It’s not hard to get caught up with attempting to try and create a Pinterest worthy living room space complete with indoor plants. What can start out looking lovely can end up being a big waste of money unless you are willing to implement plant care into your routine to ensure those gorgeous plants continue to thrive once the joy of your newly renovated space wears off.
Beginner Tips for growing plants indoors
So let’s take a look at a few aspects that will contribute to the evergreen success of your indoor plants…
Choose Healthy plants – this will ultimately get you started on the right foot. Selecting a plant that has a healthy abundance of leaves that are bright in colour, not wilting, yellow or have brown spots. New growth is also a good sign that the plant is thriving currently.
Light – this is easily one of the most important consideration for your indoor plants as to how much it will receive. It will also vary from season to season, especially summer versus winter. The amount of direct light can change with the season to then impact your plant who may thrive in winter with indirect light but suddenly wilt under the heat of direct sunlight in summer. Take note of the direct light changes as the earth moves around from season to season. So when buying your collection of indoor plants (and even though you may only start with one, we all know it never stops there! lol), take into consideration where you would like the plant. Then when looking at the tag, check how much light or direct light that plant will need. Of course, during the seasons, you will potentially need to rotate your plants to avoid direct light or move to a spot that now receives less light. (We find living in a north facing backyard, during summer the sunlight really moves to the front of the house and our living space is less lit up).
Level of care – Be honest with yourself as to how much time & commitment you really have to take care of your plant(s). Perhaps start with one plant and see how your commitment goes and then purchase another once you have had the chance to see how that one has gone. Succulents are fabulous for needing less watering. If you travel a lot for work, then it makes sense to have hardier plants. It is surprising how little some plants (even non succulents) actually need and do better. Trust me, I am hopeless in remembering to water my plants and my husband is always commenting about how well they do!
Toxic Properties – a lot of indoor plants are toxic to dogs and cats (and young children!). If you have any of these animals (not the children!) it would pay to get a plant that will not harm them should a leaf fall on the ground or they may be tempted to chew the indoor plant. You can find out which plants are toxic to pets here. Should you need to quickly look up a plant your cat or dog has eaten visit the poisons helpline.
Dusting your plants – it sounds crazy but remember that plants need their leaves to breathe and if they are covered in dust they will struggle to breathe. A warm damp cloth will suffice to wipe the leaves clean or you can give it a cool gentle shower to rinse the leaves off. I will often do this once I’ve vacuumed around once a month.
Repotting with fresh soil – every one to two years your plants will love you for a refresh in new soil and could also be a good opportunity to increase the size of your indoor plants pot if it is growing well. A small root trim will also do the plant a big favour to prevent it from becoming root bound.
Pruning – at the end of winter often is a good time to prune your plants encouraging new growth in spring. Plants need a good haircut just like we do! Trimming the dead leaves off not only looks better, removing dying foliage encourages healthy growth.
Draughts – often in winter cold draughts will affect your plants. Simply by grouping a collection of plants together will increase the humidity of their environment and thus they will grow better.
Fertiliser – your local plant store will have an abundance of plant fertilisers and I strongly encourage you to use one suited for indoor plants. Some plants will need specific food and some can get away with a soak in Seasol to give them a little boost. Either way, allow to do this at least twice a year. I find it valuable to do it at the end of Autumn/ Fall and the start of spring to give them a little kick start after winter.
Overall there are so many tips we could rave on about but if you are just starting out then these will get you going. Looking after plants is one of the most rewarding feeling you can have and to be surrounded by greenery is calming. Our home space used to look so bare and now it’s a lush haven that makes it so much more homely.
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Written by Carly Mangan
Carly is an indoor plant lover and attempts to keep all of their plants thriving, but occasionally there is a loss (which means she has to go plant shopping again!).