It all began with a single peperomia that was randomly purchased from Trader Joe’s. Later, it evolved into perusing local plant groups and the Facebook Marketplace for plant sales. I then had six houseplants on my shelf a few weeks later. I enjoyed having some indoor plants, but I soon came to the conclusion that I didn’t fully comprehend their watering requirements and illumination requirements.
I went to the library to seek some guidance, as I normally do in these circumstances. When I’m motivated to learn something new, I’m never less than thorough when reviewing books, and I found these seven books on indoor gardening to be the most beneficial for my new role as a plant parent.
Whether you’re an experienced outdoor gardener who wants to incorporate indoor plants into your life or a “We have the perfect gardening books for beginners who have never kept a plant alive in their lives.
1. Tovah Martin’s The Indestructible Houseplant. Are you interested in raising plants, but worried that you’ll kill all of them off? The Indestructible Houseplant wants to make words obsolete “Brown thumb is no longer a term used by anyone. If cared for properly, every plant in the book may flourish in less-than-ideal growing conditions and is challenging to eradicate.
2. Lisa Eldred Steinkopf’s Houseplants: The Complete Guide to Choosing, Growing, and Caring for Indoor Plants. This book is for you if you’re looking for one-page instructions on how to care for each type of houseplant. To assist you figure out how to care for that mystery plant you bought from the grocery store that is merely designated “foliage” or “greenery,” plants are arranged according to how tough they are to maintain, and there is a visual plant index.
3. Darryl Cheng’s The New Plant Parent. Although this book does include information on how to care for and propagate plants, its real worth comes from enlightening readers on the rationale behind proper plant maintenance. You may raise happier, healthier plants by knowing how to care for a plant holistically and focusing on how each plant would thrive in nature.
Lisa Eldred Steinkopf’s Grow in the Dark is number four. If you’re a newbie without a lot of large, bright windows in your home or office, this book is a terrific place to start. It provides care instructions for 50 low- to medium-light plants.
1. Ellen Zachos’ Growing Healthy Houseplants. Although this straightforward black and white book lacks the stunning photographs that some of the others provide, it is nonetheless jam-packed with important knowledge on light, water, and everything else you need to know to grow healthy plants.
2. Hilton Carter’s Wild at Home: How to Style and Take Care of Beautiful Plants. This is the book for you if you want to be motivated by luxuriant plant arrangements in other people’s houses. Over 200 plants are crammed into every inch of Carter’s house, which is truly breathtaking. Beyond that, this book covers a wide range of topics, including styling with plants, incorporating plants into your current environment, step-by-step directions for growing your plants into new plants, and a list of lovely suggested plants.
3. Plant care guides. These care cards are our go-to when we purchase a new plant and want to confirm its maintenance requirements, even though they aren’t books per se. The back of each card describes what kinds of issues or pests each plant may be susceptible to, making it an excellent resource for troubleshooting specific plants.
Any combination of these books on indoor gardening should help you become a more confident plant parent. Cheers to reading!
How should a newbie care for a houseplant?
The good news is that most indoor plants don’t require sophisticated maintenance. These advice about plant care is aimed to help you comprehend the fundamental requirements of the most of indoor plants. We’ll also give you advice on what to pick out to make your own indoor garden.
You’ll understand the fundamentals of getting plants to grow and thrive in your house once you’ve gone through these suggestions, allowing you to start your own indoor garden!
In this post, I only touch on each subject briefly. To access additional useful information, be sure to click on the links.
Buy Houseplants that Fit Your Lifestyle & Your Home’s Environment
The proper plant in the right place is the first step in effective plant care. It’s critical to realize that not every plant is suitable for your environment and way of life, and that’s acceptable. There are various options for indoor plants available on the market.
We have numerous suggestions depending on various lifestyles, such as plants that can tolerate pets, low-maintenance floor plants, and plants for frequent travelers if you’re gone for weeks at a time.
Start with an established, low-maintenance plant. Here is a list of 15 indoor plants that are simple to grow. Move on to more if you’ve kept that one alive and healthy for a reasonable amount of time and your trust in horticulture has increased. However, a word of caution: houseplants can grow addictive!
If you are unfamiliar with indoor plants, you might not know where to begin. Here are 14 suggestions to consider while purchasing houseplants.
