re practically immortal if you keep up with repotting and dividing them,” Mary says. Phalaenopsis typically develop spikes in October or November and bloom December through September. She selects plants with different bloom cycles so she has something blooming all the time. Orchids are so diverse, she can have plants bloom any season of the year.

“It’s therapy,” John says. “I’ve heard people recommend tai chi to relax; she just comes in here.” To which Mary seconds, “If you see a blooming flower when you first wake, you have a better day.”

En masse the orchids are a particularly captivating sight. But eventually, they do enter a dormant stage and the Andersons turn their attention to the many other projects they have going on, from vegetable gardening to root beer bottling.

“What’s great about gardening is you get a new start every year. If you do something to your house, it’s that way for awhile,” Mary says. Fortunately, the Andersons love their newly remodeled home, especially the plant room that keeps them connected to nature all year long.