Let’s Talk Houseplants
By: Veggie Gardener Matt
Tags: Houseplants, Indoor Plants, Gardening, Tips, Mental Health

6 Keys Factors for Houseplants

If you’re willing to take a few extra minutes to note these factors whenever caring for your houseplant, then you’ll have a much higher chance for success. Remember that plants are just like people with different needs and personalities (oh yes, some of them can be complete divas).

Light

Before buying your plant, look at its light requirements and then visualise your home. Any spaces come to mind? Also, look online for where the plant is normally grown in the wild as this is a good indicator for how much light it needs.

In-direct light: direct sun might scorch the leaves, so place your plant off to the side of a brightly lit room.

Direct light: this plant will normally need a minimum amount of bright direct sunlight to survive.

Shade loving: The corner of a room away from a window is fine; they’re not fussy. However, this doesn’t mean place them in complete darkness.

2. Water

Over-watering is the #1 killer for houseplants. Surprisingly, it’s one the easiest aspects of plant care to master and just needs a few simple considerations.

Stick your finger in about 1 inch into the soil. If it’s dry, then add some water. If it’s wet, then leave it to dry. If you’re not sure whether to water or not, it’s always safer to wait longer between watering. Plants are surprisingly resilient and can bounce back much quicker than you think.

Always check your plant’s watering requirements. In fact, some plants require hardly any water at all since their natural environments are arid climates. For example, I have a Mother-In-Laws Tongue (Sansevieria trifasciata) and it only requires watering once per month.

Pick one day of the week as your dedicated watering day so that you remember to ‘make your rounds’. I, personally, pick Sundays as it’s a great way to end the week, wind down, and check on how my plants are doing.

Watering changes with the seasons. I stick with the following schedule since it seems to work for me. However, do what works best for you (again, use the fingertip method and you should be fine).

Spring = once every 2 weeks Summer = once per week Autumn = once every 2–3 weeks Winter = once every 3–4 weeks

Higher temperature equals higher evaporation rate which means more watering. Lower temperatures equal lower evaporation rates which means less watering and higher chance for root rot.

3. Temperature/Humidity

Houseplants like a certain temperature range since that’s the native climate they’re use to, and because of this they have developed certain adaptations. For example, consider the common fern and where it comes from. Ferns are most abundant in the tropics which normally has hot and humid weather, so a dry and cold room with indirect light won’t be ideal. Therefore, consider putting your fern in the bathroom by a bright window. Alternatively, giving it a daily mist of water will work fine.

4. Food

This factor often gets missed since we assume that watering is equivalent to ‘feeding’ the houseplant. Again, remember that plants are just like humans which also need food. Therefore, check the plant’s instructions for how often you need to feed them with a liquid fertiliser. This will vary from plant to plant: some may need it once a week during the growing season (i.e., spring/summer) and others may only need it only once or twice per year.

5. Pests

For the untrained eye, this is slightly more difficult to identify if you’re not sure what you’re looking for. Some of the telltale signs of pest damage can come from inspecting the leaves. Are they discoloured, curling, wilting, unusual dots on the underside of the leaves? While this isn’t a definitive list, I would recommend searching for common pests for your chosen plant and keeping an eye out.

6. Drainage

I can’t tell you how much I cringe when I walk through stores that sell plants pots without a drainage hole on the bottom. It’s almost as if retail stores want people to kill their plants and buy more. Truthfully, they’re doing a disservice by not including drainage as it deters new plant parents from wanting to grow more. Drainage is hugely important to houseplants since the water you give them needs to have a place to escape. If you’re stuck with a pot with no drainage hole on the bottom, then you’re opening your plant up to root rot. On the up-chance that your pot has a drainage hole, then simply add a small tray with (or without) small pebbles from your backyard on the bottom to lift the pot off the tray since this will add an airflow.

This is where where over watering and no drainage are a death wish for houseplants. If you’ve watered your plants in this scenario, the water sits on the roots with no way to evaporate. Since you can’t see this happening from above, you assume it’s dry beneath the surface since you’ve performed the finger test. Eventually, the roots are going to get soggy and rot away causing irreversible damage to your plant. Root rot isn’t entirely untreatable, but you have to immediately recognise signs from the leaves so that you know to act.