Mine, mine, mine...LOL...

For the most part, my plants are a hobby, my own personal stress relievers and sanity keepers! I enjoy working with them and helping them to stay healthy. It's all for me!

The air cleaning and decorating part of their addition to my home is an added bonus but not the primary reason I have them...

I'm with naturelover on this one. One of my favorite hobbies is collecting and taking care of plants. I've always been a nurturer w/plants, people and animals. Plants I dont want anymore are given away or sold. It gives me great satisfaction knowing I can care for something and help it live. They also look nice in the house, it sometimes looks like my cats are in the jungle : )

Jen

For me houseplants are a frustrating diversion ;-)

I love to grow things and as a result have outdoor gardens and containers for veggies and ornamentals, trees, shrubs, vines and all that stuff. That's what I am mostly into.

Living in the cold north though, growing outside just isn't possible much of the year so I turn my attention to indoor plants.

Unfortunately houseplants don't do much beyond survive (hopefully ;-) from late fall to early spring around here so while I pay more attention to them at this time, they aren't particularly amenable to my doing anything with them (fertilizing, repotting, propogating etc.).

So, I love em, but I wish their time schedule was better suited to my own ;-)

Mine are definitely an addiction. I suppose the air-cleaning part is nice, but I don't think about it. I try to have them arranged so they look nice, but if it's a choice between where they look best or where they get the conditions they like they get the conditions they like. I love sharing them with other people, but I'm not sure it's because I'm particularly generous--it's just that I love to start new plants and if I couldn't find people (suckers?) to take some of them off my hands I'd run out of space for silly things like the people that live here.
And they keep my spirits up and my attitude positive when I might otherwise be dwelling on things that aren't so positive--

Mine are for me mainly, but everyone enjoys them around here especially this time of year. I have a 3 season room that has been turned into a plant room and is heated. Its a south facing room so has sun all day from sunrise to sunset! During the winter it is great to sit in there and see green leaves, flowers, feel the sun, and get to work with soil while looking at the snow outside. Its pretty expensive to heat but worth it for the peace of mind it gives me.

I so need a sunroom! I just love having the greenery around me in the winter when everything outside is so drab and dreary. It one way for me to take my gardening addiction indoors.

I have a much better green thumb with my outdoor plants, but am quickly learning what each of my houseplants appreciate.

I used to have a major problem with my cats attacking my plants, and they still will occasionally, but not as much.
The more plants there are, the less they graze.

They're kind of decoration, in that I sometimes think of them as being like [really high-maintenance] sculptures. I get excited by new cultivars, new shapes and colors and growth habits; I collect them (presently: 111 individual plants of 54 different species); I spend a lot of time just looking at them; I enjoy seeing other people looking at them and commenting on them.

But it's not like I pitch them if they're not looking good anymore, either. There's a point beyond which they aren't allowed to go, but I'll try to find a way to make them happy first. And I tend not to buy plants that flower, like poinsettias or cyclamen, which means that I don't usually get tempted to throw something out just because it's done flowering.

There's also an element of addiction to it, too, especially now (I have literally thought to myself, in all seriousness, "Just one or two little plants; nobody will notice."). But before the compulsion came the appreciation.

Mine are a hobby and compulsion. The fact that they improve the looks of a home and its air quality are nice but I don't think much about it.

I think of them mostly as pets! Definitely a hobby I do for me - no one else in the household really cares, although when the jungle gets too large, there are complaints muttered, which I basically ignore.

I will throw out a plant only if it is seriously infested with difficult to eradicate pests. Otherwise, if I am sick of it or out of room, I try to give it away or sell it. If I end up with a potted flowering plant, I will usually chuck it after it blooms if I'm out of room, unless it is one of my obsessions (used to be african violets, then orchids, now tropical hibiscus), then I will slave to get it to bloom again.

When I first started working for an interior landscape company, I had a really hard time throwing out plants that were less-than-perfect when we had to replace them! After two years, it's gotten easier - especially once I realized that healthy new plants take so much less time and effort each week to keep them looking nice!

Right now my house plants consists of a red geranium,a double pink begonia and a Christmas cactus that decided Christmas is in February.

I have lots of flowers outside but for health reasons will have to start container gardening and plants indoors. Not completely new to growing plants indoors. Years ago had house plants when we lived in an apartment.

This winter i have injoyed the flowers inside.
Flowers have always been a love of mine.
They are necesary to me. I injoy giving starts of plants and giving away or trading whole plants.
vickie

Definitely an obsession! But such a pleasant and relatively inexpensive one -- if there's any doubt about that, just check out the price of diamonds!! :)

My sis-in-law & I went plant shopping Saturday with the hubbies . . thankfully, it was at Lowe's so they were able to get lost in other parts of the store while we satisfied our obsession!

I am now the proud owner of 2 new African Violets, a purple passion plant, a false aralia, a couple of fittonia's, a corn-plant, and several others (15 altogether), but my favorite has to be my new Peperomia Prostrata (see the link below) . . it's not so much beautiful as just very unusual, and fascinating to me! The strands feel like pearls in your hands, and actually are in the shape of coin pearls.

I do occasionally throw one out after I've done all I can to save it and failed. I can't tell you the number of times I've done that, tho, only to find that same plant sprouting new growth a few months later --- even sitting directly in the weather thru Missouri winters! Now, I gotta tell you, I admire that kind of determination, so when that happens, that plant gets brought back in pronto, and given VIP treatment! :):)

Now, if anyone has any ideas on how to keep the cat out of the long/tall stringy

Here is a link that might be useful: CW General Friend's Topic . . Leah's Photos

For me growing plants in door is kind of an obsession. I love growing things and being able to manipulate nature to do things it didn't intend to (like growing indoors) or propagating plants. It's fun and very rewarding and a huge learning experience about plants and nature but also about yourself. You come to realize a lot about yourself in the process of growing plants.

My obsession with plant has even gone into the virtual world. Not only do I spend time on forums talking about and learning about plants but I even spend my free time blogging about them and posting pictures on my gardening blog. I'm so addicted

Here is a link that might be useful: My Gardening Blog