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Do you want to improve your indoor gardening skills and branch out from the attractive but boring pothos and spider plants?
Check out these lovely and unique varieties that highlight odd shapes, vibrant colors, and inspiring blossoms for a truly amazing plant collection. These eccentric plants would also make the ideal present for plant collectors who appear to have everything.
1. Nepenthes ventrata
The pitcher plant is a carnivorous plant native to the Philippines that uses rectangular pitfall traps that hang from tendrils linked to its basic, green leaves to catch flying and crawling insects.
The nectar released by the pitcher plant on the underside of the trap’s lid attracts insects. Enzymes eventually digest bugs, supplying the plant with essential nutrients. The pitcher plant will be content if enough sunlight, warmth, and humidity are provided. Use a light soil composed of half sphagnum moss and half perlite because pitcher plants are designed to capture their own nutrients.Continually moisten the soil. When grown outside or in the summer, pitcher plants may easily provide for themselves. Feed it once a month till spring if it is kept indoors over the winter with live crickets, dried blood worms, or fish meal flakes.
2. Columnea-gloriosa
When given the correct conditions, this unusual variety will produce gorgeous flowers year-round, with trailing, glossy, deep green vines and a profusion of orange blossoms that resemble miniature goldfish. The native of South and Central America, the goldfish plant prefers a lot of humidity and bright, indirect light. Due to their epiphytic nature, goldfish plants thrive in loose, airy soils like sphagnum moss. Water it regularly in the summer but let the soil get a little dry in between waterings in the winter to promote prolific blooming.
3. Lavender Scallops Lavender scallops (Kalanchoe fedtschenkoi compacta)
The uncommon beauty of lavender scallops, also known as Bryophyllum fedteschenkoi, has erect, meaty, cream and green leaves with a scalloped edge that glows pinkish red in strong light. Lavender scallops, a succulent native to Madagascar, totally flourish in lots of sunlight and little water. This plant should be simple to maintain even for those with black thumbs!
4. Adenium obesum
Desert rose is an attractive African evergreen succulent shrub. Desert rose can be pruned, bonsai-style, into a small tree or let to grow au natural to a height of up to nearly 10 feet tall. It has a swelling trunk, woody branches, leathery green leaves, and tubular flowers that range in color from red to pink. Desert rose is surprisingly simple to maintain despite its intricate appearance. Given that it is native to semi-arid areas, it requires relatively little water to survive.
5. Pachypodium lamerei
The Madagascar palm, which resembles a mix between a palm tree and a cactus, is actually a succulent member of the dogbane family. The 20-foot-tall Madagascar palm, with its silvery, thorny trunk and a crown crowded with green leaves, may be reduced to less than 6 feet in height when grown in a pot inside. Additionally, it grows slowly, so you will have many years to watch it develop. Like other succulents, place the Madagascar palm in a sunny spot and water it lightly. Use a soil that drains well, such as cactus soil, and fertilize every five weeks in the spring and summer using a low-nitrogen formula.
6. Echinopsis calochlora
Echinopsis definitely deviates from the normal cactus forms for a true cactus. While it first appears as a little, sea urchin-like mound with several thorny ribs that is about 4 inches in diameter, it only blooms with enormous, 6 inch white flowers at night.Echinopsis is a plant that grows along rocky soils in South America. It requires a light loamy soil that is covered in stones or crushed seashells. Give this cactus plenty of sunlight and little water, especially throughout the winter, just like other cacti. Repotting the tiny pups that emerge at the base of the plant is all that is required to propagate echinopsis.
7. Albuca spiralis, often known as the corkscrew albuca
Corkscrew albuca, also known as frizzle sizzling, develops unusual stems that tightly twist up into spirals at either end, adding much-needed visual variety to your indoor garden. The underground bulb from which the long, slender leaves sprout produces a yellow flower with a vanilla aroma when it is in bloom Corkscrew albuca needs a lot of light to keep its curls tight. Additionally, it needs soil that drains properly and close attention to moisture.Water less when the plant is dormant since excessive watering might cause bulb and root rot.
8. Oxalis triangularis
Purple shamrock produces gorgeous reverse triangular leaflets in sets of three that range in hue from deep purple to magenta for an all-year-round splash of color. Underground tubers that resemble pine cones give rise to the stems. Purple shamrock is not a real shamrock; instead, it belongs to the same family as wood sorrel. It will turn and travel toward the light each day in the morning and the afternoon, then shut its leaves at night. Despite being a reasonably adaptable plant, purple shamrock loves bright, primarily indirect light and a cooler location inside the house. It can start to seem a little ragged if it’s constantly hotter than 80 degrees. However, it grows quickly, so cut back any drab-looking foliage and it will quickly recover.
9. A dolphin string (Senecio peregrinus)
You may be familiar with a strand of pearls or beads. String of Dolphins, a succulent that resembles dolphins leaping along the trailing strands, is a member of the same plant family. String of dolphins is a cross between string of pearls and candle plant that produces curved leaves with two tiny points in the middle that resemble fins. The soil should have time to dry out in between waterings and enough of sunshine is ideal for string of dolphins in a hanging basket.
10. Kalanchoe thyrsiflora, sometimes known as the paddle plant
From a central rosette, a stalkless succulent paddle plant grows a compact cluster of large, meaty leaves. Each leaf, which reaches a length of 6 inches, slightly overlaps the leaves around it, resembling a stack of pancakes, which gives rise to the plant’s other popular name, flapjacks. The leaves are a greyish green tint, however when exposed to direct sunlight, the borders turn a bright red. Although this plant blooms after reaching full maturity and bearing fragrant yellow flowers in three to four years, it eventually dies off. But don’t worry, the mother plant will generate plenty of offsets, allowing you to restart the process. Plant your paddle plant in a cactus mix in a location with lots of sunlight to keep it healthy.
11. Black Coral Colocasia esculenta
Black coral taro is an ornamental plant with edible tubers that has gigantic, 2 foot long, heart-shaped leaves. Plant this one in a big container because it can grow up to 6 feet tall and spread that far. Given filtered sunlight or partial shade and soil that has been improved with compost, taking care of this elephant ear plant shouldn’t be too challenging. It like the water and is tolerant of wet feet because it is indigenous to tropical regions of East Asia.
12. Aporocactus flagelliformis
The rat tail cactus grows in the deserts of Mexico and Central America, where it can be seen climbing over trees and across rocks. Due of its flexible growth pattern, it is perfect for hanging baskets. However, you should exercise caution when hanging it because each dangling stem is covered in short, sharp spines. The tubular pink flowers on rat tail cacti, which are each about two inches long, bloom profusely in the spring. Each bloom will last for a few days at a time throughout the flowering period, which lasts about two months. Rat tail cactus, which is adapted to hot and dry climates, will thrive in direct sunlight. When it is actively developing in the spring and summer, water more frequently in the winter.
13. Drosera capensis
Another carnivorous plant that will help rid your home of fruit flies and other indoor pests, cape sundew is an unearthly creature. A chemical that is irresistible to its prey is released by the cape sundew’s tiny rosettes of tentacle-like leaves that are studded with shimmering, gland-tipped plant hairs. Cape sundew tightly coils around an insect once it has been attracted to its leaves and begins to gently consume it for nourishment.
