Right off the bat i should point out i'm not much of a gardener, but i am learning and trying my best. I am getting the hang of it outdoors but i have an indoor problem.

There is a huge brick planter in my house. Its 20 ft long, about4 ft high and about 20 inches wide at the top, but its design is such that its a lot narrower at the bottom, maybe about 8 or 9 inches. It was built the same time as the house, about 40 yrs ago. Its in good condition, fresh coat of paint about 3 yrs ago.

Originally i didnt have any plants in it. I have a huge 60 in tv. So i completely covered the planter with plywood and put my tv up there. Im sure you are cringing, lol. I had it that way for about 8 yrs or so.

Anyway, i remodelled the house about 3 yrs ago, took the tv down and took off the plywood.

Last year i planted a few plants. They are all vine types as i was hoping they would work their way up the wall, which is brick as well. The planter is there, then a brick wall and its attached to the garage, thats why there is a brick wall there. Anyway, these vine-type plants rooted for me and i planted them. They got about a foot or so long and stopped growing. I also have another plant that has done the same thing in that i planted it but thats all. It hasnt grown and it looks about 10% dead.

Now i water these plants once a week. I use a few gallons of water as the planter is large and there is a lot of earth there. I dont think i water it too much. If anything the earth still seems to be a bit dry.

I am wondering if i did something to the earth by covering it for those years? Sounds a bit dumb but what do i know, lol. Or is there some other reason?

What do i need to do to get these plants to start growing instead of sitting there? There are 5 plants in total, 4 have larger, fairly broad leaves, likely a very common type of vine. The other one i bought in a store, dont know what it is, but its got small leaves on it.

As for light, they dont get a lot but they do get some light, the leaves on most of them are very green. There are some fluorescent lights above the planter. I tried leaving them on for a few days to see if that helped. Didnt seem to. But it seems to me the lights are a bit too high anyway, they are on the ceiling. Perhaps they should be lower? This is all guesswork on my part, you could say that i basically have the black thumb of death, although i have learned a tiny bit lately.

Can anyone help me out with advice?

thanks for listening