friday's gardening's

Hi Nicole!


We have a corner of our living room that looks really empty without a plant. We really like live plants, but can't seem to keep them alive. Is there a bigger plant that would do well with not a lot of light? Our apartment stays pretty dark even with the blinds open. The morning is basically the only time I can direct any sunlight into that area. Currently our plant is dying (it's a palm and the leaves are turning yellow).

Thanks!

Emily

I don’t know if I’m going to be able to directly answer your question, so I’m just going to write down a bunch of random tips and other things I have learned. They will probably not be organized or ‘flow’ very well. And sorry if some of it sounds familiar from last week’s post.


So, I think the issues most people have with houseplants revolve around water. Plants are pretty resilient with light; they will adjust accordingly to how much light they are getting. So you buy a plant, and you don’t want it to die, so you make sure it is always wet, right? Or, another scenario: you actually do forget that the plant sitting on top of your bookcase is real. So you never water it.


Here are some of my suggestions:


1. Place your plants where you see them. If they are out of direct eyesight, you forget they are there. I have one on top of my fridge because I don’t have any other place to sit it, and this plant goes completely bone-dry before I water it. Speaking of that…Okay, we’re good.


2. Don’t be so overzealous to keep your plant alive that you over-water it. Most houseplants like to be on the drier side. How would you like to always be sitting in the bathtub? Plant roots need air, just as much as they need water. So if your pot does not have drainage on the bottom, make sure that the top one inch of soil is dry before you water it again.


3. Houseplants do not like direct sunlight. If it is an outdoor plant that you brought inside, then that one will be fine with direct sun. Keep your plants in a place where they will get as much indirect light as possible.


Remember, it doesn’t matter necessarily how much sunlight they get, or don’t get. If you keep your blinds open to let in the natural light, however much light they get will be sufficient.

Another rule of thumb to go by: the lighter the color of the leaves on the plant, the more sun it likes/can handle. So dark green leaves = less sunlight. Bright green leaves = more sunlight.
When leaves are turning brown at the ends, the most common culprit is over-watering. If that doesn’t help, it could be an abundance of certain chemicals in the water. One of my horticulture teachers at college advised us to water our house plants with purified water. A good idea, I think, but I don’t do it.

Houseplants also need to be fertilized, usually once or twice a year. Osmo-cote is a slow release fertilizer. It is just little balls that you sprinkle on the dirt. If you have pets or children, mixing them in would be a good idea if your plants are within their reach. Or you can buy a powder form that you mix in with a certain amount of water. I don’t ever water all my plants at once, and I don’t want any extra fertilizer sitting around in a container.


Most plants will get long and lanky if they don’t get a lot of light. All you need to do is pinch them! Pinch with your fingers, or cut, off the newest growth near the top of the plant. (Sometimes this is not possible, and some plants don’t need it) Cutting off the top of the plant will force the plant to use other buds that would otherwise stay dormant. So those buds will now grow out the sides of the plant, all along the stem. So your plant will become bushier. You’ll notice it happening in about two weeks. Do this whenever you notice the plant getting really ‘leggy’. Leggy means that the distances between the leaves gets longer, and the plant will just get really long and lanky.


Plants will stay the same size according to what pot they are in. If you put a small plant in a large pot, it will grow to the size of that pot and basically stop. So if you want it larger, keep re-potting it into larger pots until you have the desired size.

Eventually, most houseplants will need to be re-potted using new soil and a bigger pot because their roots will become 'root-bound'. Which means they will have wound themselves around the bottom of the pot so much that they can no longer survive. And gradually, the tree will start to die. It will usually just start dropping leaves and looking unhealthy.


I know what you mean about not being able to get enough sunlight directed into a room. Our living/family room is on the north side of the apartment, so it is always pretty gloomy in there. I do have some eucalyptus stalks in a pot that sits behind our couch. If you want to have something that looks semi-real then you could always try fake plants. I like the eucalyptus because it smells good too! So if you can't have real plants for one reason or another, then try some artificial flowers/foliage that also smell good.



Some other plants that get a fairly good size are:


-Money Tree (sorry, it doesn't really grow money) - it's a type of bonsai tree with a braided trunk



I think this one is really pretty, I don't know why I didn't think of it last week! It does grow slowly, but it should get fairly large, eventually. Just make sure it dries out between waterings. These plants are called Money Trees because they are supposed to bring prosperity to whoever owns them.
-Snake Plant
...and check last week's post for more if you missed it!



**Tyler was reading my post from last week and asked me if 'Dumb Cane' was the real name for the plant. I told him that yes, it is. And realized I probably should have expounded on that. The plant is called Dumb Cane because it was once used for messengers that had important notes to deliver. The messenger would eat some leaves off the Dumb Cane, which would make his tongue swell up so he couldn't talk, and therefore, could not reveal the message he was delivering. SO, don't let kids/pets eat this. It won't kill them (I don't think) but it might be scary! And I've heard varying opinions on whether or not English Ivy is poisonous. I have not personally heard anything bad, but it's probably just a safe bet to keep house plants out of the mouths of kids and pets.

Okay, sorry this is so long (as usual!) but I hope some of it can help some of you!

If you have a gardening or other plant question, email me at martnicole(at)hotmail(dot)com.