House Rules HOW TO MAKE INDOOR PLANTS SMILE
Lori Ann Asmus Photo by Linda Smolek
DV By Dan Vierria Garden Jabber
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ILP/GRID NOV n 21
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self-described “bratty teenager,” Lori Ann Asmus saved her best attitude for houseplants. “My mom was an avid gardener, but I really wasn’t interested in working with her,” Asmus says. “I would buy these little indoor plants and then kill them in short order by being uber-responsible,
watering them every day, sometimes twice a day. I didn’t have success with houseplants until I went to college, where I didn’t have time to love them to death.” All grown up, Asmus owns The Emerald City Interior Landscape Services. Chances are you have gazed upon her “interiorscapes” in
Sacramento businesses such as The Citizen Hotel, Eskaton Village, and lobbyist, attorney and doctor offices. She designs and maintains indoor plants for mostly business clients. Houseplants, yoga pants and food delivery all found a welcome embrace from the pandemic’s work-at-home folks. Millennials, born 1981–1996, and Generation Z, born 1997–2012, have showered love on houseplants. They post indoor gardens on social media platforms. As they delay marriage, children and home buying, they become doting plant parents. All ages can appreciate the benefits of houseplants. Studies find indoor plants improve air quality, moods and productivity, and inject style and nature into living spaces. When Asmus was a UC Davis student and working in the botany department’s work-study program, her passion for houseplants reached a fever pitch. “It kind of crept up on me,” she says. “There were lots of fascinating indoor plants in the greenhouses. My friends would complain about moving me from apartment to apartment because plants took up more room than all the other things I owned.” She honed her plant skills in college and at her mother’s plant shop in Southern California. Working as a server in a Davis restaurant, she voluntarily tended the dining room plants swinging in macrame hangers. “One day, the manager pulled me into his office and explained that people actually make money taking care of plants. It was a revelation and the beginning of a new business I started while still in college. My first real account was Togo’s in Davis.” Confined mostly indoors during winter months, houseplants become our focus. Mostly tropical or subtropical, houseplants do not tolerate temperature extremes. Blooming plants are especially sensitive. “They generally are comfortable where we are comfortable,” Asmus says. She recommends buying and transporting houseplants during midday hours in winter when temperatures are warmer. “Cold can cause as much distress as heat in summer. Do your errands first,
