As most gardens tuck up for winter, conservatory owners can allow themselves to feel a little smug. Sales brochures usually present conservatories as plantless spaces. What a missed opportunity, when they could be showing people that they can enjoy their Sunday-morning croissants beneath a leafy canopy in midwinter, surrounded by lemon blossom, jasmine and roses. Or that they can experience an indoor jungle of palms, heliconis and orchids for a small fraction of the cost of flying to Martinique.

First up, I have to admit I’ve had some trials and tribulations. In one conservatory I owned in East Lothian, I wanted a quick canopy over the dining table, so I decided to use morning glories. They grew like mad, flowering in their divine sky blue. Perfect, except that spent flowers, curled up and slug-clammy, plopped into our drinks or down our necks as they were shed at dusk. On another occasion, I tried tubs of the gorgeous Strelitzia reginae, but the flowers dripped copious nectar, transforming the part of the carpet they overhung into the equivalent of sheet steel once it had dried.

We’ve given up on bougainvilleas. Woolly aphids adore them as much as we do, but wreck the plants. Spraying an overhead canopy with insecticide is a grim task, requiring a full decontamination suit worthy of Doctor Who. We’ve also stopped growing anything that is attractive to whitefly – including the lovely tree Sparmannia africana, fuchsias and salvias. The good news, however, is that there are at least a couple of dozen plants that look good, have tough constitutions, are fairly insect-proof and will let you go on holiday for a fortnight without giving up the ghost.

The original “cast-iron plant”, which sometimes goes by that name to prove its point, is otherwise known as the aspidistra. Loved by Victorians, it survived coal-fire fumes, the gloom cast by parlour blinds and the sheer horror of having to grow in an embossed brass cachepot. George Orwell took rather a less favourable view of the plant in the 1930s, using it as a symbol of bourgeois conformity in his novel Keep the Aspidistra Flying. This is a bit harsh: its foliage is actually extremely handsome and the weird ground-level flowers will amuse the slugs. Now enjoying a comeback in florists’ and garden centres, it makes a great filler plant in the shade cast by showier things – and it is nearly unkillable.

What else you grow depends on where you live, and therefore what you find exotic. In my London garden, abutilons, Jasminum officinale, Jasminum polyanthum, tree ferns, myrtles, the fabulous weeping cypress and solanums are all hardy outdoors anyway. In the Borders, even bay, rosemary and myrtle are killed by an open-air winter and need cossetting indoors. Here are some ideas for filling your indoor garden.

Scented bower: If you long for a canopy of greenery and don’t want to spray, try the gorgeous Jasminum sambac, which has hefty undivided leaves, vigorous branches, a divine smell and a constant scatter of flowers an inch across – white, ageing to rose-purple. Even glitzier is J rex, a favourite in Mogul gardens. Both plants are serious survivors. They will need thinning out every winter or two.

Hot spot:If your conservatory gets as hot as Death Valley in summer, try a cactus or two instead of fitting blinds. In five or six seasons, you can easily have enough of the scrambling inch-thick stems of queen of the night (Selenicereus grandiflorus) to cast dappled shade beneath. Use whopping pots and a John Innes compost, with added grit for drainage. The flowers are at their best in the hours of darkness: many-petalled, amber fading to cream, at leasta foot across, with a smell to die for. They hang beneath the stems, so are easily viewed.

