The only plants we had in the house when I was growing up in the 50s were my grandmother's scary ("don't touch them, they'll die") African violets. And then.... In the late 60s and early 70s we and our friends started bringing plants into the house and hanging them in homemade macrame holders. Not sure how this craze began, but I know it wasn't because of Facebook or Twitter. There were spider plants, wandering jews, aloe, herbs, etc. We had a bay plant that was started from a slip in VA and wound up as a big shrub in NC. Various pieces of it still exist in gardens across the USA. I don't know what happened to the Norfolk Island Pine that we carted from place to place. And I remember the avocados that we stuck three toothpicks in and put in a glass of water until a stem or two cracked out of the top.
At the same time, we subscribed to
Organic Gardening and got caught up in the back-to-the-land movement, and our focus eventually changed to outdoor planting, as in subsistence farming. Indoor plants seemed beside the point, except for herbs that you brought in during the winter months.
But here we can't have a garden, so we have lots of plants in pots. And because the avocados are reason in themselves to move to Mexico, I've revived the 70s and started two plants. My brother-in-law says they take 20 years to bear fruit, so I probably won't be around to eat them, but the plants are pretty in and of themselves.
I also started some of my sister's zinnias which are also all over the USA.
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