Even the plainest room is brought to life by living greenery, and the quickest cure for a large, stark, inhuman interior is to introduce one or two specimen indoor trees. Chosen carefully, they can have as much impact as a fine piece of furniture or a painting, and even in the more modest indoor home garden an indoor tree plant gives emphasis and scale.

Mature palms are very popular today as an indoor trees, but there are a number of other houseplant visually powerful enough to stand on their own in a large empty space In their natural environment these form substantial trees, and the best of them have the same visual effect - scaled down - when grown indoors. They will, in fact, attain a considerable size after a number of years of indoor growth, but with their roots confined to pots they grow far less vigorously than in the wild. If they do begin to outgrow their setting, most of those described here except the Norfolk Island pine (Araucaria excelsa) will come to no harm if excessive growth is pruned back. So there is no need to worry that they will drive you from house and home!