It’s happy at 40F in winter (a touch of frost will kill it) and can occasionally get mealy bug. You’ll need gloves to prune it. Shady spots: In shadier places, twining hoyas look good. My London Hoya carnosa – waxen-leafed, waxen-flowered and pretty much bombproof – has just been given a bigger pot to see how it goes. The handsome flowers are heavily scented at night, though in the Borders garden room they drip nectar at random intervals – not good for soft furnishings. H pottsii flowers more easily and smells of hyacinths.H imperialis has large, sinister purple flowers. If you like hanging baskets,H bella is a fragrant small-scaled species that survives neglect. Silver-grey, drooping H linearis makes a substitute for Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides), which is hard to grow outside an orchid house. Big is beautiful: Easier to manage than canopies are grand things in large pots, grouped to give shade and lend scale and excitement to your planting. In London, various figs look well, an especially easy one beingFicus australis– the more usual F benjamina is less tolerant and looks a mess when neglected. A whopping Monstera deliciosa (Swiss cheese plant) goes up one wall, though Philodendron angustisectumwould be good, too. Layers: Other great survivors in conservatories countrywide include: lovely double oleanders in pale yellow and a rich pink; several “cane” begonias (rather than the squat ones used in bedding schemes), including B coccinea and the tall, silver-dappled, delectable B ‘Snowcap’ (don’t vacuum up fallen flowers, as they can rot the dust bag); zonal pelargoniums, which are easily grown into 6ft bushes; scented and ivy-leafed pelargoniums; some great palms, such as chamaerops and the miniature date palm,Phoenix roebelinii; asparagus ferns; and the tough, spiky cousin of the monkey-puzzle tree, Araucaria heterophylla. Beneath them, try clivi-as, the wonderful fernAsplenium nidus, exotic brome-liads (easiest is the wildly elegant Billbergia nutans, which has navy-blue and green flowers dangling from shocking-pink bracts; nastiest isPuya alpestris, built of razor wire, but with sea-green flowers) and yet more jungle cactuses. Winter colour and scent: In the north, if there’s snow, the radiators get turned on high and I watch flakes swirling and settling on the apple branches. For perfume, apart from obvious bulbs such as Narcissus ‘Paper White’, there’s always a pot or two of evergreen sweet box, Sarcococca confusa. It spends summers outdoors, but we bring it indoors in mid-December – its tiny flowers provide knock-out scent. Try tender rhododendrons such as the wonderfully perfumed ‘Lady Alice Fitzwilliam’. More modern is the Vireya group, from tropical Asia, which comes in some gorgeous varieties. Take a look at www.vireya.net , or visit Glendoick nursery (01738 860205, www.glendoick.com ). Most will summer outdoors and make winter fun.

www.david-stuart.co.uk

Conservatory know-how

Size:For two chairs, a table, and seven or eight big plants in floor-standing pots, 12ft by 6½ft is just room enough.

Cost:A budget of about £10,000 would be reasonable. If you are in a conservation area, or live in a listed building, you may need planning permission. If you want to use it in winter, buy a double-glazed conservatory rather than a lean-to greenhouse, which will probably be only single glazed. Wooden structures should be rot-proof. Suppliers: Alitex (01730 826900, www. alitex.co.uk); Hartley Botanic (0845 434 8882, www.hartley-botanic.co.uk); Marston & Langinger (020 7881 5710, www.marston-and-langinger.com).

Situation:If you have an uninterrupted west-facing view, you’ll get late-afternoon and evening sun, and you shouldn’t need shading. East-facing would suit those who like to breakfast under glass. It’s also good for some rhododendrons, especially the Vireya group. Uninterrupted south will save you winter heating, but will cost you in shading. North is good for ferns, many orchids and palms.

Shading:External slatted blinds are the most effective option, but are expensive and not automated. Internal blinds are cheaper and automated; they furl and unfurl with the sun. The noise might drive you mad, though. Automatic roof vents are essential. Suppliers: Austin Marr (02392 201037, www.austinmarr.co.uk); Thomas Sanderson (02392 232600, www.thomas-sanderson. co.uk); The Appeal Group (0800 975 5757, www.appealblinds.com).

Flooring and furnishing:I have terracotta tiles and dark quarry tiles, which are easy to sweep. Creepy-crawlies love frills and wicker furniture, so choose something you can hose down or at least wipe.

Explore Gardens

• Hampton Court Palace Flower Show

• Chelsea Flower Show

Times recommends

• Second homes: credit crunch casualty or money-spinner?
• How I built my own sliding house
• Top 10 incentives for house buyers