Complete newbie

Ahh wow! Thank you Ricky, I would never have thought about it getting in to the brick work.
I have a lot to learn!!

 

Yes their aerial roots can literally ruin the look of a house wall for many years and never seen anyone remove them properly.
However Ivy can look good if grown over something that does not matter or can be readily replaced like trelliis or wire. Lots of colour variations to the basic green leaves like white/cream and yellow.
You often find the first year of planting ourdoors they show little top growth while putting their roots down, but in the second year they really take off.

Have now got that plant stand shown earlier and rearranging our housplants

 

Hello and welcome to the forums @HousePlantHermit
Ivy can ruin fences as well so be careful.

 

Welcome to GC, @HousePlantHermit ! I see you have already got some advice on your couple of plants so I shan't add any more to them. But there are lots of small plants or even very big ones that make a real statement in the house & garden. Some very easy ones & which you can't go wrong with are Spider Plants. These usually have variegated, green & cream, strap-like leaves & have tiny plantlets hanging from long stems. They look a little like spiders!
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They haven't got any "spiders" at present! But during the summer they have the most delicate white flowers that last a week or two, but they aren't the "selling point" of this plant, the hanging "spiders" are. These can also be grown on to make new plants!
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Managed to find a few spare plants around the house to fill our new stand, not much colour and some too big , but we can soon chop and change plants as they come into bloom such as the Orchids and Streptocarus from the greenhouse.
Got the little Kalanchoe plants from Sainsburys, just £2 each ! (standard new price, not reduced)

 

Looks good, @ricky101 !

 

Look great Ricky.

 

Thanks all, will hopefully inspire the OP @HousePlantHermit to continue to enjoy growing more houseplants.

 

Oh no really?! If I pop a trellis on it will it be ok?

 

Oh yes, my next plant is a spider plant, I love the look of them. How much light and watering do they need?
I’m looking for plants that don’t really need any light, I want to have some real plants in my downstairs toilet but there is no window, no light getting to it at all really.

 

It looks great! What a way to brighten up a space!

 

As you can see from the pics below, the tendrils of Ivy can leave a really subborn mess and will do so on trellis and fencing panels, its just that its easier to replace them than a brick wall.

Using cheap poles or a diy chicken wire fence some distance in front of a wall or wooden fence would be simpler.




No plant will grow without light so for your toilet consider using some low powered led lights if you must have live plants, our choice would be artificial ones as they can be very realistic these days.

For less bright areas consider Ferns and dark green foilage plants.
Have a look at this video for some low light ideas -

 

Thanks Ricky! I’ll take a look at that now!

Deep down I knew I couldn’t have a plant in there but I was hoping you guys would have heard of a rare plant that loves darkness

 

Mushroom do well in very low light.

 

Just a thought .....

You could try a little usb grow lamp with timer ?

Something like this using just 5W for 12 hours a day costs just 2p of electricity.