The Beauty of Indoor Hanging Plants

In many cultures, cleaning up and organizing are the activities that come before the New Year arrives. By New Year’s Eve, indoor surfaces sparkle, and the clutter that accumulated over a full year becomes only a memory. Not a bad way to begin anew…

In trying to greet the New Year in that manner, I evaluated what I could organize. I cleared countertops, tidied cabinets, and then saw my windowsills. All I could think was—too much. My houseplants had taken up most of the real estate on my sills. It then occurred to me: Outdoors I use window boxes and hanging baskets during summer, but indoors, I had overlooked the vertical plane as a prime space for letting plants grow. I needed to look up in order to clean up. I needed to start displaying some of my plants in hanging containers.

My Callisia repens, or Creeping Inch Plant, provided the place to begin. Callisia repens trails beautifully and was doing so from its windowsill pot, down to the countertop. It would trail much longer than this in no time if given a better place to grow. I was determined to reposition it in a place where it could show off its trailing nature.

Decades back, just about every home had macramé baskets hanging indoors, showing off trailing houseplants. I have read that macramé is making a comeback, but not so much with the chunky yarns and wooden beads of the past. Instead, delicate threads now get twisted together to create dainty hangers for pots of greenery. A ceramic teacup, the type that has no handle but is instead just a clean cylinder, makes a perfect container to fit inside this type of hanger. And a small-leafed trailer like Callisia repens would be the perfect plant for positioning inside.

Callisia repens can handle some shade, but it prefers sunlight. There are several varieties with different coloration. The golden tones of the variety I have remind me of its love of the sun. A container for Callisia repens would have to be the right size and shape for hanging directly in a window where good light can pour in. And because such a spot can get cool and drafty depending on the weather and the window, monitoring Callisia repens would be necessary to ensure comfort and optimal growth.

I would use Callisia repens as the first subject for re-potting and repositioning to free up space on windowsills and countertops and add interest along the vertical plane. I realized I could hang a lightweight pot from a curtain rod and a mid-weight pot from a window latch. Anything heavier would need different treatment.

With my golden-toned variety of Callisia repens getting placed in a new spot in my home, I predicted that it would begin to look healthier than ever. Its trailing stems would finally be able to stretch out as much as they desired. The reddish-purple undersides of the leaves of my Callisia repens would become more visible with the plant being viewed head-on rather than from above. And the golden color of its leaf-tops would surely take on an even more vibrant tone with the light hitting them better.

I hung my Callisia repens on a window latch in a hanging container discovered in my morning clean-out. It immediately caught the light that was coming in the window, and it looked happy. I was happy with my home tidied and my new plans for my trailing plants. I found myself looking forward to the ball drop in the not-too-distant future. Welcome, New Year.