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There’s no denying that having houseplants makes a huge difference to any room. They add life, colour and purpose to rooms, and they are things of beauty. They also help to rid your home of toxins, add moisture to the air and reduce your stress levels.
There are a few Do’s and Don’ts that are necessary to ensure your indoor plants are healthy, and you are too.
Like people, every plant is different, and each requires special food, watering, and pruning. When choosing a plant, be mindful of where you want to keep it. Succulents are becoming increasingly popular as indoor plants because they can adapt to most environments.
While succulents are often sturdy plants and include cacti, there are certain things they require. Often, succulents can be bought in a pot, and they come in a ‘miniature’ size. These plants are not always supposed to remain in these small pots, though.
Read the label or ask the seller before you bring your plant home if it needs anything special: a bigger pot in a few months, shadow, direct sunlight, special plant feed. These are crucial to ensuring your plant lives as long as possible.
After a while, you’ll get to know everything there is to know about your plant. It will become a member of your family, and that makes sense because you take care of it every day. Therefore, if you notice something strange, make sure to investigate further!
If you notice that the leaves have lost some color, or the soil doesn’t look quite the same as before, check it out. Likewise, if you notice that your plant is attracting insects, then be sure to see what’s happening before you need to call in pest & bug extermination.
Sometimes, your plant can develop mold, fungus or die, leading to decay and secreting smells that attract pests. While it’s important to keep such insects away from damaging your plant, they can also carry bacteria dangerous to humans or animals, too.
It might seem silly, but we’ve all heard before that we have to nurture our plants, just as we would children. Have you tried singing to your plants? Well, you should. This might seem like an old wives’ tale, but there is some truth to it.
When we speak or sing to plants, we exhale carbon dioxide, which they turn into oxygen! This is why we’re encouraged to speak or sing to our plants because they absorb the chemicals they need from us this way.
What this also means is that our plants are removing carbon dioxide from our rooms, and providing us with the oxygen we need to breathe. By singing to our plants, we help them to help us!
A lot of us are guilty of seeing a plant, remembering we forgot to water it yesterday or the day before and pouring water into the pot. Yes, all plants need watering, and yes, it’s best if we do it before we forget. However, it is possible to drown plants.
Plants need a precise amount of water in order to stay alive, and this amount differs from plant to plant. Similarly, the minerals in the soil of each plant are precise and suitable for only certain types of plant. By saturating the soil, it’s very possible that the mineral composition will be compromised.
This, in turn, could cause the plant to become either malnourished or saturated. Likewise, plants consume their nutrients and water from their roots. While you’re tempted to put water onto the top of the soil when it is dry, oftentimes it’s best to put water onto a plate beneath the pot so the roots can suck the water themselves. This way your plant can drink what it needs when it needs to.
Getting a plant for your home is a great thing. It’s hugely important to remember the reason you bought your new friend in the first place: they’re gorgeous and add a lot to your home. While certain plants require more tender, love and care than others, they are all fantastic additions to your home.
When you’re looking after a plant, it’s a very hands-on activity. It’s something that requires you to concentrate on the object in front of you, to look at it, smell it, feel it. Gardening of all kinds, and tending to plants is a very sensory experience.
When we’re all trying to juggle work, life, and all our responsibilities, it can seem impossible to exist in the moment but taking care of a plant is a great way to be mindful. It takes only a few minutes to really invest in your plant and these few moments should be cherished, too.
Many of us become very attached to things that we see every day: our favorite mug, the coffee table book we don’t remember putting there, our plants. These things we mentally watch for as we travel through our homes, and they are the objects that make us feel at home.
What can be difficult to do sometimes is changing up the routine. How many of us are guilty of not moving certain things because we feel they ‘belong’ there? We get plants and we put them in a certain place and that place becomes their home.
While there is nothing wrong with having one place for your plants, it’s also nice to move them around. Each window will have different sunlight hours, each room will have a different humidity level. In summer, certain plants need shade and less warmth. In winter, they need more sun.
Moving your plants around is a great way to make sure their needs are met, and it keeps things interesting for you, too! It’s a cheap and cheerful way to redecorate!
