Inside Outside

Terrarium Plants Flourish in the Garden

By Virginia Hayes

I recently was looking for information on the Internet about a
plant and realized that most of the entries listed it as a
terrarium plant. It was pretty widely available, but only from
growers who saw it as a tender subject suitable only for hothouse
culture. The interesting thing was that I’d just walked by a
robust, blooming colony of it in a garden setting. It was listed
along with a number of other plants we take for granted here,
adding more proof that our outdoors is just as congenial a habitat
as a glass bowl on someone’s countertop in many other parts of the
country.

The plant I noticed as I made this observation was Ruellia
makoyana. It is commonly known as the monkey plant or trailing
velvet plant. Its leaves are a deep green with a white midrib and
it flowers profusely in shade or partial shade with bright pink,
trumpet-shaped flowers. The plant itself clambers along the ground,
never getting taller than a foot or so in height, but making a nice
dense mound that can eventually cover quite an area. It is not
common yet (although I suggest it should be), and you will still
probably have to buy it from a purveyor of greenhouse subjects.