Come on in, the gardening's fine

The Philadelphia Inquirer (MCT) - Mary McKnight talks to her houseplants. She flatters and scolds them and fluffs up their foliage as if it's fur on a puppy.

But she's no crazier than any other gardener facing the off-season, a time for channeling summer's outdoor creativity into what McKnight calls the "indoor 'scapes" of fall.

Turns out, designing with plants inside is a lot like what we do outside.

"It's the idea of using plants in aesthetically pleasing ways, as you would in your garden," says McKnight, who pairs flowering and nonflowering, standard and seasonal plants and cut flowers on just about every flat surface in her Abington, Pa., house.

Even the stairs. They're lined with begonias, one per step, all swirly leaves in silver, pink, maroon and green.

McKnight's approach falls squarely within the larger trends for indoor and outdoor horticultural design, according to Tovah Martin, author of a dozen gardening books, including five about houseplants.

Those trends include: more _ and more interesting _ plants on the market; more attention being paid not only to "right plant, right place" but also to "right plant, right pot"; and greater emphasis on presentation.

"There is just a lot more design today, more artistry. It's about the whole picture, not just plants for plants' sake," says Martin, whose indoor garden in Roxbury, Conn., features some unusual houseplants. She has scented geranium (pelargonium), coral bells (heuchera), dwarf clematis, ornamental grasses like pennisetum, and chirita, a relative of the African violet.

She also grows bromeliad, coleus, and lady's slipper orchid.

But endless sills of supermarket violets? So yesterday. As are assembly-line pots in green and brown plastic, and the idea that once you place a houseplant, thou shalt not move it _ ever.

"You wouldn't, or shouldn't, buy a great plant, plop it any old place in your outdoor garden, and leave it there. You switch it around," McKnight says. "You do that inside, too."

Designing an indoor garden, then, is equal parts flower show, art exhibit and movable feast.

The goal, McKnight says, using a favorite horticultural term, is "to provide interest" indoors over the long, dark winter.

"Interest is when people look at a plant and feel a little something in their heart," she says. "When it pops."

Pop for a party might mean incorporating a plant that lives on a windowsill into a festive or seasonal array on the dining-room table. "Now you have a 'scape on a table that's designed and purposeful," McKnight says.

And classic.

You won't find macrame plant slings in this house or frizzy Chia Heads, although McKnight has proud memories of her mother's rope-length philodendrons trailing around the rooms of her childhood. Nothing wrong with an old standby, but McKnight updates it, using the newer gold and chartreuse varieties.

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Containers are important, too. They bring everything together.

McKnight chooses "classic, simple containers" based on the colors in her home.

"These are obviously colors you like already," she says.

So her pots reflect the earthy oranges, reds, greens and golds on her walls, chairs and rugs. And she doesn't pay a lot for them; $25 is her limit.

McKnight shops for pots at Ikea, checks sales at local garden shops, and sometimes scores at the Visiting Nurse Association's thrift shop in Manasquan, N.J.

"I'll even buy things that are chipped," she says. "The chips won't show when you fill the pot."

McKnight favors ceramic or plastic and, occasionally, clay. On the dining-room table, for example, an autumn bouquet from Genuardi's is arranged in a rooster vase and flanked by two clay pots of variegated Algerian ivy.

(She calls English ivy "the roach of the plant kingdom," but large and variegated is A-OK, and repeated use of ivy indoors "brings continuity throughout the house.")

Scattered about the tabletop are votive candles and a few knobby yellow squash that crashed this year's compost pile. The table's getting a little crowded.

"My style is to approach over-the-top, but all I do is approach it," says McKnight, a master gardener who has studied art and horticulture and owns Ideas in Bloom, a horticultural-design firm in Abington.

In the living room is another supermarket find _ three small pots of kalanchoe in fall colors, tucked inside an ivy-filled pot. At Christmas, McKnight will substitute three small poinsettias.

Odd numbers work best, she adds, except when you want a more formal look. Two bright green dwarf cypresses called 'Wilma Goldcrest' work well on the dining-room hutch, beguiling dinner guests with their sweet, lemony fragrance.

McKnight pays close attention to the colors that may be embedded in leaves, stems or petals.

"Pick up the yellow tones of a green leaf and combine that with a flower that's yellow-green," she says, "or wow everyone by using a contrast."

Chartreuse and purple, opposites on the color wheel, provide drama. And you might think red should be avoided for rudeness.

"Red can be neutral, and it goes amazingly well with a lot of things," says McKnight, who has a striking example of color and contrast on her kitchen counter.

She started with an 11-inch oval pot. It's burgundy, ceramic, and filled with spikes of plummy cordyline; a compact, deeply grooved, gray-and-maroon peperomia, or baby rubber plant; and neutral gray sphagnum moss, a common floral filler.

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"You're so pretty," McKnight purrs at the pot, ruffling its moody spikes. Fresh from a crash course in "indoor 'scapes," you couldn't agree more.

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There are no rules anymore.

Before you head out the door to run wild in the streets, understand that this maxim does not refer to public behavior. It was Ginny Page's response to a question about design rules for creating "interior 'scapes."

"We all make it up as we go along," says the owner of Flower Child in Center City, Philadelphia.

That's a relief, and something to keep in mind when you're fretting over your off-season indoor garden.

As a florist, Page naturally thinks of cut flowers, but she also uses ornamental pepper plants, which are covered in flamelike fruits in green, yellow, orange, red, purple and even black. They're a jaunty partner for ferns or tropicals in an oblong basket with legs.

"It's very seasonal but a little bit different than mums," Page says.

She also likes four-inch pots of succulents in a shallow wooden bowl filled with pebbles. No need to spend a fortune; Page has found beautiful bowls at places like T.J. Maxx.

"It looks like the succulents are emerging from the rocks," she says.

But Page's all-time favorite houseplant is the rhizomatous begonia. That's a mouthful, but you've undoubtedly seen them around.

"They bloom their heads off all winter," says Page, but it's their outrageous foliage that becomes them most. It can be striped, spotted or mottled, hairy or shiny, silver-green, ice-pink, black or copper, with brooding veins and radiant rims.

Page mixes them with ferns and chartreuse or burgundy philodendron. "Looks like velvet," she says.

If none of these ideas appeals, perhaps cut flowers are the answer. A monochromatic mix of blooms in shades of a single color works every time.

But if you really want to run wild in the streets, try one of Page's most delicious fall creations: pumpkin-colored calla lilies, French tulips, roses and amaryllis paired with orange bittersweet, dark raspberry kangaroo paw, and Oncidium orchids.

A feast for the eyes _ if only it could last till spring.

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© 2008, The Philadelphia Inquirer.