I like a good fish fern in the bathroom as much as the next plant lover, but even I admit that potted fish ferns are just a bit.... bath salts. To get a true return on the time, money and imagination you spend on obtaining your pot plant, it needs to be a. fun b. unusual c. potentially productive. An opportunity to boast about it doesn't hurt, either.
The following can all be bought online, with a bit of hunting and persistence.
Allspice Tree
This glossy leafed rainforest tree grows to 'vast', but won't in your living room.
Needs: Full sun, and a long holiday outdoors each summer to give it a growth boost and control aphids. The bigger the pot, the larger your allspice tree will grow. Water well, and feed 'according to directions on the packet'.
Gains: Gloriously scented leaves to dry for cooking or just to sniff.
Cons: The leaves are so delicious you will want to pick them all. Do not do this - your tree may not survive.
Potted Tomato
I'm about to dig up a seedling cherry tomato to harvest (a little) through winter in our living room. The bushes and red fruit will look extremely decorative.
Needs: As much sun, warmth and feeding as possible.
Gains: Tomatoes plus a cheery red spangled pot plant.
Cons: The fruit will never be as sweet as sun ripened outdoor tomato - think supermarket flavour plus 20% - and the bush will lose its vigour after six months or so - or less if you under or overfeed it.
Native Lime
Native limes (there are varied varieties and species) will grow to two metres or more but can be pruned. They are thin leafed, and anonymously green.
Needs: A sunny living room and a big pot.
Gains: Long fruit like fat green to yellow caterpillars filled with clear, red or pink 'vegan caviar': tiny globules that burst with lime juice.
Cons: The young tree is thorny for its first few years. Do not grow next to your favourite arm chair or where inquisitive kids may get prickled faces.
Tamarillo
These are giant leafed, thin trunked, with gorgeous bundles of bright fruit for months of the year. Find a fruit, plant the seeds, and wait four months or more for them to germinate. You should get fruit within a year.
Needs: A sunny window, a big pot, and a ceiling 2 metres high.
Gains: Red or orange oval fruit, deepening on variety, delicious once the bitter skin is peeled off.
Cons: Can't think of any.
Passionfruit Vine
These have glossy leaves, cheerful cream and purple flowers and purple fruit, unless you grow a banana passionfruit, which is more cold tolerant, with flagrant pink blooms and long yellow fruit.
Needs: A sunny window and an athletic owner who will fix a lattice around the window for it to climb on. Ripe fruit will fall off so no further athletic prowess will be needed.
Gains: You will harvest passionfruit in a climate where outdoor passionfruit struggle to survive.
Cons: Do not let success with passionfruit tempt you to try other fruiting climbers indoors. The impact of a falling passionfruit is usually negligible. A falling watermelon may do serious damage.
Tea Camellia
Tea camellias are stunning pot plants - shiny green leaves, and small single white flowers in profusion. Pick the new leaves and dry for 'green tea' or ferment and dry (complex but can be done at home) for black tea.
Needs: A window with morning sun and afternoon shade. A small bush will survive in a small pot, but you'll need two big bushed in two big pots to grow anything like your household tea needs.
Gains: Fresh organic tea and the chance to say smugly 'Egbert and I are totally self sufficient in tea' even if you live six storeys up.
Cons: Tea camellias double in size each year in our climate, so a small plant will stay small till it's about a metre high- then it will suddenly be two metres high next year, though pruning the new leaves keeps the bush naturally neat.
Coffee Bush
Our glossy leafed coffee bush grew to two metres high by one-metre-wide with several flushes of gorgeous red coffee berries each year.
Needs: Winter indoors, summer outdoors for sunlight and pest control, a large pot and the muscles to move it, or a trolley. (Please Santa, may I have a trolley for Christmas?). I feed my coffee bush coffee grounds and it loves it. The poor thing died back after six weeks' heat and no water in the bushfires, but has re sprouted.
Gains: A gorgeous neat, shiny bush, red berries, the scent of roasting coffee and an excellent conversation starter.
Cons: Not everyone will want to hear you boast about your coffee bush.
