Do you know the type of tree in picture 7?

I had a huge awesome palm indoors forever but it out grew the house! Sigh.

stephinmd, I believe it is a fiddle leaf fig.

Stephinmd - 7 and 1 are fiddle leaf figs (same genus as the brown turkey fig in 6 and weeping/benjamin fig in 10).

i just started some ornamental bananas from seed (ensete ventricosum, http://green-24.de/forum/files/thumbs/t_ensete_ventricosum_maurelii_3_-_010706_106.jpg) they can be really rewarding big houseplants in a matter of months. Under the right conditions they can grow several feet in a year. Usually a bit slower indoors. Move them out of the sun and they will slowdown. Eventually they will outgrow your space but just keep a few of various sizes around. you can pick up a pack of seeds for relatively cheap, about $5 which is a small price to pay considering a grown plant will cost several times that for just one. And with a fast growing species why pay for that?

Ficus is also very nice, Ive had one for 10 years and its about 3 feet tall now but i keep it pretty potbound and dont feed it much (i want to keep it small). In a larger pot im sure it would be huge by now.

Any suggestions for a large plant/tree that needs very little sunlight? I have a great apartment but my windows face east and there are huge trees outside of them.

Alexisclaire, if you use a full-spectrum spotlight to augment natural light, there are some great ferns and elephant ear plants that will do well in an east-facing window. Also consider a zebra plant or a peace lilily. I don't think there are many large-scale house plants that do well without a lot of light. Most leafy house plants are tropical, I believe, and if you consider what grows on the forest floor, as opposed to up in the canopy, the plants are smaller.

Pygmy Date Palms can tolerate low light, but they don't get super large; ditto for Tree Ivy. Bamboo Palms can grow to six feet in filtered sunlight, and so can Corn Plants (Dracaena fragrans, not actual corn!) and Madagascar Dragon Trees (Dracaena marginata).

If you want to fake a tree, you can train Pothos or Grape Ivy to climb up a tree-shaped form; they end up looking like big topiaries!

Can anyone tell me where to find that little white chair in picture one?

I wish I could have those fig trees in pics 1 and 7! My apartment faces north and get no light. When it's cloudy I have to turn lights on. Annoying! I can't wait to move one of these days and find a bright home!

That first picture makes me cry, I love it so much. If not for my digging dogs...

I had a pencil cactus that grew into a tree..... lost it when I divorced and left with a suitcase, but I still think about growing one again.

I love the cozy room (first pic) and the glimpse of that painting over the fireplace.

I have two miniature palms and a Norfolk Island pine that live most of the year indoors. But, they have gotten out of control! They take up a lot of space in my small bungalow, but I'm too attached to them at this point to get rid of them. Be careful what you wish for!

Careful with indoor pant selections. Many like the ficuses/figs will deposit sticky substance over your furniture and floors. Just sayin...

i love the plant and its placement in the first image.. but i'm not very good with plants.. i'm still struggling to keep my peace lily fresh and blooming.

Love the free-form-edge coffee table, any chance of finding out where it's from? :)

The plants in number one and number seven are fiddle leaf ficus. The tree in the last picture is a ficus.

I love the first photo! But the size of the leaves on the tree are doing a real number on how I perceive the depth of the room.

The Latin name of the ficus on pics 1 and 7 is Ficus lyrata. Here, in Canada, I often see them at Home Depot (in a small size, maybe 2.5 ft tall). They grow fairly quickly and are not high maintenance. I used to have a huge gorgeous specimen for years but then it caught some disease and I had to part with it. I was also out of space it. It has always been my No. 1 plant for indoors, I love the shape of the leaves. It can be pruned into shape.

P.S. Quiltmaster is correct in saying that many ficuses produce sticky residue, but ficus lyrata is not one of them. I think it is usually the smaller-leaved ones, such as Ficus benjamina (I used to own one, too, years ago).

I have north facing windows (in SoCal) and a fiddle leaf, which I wish would bend like the one in the photo. But it's doing fine--it's about 7 ft. tall and I have it in a large pot on wheels.

My fiddle leaf fig freaked out when I first brought it home, dropping many leaves. Two years later, it's several inches taller and growing new leaves. I should note that I do not have much of a green thumb, and have managed to keep it alive since its transition to my home. Don't worry, I'm sure yours will bounce back in no time.

Rotating your potted plants collection from indoors to outdoors may keep them alive. With rotation, there may always be a couple of potted plants that are pretty enough to display.

@kimg924 and @Vacationland thank you for the great suggestions.

I love the Corn Plant and the Madagascar Dragon

actually you might not be able to simply rotate all your plants. it is a shock to their system if they are moved from one extreme of temperature to another so you need to do it gently. a plant that has been kept warm indoors should be shifted to a shaded patio or something before you finally move it outdoors and similarly, shift a plant that has been in the sunny outdoors to a shaded verandah before pulling it indoors.

Does anyone know where you can get a fiddle leaf fig? I have been trying to get a plant/ seeds / anything but no luck. Any suggestions?

smriti, Yes, you're absolutely right, and I don't know whether rotation could be done at all during a northern winter.

Gbtoo, I got my fig from someone selling saplings on Craigslist. It was awkward, but he gave me valuable advice (told me to expect leaves to fall and to keep the tree in the shade for awhile) and only asked $10. You can probably find reduced price fig trees at garden stores now -- the ones I have seen are marked down about 25%.