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A fellow gardener recently told me that she’s been in a “funk” ever since the day she planted the last bulb in her garden. She said, “I might have to get a houseplant.”

I’m afraid one might not be enough. Personally, I prefer a houseful. An indoor garden raises the humidity level — always a plus after we turn on the furnace — and gives me plenty of soil to stick my fingers in on those Saturday mornings I might otherwise spend in the garden. Besides, I couldn’t possibly choose just one.

That said, if I were on a houseplant hunt right now I would be powerless to resist Cyclamen persicum’s silver-filigreed leaves and heaven-scented, candle-flame flowers suddenly available at every florist, nursery and grocery store. But they’re kind of like shooting for the moon, about as tricky as houseplants get.

For starters they really don’t love how warm our houses are even if, like me, you keep the thermostat hovering near 60°. Give them a chilly (not freezing) porch at night and they’ll bloom for months after decorating your Thanksgiving Day table. That is, so long as you don’t over — or under — water them. The soil should dry out between drenchings but never so much that the leaves wilt. It’s all over when they wilt. And it’s all over if they rot, so never run water over their exposed root tuber. Water thoroughly from the side of the pot or from below and then don’t let the plant sit too long in the dish of overflow. Cyclamen go leaflessly dormant as the weather warms and with cool, dark and dry summer storage, lucky green thumbs may encourage them to come to life again next year.

It’s probably Cyclamen’s fault that houseplants have a reputation for being difficult but Thanksgiving cactus (Schlumbergera truncata) couldn’t be easier unless it was made of plastic. A tree-dwelling epiphyte in its native Brazil, this plant takes indirect light on the chin and doesn’t mind a little benign neglect (under-watering) particularly after flowering.

Popular houseplant lore suggests locking them in a dark closet until they set holiday-timed flower buds, but there’s really no excuse for horticultural abuse. Bud formation is triggered by a few weeks of cool, dark nights right around and just after the autumn equinox, so simply leave them outside for a while before frost. The plant’s only temperamental trait is supposedly to drop buds if you can’t make up your mind which windowsill or shelf they should decorate. But I carelessly moved mine front and center last week from a hidden corner and its buds are totally fine.

One of the best things about having an indoor garden is that if the plants look alive let alone healthy, your friends will think you’re some sort of green-thumbed genius. I hate to disabuse anyone of that notion but houseplants don’t have to be difficult to grow. The trick is matching light, humidity and temperature levels in your house — probably darker, drier and warmer than you think — to a plant that probably came from a temperate rain forest or tropical island. So easy. If it requires full sun, place it up against a south-facing window and hope for the best. If it can take indirect light, any other windowsill will do in winter while the sun is weak. If it needs more humidity, buy more plants.

The other trick is to learn how to water. Whether your plant needs to be kept evenly moist or to dry out between watering (my personal favorite kind of plant), the key is to drench the soil until water runs out the hole in the bottom of the pot. That’s precisely what the kitchen sink is for.

There’s so much more to say about how great it is to grow houseplants that this might have to be the beginning of a series. In the meantime, if you’re feeling the end-of-the-garden-season “funk” too, surround yourself with the flowers you bought to decorate your dinner table and the friends who think you’re a green-thumb genius no matter what grows in your house. And have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Kristin Green is the interpretive horticulturist at Blithewold Mansion, Gardens & Arboretum in Bristol. She has worked at Blithewold since 2003 and has written their garden blog (blog.blithewold.org) since 2007.