Houseplant Care 101

Houseplants are relatively easy to maintain and have benefits including health improvement, mood-boosting and they can also be used as décor themes. With the right maintenance practices, you will have a brightened indoor arena, spiced up with your desired greenery.

Luckily, by mysterious intervention, you have come across this blog and SpringerGarden will give you detailed information about maintenance of houseplants. Let’s dive in!

1. Growing media

The medium used to grow houseplants can either be soil or soilless media, which could be a combination of vermiculite, peat moss, perlite and compost in equal measures. The medium should have good drainage to prevent cases of waterlogging. The soil should be moist but not wet.

2. Water

This is one of the toughest maintenance practices. You may think you are underwatering when in the real sense, you are overwatering, which causes plant death. To determine the right amounts of water, water the plants regularly but infrequently. Water the houseplants until water starts escaping through the drainage holes below the pots. Remember to water only when the top one inch of soil feels dry.

3. Fertilizer

Fertilization ensures that plants retain their happy and healthy state. These fertilizers can either be granular or water-soluble fertilizers.

Fertilizer application depends on the season, time of the year and rate of plant growth.

Do not apply excess fertilizer. It may burn the plants and lead to a stunted growth. In flowering houseplants, use the N:P:K fertilizer where the three components are relatively of equal measure. Too much nitrogen will produce lots of leaves but lesser flowers.

4. Light

This is yet another essential element when it comes to biological processes, especially photosynthesis. However, different houseplants require different amounts of light. Some prefer low light (less than three hours of light a day), medium light (four to six hours a day) and high light (more than six hours of light a day)

(This is the image we are using all the time for locating the light in our room:)

Also, some houseplants prefer bright and direct sunlight while others prefer indirect sunlight.

Note that if these plants do not receive the required amounts of light, they will not necessarily die but can stop producing new growth.

5. Temperature

Happy houseplants are found in warm places. Most houseplants do well at temperatures above 55℉. Daytime temperatures range between 65℉ and 75℉ while night temperatures may be cooler by 10 degrees.

6. Pruning and pinching

Prune to keep them in good shape so that they do not grow too big. Also, pruning rejuvenates the plant and promotes new growth.

Pinching entails removal of stem tips and the topmost leaves to promote growth of side buds.

7. Deadheading

Deadhead flowers and remove any brown, diseased, or dead stems and leaves so that the problem does not spread.

8. Pest and disease control

Remove any dead leaves on the growing medium, let the surface of the soil dry out between watering schedules, knock out pests using water from a hosepipe at a high force and also use insecticidal soap to get rid of most pests and diseases.

9. Keep them clean

Dust blocks sunlight from reaching the plants. Wipe off any dust using a dry dust cloth, soft paintbrush or moist sponge.

Conclusion

With the right kind of information on houseplant care tips, you will have the best houseplants ever! And this right kind of information is found at SpringerGarden.

References: https://www.bhg.com/gardening/houseplants/care/houseplant-care-guide/