The subject collections, sorted by where the plant grows
The catalogue has 301 species, grouped in 16 subject collections, and no two collections use the same rule: one follows light, one follows water, one follows the botanical family, one follows the coldest night a plant survives. This page puts them in two groups by the question that decides most of a plant’s care: does it spend the winter in a room, or outside?
In a room, or on a windowsill
These collections hold mostly plants that spend the winter indoors — in a room, by a window, in a bathroom. Indoors the light is what decides, and the watering interval follows from it.
- Plants listed as toxic to pets 49 species
- The Araceae family 18 species
- Low-light plants 55 species
- Succulents and cacti 18 species
- Trailing plants 29 species
- Plants that need little water 22 species
- Bathroom plants 60 species
- Plants with patterned leaves 50 species
- Flowering houseplants 22 species
- Balcony plants 26 species
- Houseplants for a bright window 30 species
Outside, in the ground or in a pot
These collections hold mostly plants that stay outside through the winter. The number to read in them is the coldest night the catalogue records for each plant.
- Conifers 15 species
- Garden trees 51 species
- Garden shrubs 29 species
- Hardy border perennials 53 species
- Plants for a mild winter 28 species
A collection can hold both. Succulents, trailing plants, patterned leaves and balcony plants each have species on either side of a window, and so do conifers — one of their members, the Norfolk Island pine, grows in a room. The group follows the majority of each collection’s own members, counted from the catalogue. The toxicity collection is the clearest case: its members come from rooms and from gardens alike, so it sits with the indoor groups by majority, not by rule.