With shorter days and cooler weather, it’s easy to feel dreary on dark winter days. At Rose Hill Flowers, we encourage everyone in Nashville to brighten up the gray of winter with the vibrant colors of both blooming and non-blooming winter plants. We put together a list of our top five favorite plants to grow indoors for a more colorful winter.

1. Poinsettia

We can’t have a list of favorite winter plants and not list the poinsettia at the top. Poinsettias bloom naturally in response to the shorter winter days, and they are a must-have for celebrating the holidays. While their red and white varieties are by far the most popular, they also come in yellow, orange, salmon, pink, and marbled varieties. Many people think that a poinsettia’s flowers are its bright leaf-like structures (bracts) that change color when the plant blooms. A poinsettia’s flowers, however, are actually the small, yellow clusters located in the middle of the bracts.

To keep your poinsettia vibrant all season, make sure it has plenty of sun and soil that’s kept perpetually moist. Be careful, however, not to let your poinsettia sit in standing water, as this will damage the root system and hurt the plant.

2. Orchids

Orchids are sensitive to temperature, and they bloom when the weather cools in winter. Their tropical blooms are the perfect antidote to a dreary winter day. With an estimated 30,000 orchid species growing around the world, these plants come in an almost endless variety of colors, shapes, and sizes.

To care for yours, be sure it’s placed in a location with plenty of sunlight and potted in a container that will drain easily. Water it frequently. If the air inside your home is unusually dry due to a running furnace, we recommend misting an orchid now and then with water or a specially formulated plant spray.

3. Norfolk Island Pine

Norfolk Island pines are beautiful, little trees that are perfectly suited to growing in just about any home. They’re vibrant all year, but during the winter they make wonderful living Christmas trees and look simply stunning adorned with red bows or small ornaments.

Norfolk Island pines are not true pine trees in the sense that they don’t grow naturally in cold places. They’re actually a tree that’s native to warm rainforests. As a result, they like to receive lots of sunshine, have soil that’s kept watered, and they prefer a warm place inside a home. They can be sensitive to conditions that change too drastically. If you decide to move yours to a new location inside your home, it’s best to do so gradually.

4. Kalanchoe

These sunny, little succulents are one of our favorites for winter because they start blooming in the fall and will continue until spring. With brightly colored flower clusters in pink, red, orange, yellow, and white, they’ll add plenty of cheer to a gray season.

Kalanchoe plants are quite happy in a home with a furnace that’s running. Native to the desert, they love warm, dry air. Keep yours in a location with lots of direct sunlight and be sure its potting soil is allowed to dry completely before watering it.

5. Cyclamen

Cyclamen are gorgeous plants with deep, green foliage threaded with silver markings and elegant flowers shaped like shooting stars. They bloom naturally in the winter in colors ranging from light pink to deep red, violet, and white.

These beauties are native to the Mediterranean and need lots of sunshine and soil that’s kept moist. In the spring, your cyclamen will go dormant and look like it’s dead. Store it in a cool, dry place for the summer and resume watering in fall.

Winter Wonders for Your Outdoor Garden

We love indoor gardening in the winter, but Nashville’s relatively mild climate means that some winter-blooming flowers can actually be grown outside and might bloom as early as February. Some of our favorite blooming plants that grow in the USDA’s hardiness zone 7 in winter include colorful winter pansies, snowdrops, ornamental kale, and the enchanting flowering evergreen, Christmas roses.

If the idea of spending time outside in the cold, tending to a winter garden, doesn’t exactly sound enticing, you definitely don’t have to forgo flowers in the winter. We welcome you to stop by Rose Hill Flowers any time this winter for indoor gardening tips and personalized winter flower recommendations.