Challenge: Manage your houseplants for a happy home
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Keep your houseplants happy and healthy year-round! Ask yourself these questions; think about these options.
1. What works best for you: to keep plants spread throughout the house, or gather them in one location where they can be conveniently watered? Wherever you locate your houseplants, remember: It’s pleasing to the eye to break up groups of houseplants with artwork and other decorative items that you treasure. This past summer I moved all the houseplants to one location for easier, more efficient watering and I haven’t moved them back around the house six months later.
My houseplants gathered in one spot for easy watering.
Dollar Tree has a good variety of plant pots and other houseplant supplies.
2. Get knowledgeable about your houseplants’ requirements: light, water, humidity, temperature, soil, drainage, fertilizer, pruning. Apps can be downloaded on your smartphone that identify plants from your photo. From there, the app can give you the requirements of that plant. Many websites and books do the same thing (you’ll be the one doing the identifying though). Once you’ve identified your plant, you can look up its requirements.
3. Do you need new plant pots to give your houseplants more space for their roots? Or to start new plants? Have you thought of using the pot-within-a-pot? You can hide a pot you no longer like inside a slightly larger pot that you do like. Check out Dollar Tree either online or in person for plant pots and other houseplant supplies (see photo above).
4. It’s also nice if you can share the care of your houseplants on a chore list with your kids and special other. If you use a measuring cup, one of the kids at an appropriate age can give these plants half a cup and those plants one cup, etc.
5. I’ve seen awesome plant stands at thrift stores and flea markets. It’s easy to spray paint to match your decor and freshen it up!
6. Do you have some really heavy houseplants? Consider purchasing a base on wheels. I have several.
I use a mix of real and fake plants. They both have their pros!
These are fake. Can’t tell!
These are fake, too! I have these and don’t have to worry about their care!
HOUSEPLANT DECLUTTER, CLEAN & ORGANIZE CHALLENGE
1. Move your plants out of their usual spot and clean that spot. Check your plants for:
• bugs
• dead or yellow leaves
• hard soil surface or need for more soil
2. Dead plants that can’t be revived need to be tossed! That’s called decluttering. Sometimes it’s hard to do!
3. Check plant pots for cracks and holes. Has a plant outgrown its pot? Buy new planters that match your decor in general style and color scheme.
4. If your plants sit in front of a window, clean the window while the plant is out of that spot.
5. Organize your houseplant tools and supplies.
• Find space on a shelf or in a cabinet to keep all supplies together and easy to reach.
• Use an easy-to-carry cleaning caddy for a plant mister and fertilizer.
• Moth Orchid (I’ve had real ones and I have a fake one that looks real)
• Peace Lily
• Basil, Rosemary, Mint and other herbs you can grow indoors. I’ve bought many herb plants at the grocery store, but usually to be used in a recipe right away.
• African Violet. These flowering plants do best in north- or east-facing windows. I’ve had a few artificial African violets that were lovely.
• Jade plant. These always die on me.
• Spider plant. Easy to grow. I bought some fake ones that really look real and I have them in hanging baskets at camp. Never need watering!
6-Inch-Ceramic-Planter-for-Indoor-Plants-with-Drainage-Hole-and-Saucer-Round-Succulent-Orchid-Flower-Pot-set-of-2/plant not included. https://fave.co/3OBd8e5
PictureThis lets you snap a picture of your plant and the app will identify the plant and tell you if it looks sickly. The identification of the plant is one of the most accurate of this type of feature. The information about the plant identified includes whether the plant is harmful to children and pets.
Planta has a free and paid version. The free version should be good for most houseplant owners. If it’s no longer available for free, that’s too bad as it was a good, simple app to use. There are a lot more, so keep looking for the one that fits your needs. It’s nice when the app includes a watering schedule reminder!
Thank you for reading this blog post! I hope it’s given you some inspiration and ideas about what to do in your own home with your plants.
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