Are tropical plants, succulents, desk plants, bromeliads, tabletop plants, or hanging plants of interest to you? There are many different kinds of plants, and although while many of them have similar requirements, you should still conduct plenty of study before you buy.
Choose the Right Pot
Purchase ones with drainage holes if you plan to plant directly into a pot, such as a grow pot or terra cotta pot. To prevent root rot, there is/are a hole(s) in the bottom of the pot that will allow extra water to drain.
Regarding decorative pots, such as ceramics, baskets, etc., taste, decor, and price all come into play. These days, choosing from the wide variety of pots available might be challenging. Although it has little to do with caring for indoor plants, having your plants in stylish pots will improve their appearance and bring you joy.
What is the ideal method for caring for houseplants?
To promote more blooms and aid in the prevention of disease problems, prune any faded flowers off your plants. Remove any yellow, brown, or withered leaves while you’re at it. To make a precise cut without injuring the plant’s stem, use a narrow-blade hand pruner ($11; The Home Depot). To prevent the spread of pests and illnesses, it is a good idea to clean the pruner blades with rubbing alcohol before using them on a different plant.
How are indoor plants maintained in good health?
Although the guidelines are generally the same for all plants, they may vary significantly based on the setting in which your plant will be residing. This section is for you if you’re mostly interested in learning how to care for indoor plants that are potted. Here are our top suggestions for maintaining indoor plants:
Choose the Correct Pot
Drainage is crucial for the health of your plant. A pot’s bottom should ideally have a hole in it so that any surplus water can drain out of the soil and gather in a tray beneath the pot. The excess water is held in the soil if there isn’t a hole like this. Frequently, this is more water than the plant can effectively absorb, which causes a plant to “drown.” The likelihood that you have a drainage issue and the plant is excessively wet increases if you observe that your plant is wilted and drooping but the soil is still damp.
Similar to people, plants require a large amount of area to grow. The plant will become top-heavy and the roots won’t be able to maintain the amount of foliage on your plant if the roots don’t have enough room to spread out. It will wilt and die as a result of this.
While leaving the plant in the pot or basket it came in is the simplest option, it’s not always the greatest for maintaining the health and vitality of your plant. Your plant needs to be in a pot that allows it room to expand and spread its roots if you want it to remain healthy. It will also need a pot with sufficient drainage.
Use Good Potting Soil
You should also consider the type of potting soil you’re using if you’re repotting your houseplant out of the container it came in and into a better pot. Simply taking some dirt out of your backyard is insufficient. Purchase a bag of potting soil instead. These mixtures frequently include additional nutrients or fertilizers to keep your houseplant strong and healthy.
You might be able to locate a potting mixture made especially for the species of plant you’re working with. There are frequently potting soils made with the precise nutrients for certain plants, such as cacti and succulents, if you’re planting one of them.
Watering: Not Too Much and Not Too Little
Watering might be somewhat challenging, especially if you’re not experienced with plant care. If you water your plant excessively, it could quickly drown. If a plant receives insufficient water, it will dry out and die. You need to strike a fine balance between these two extremes if you want happy, healthy plants. The majority of plants thrive when the soil dries out between waterings, even though other plants like to dwell in damp soil.
Feel the soil, preferably close to the edge of the pot, to determine whether or not your plant needs water. It’s time to water if the dirt seems dry and crumbly. It most likely doesn’t require more at this time if it still feels damp. You ought to get the hang of sensing when your plants need water after a few weeks of practice.
Naturally, you’ll be able to tell if your plants are dehydrating. Your plant needs water immediately if the leaves start to become dry, brown, and shriveled. However, ideally, you’ll water your plant well before it reaches this stage.
Water your plant until the soil no longer absorbs any more water or until the water starts to run out of the hole in the bottom of the container. It’s time to stop watering if water starts to collect on top of the soil and the soil stops absorbing any more water.
Given that each plant and each plant species is unique, it is challenging to specify with precision how frequently you should water your plant. To learn more about your particular plant, you can do some research online, but generally speaking, it’s best to listen to your plant when it needs water. Learn to read a plant’s soil and leaves so that you can tell when it needs water.
Give Them Plenty of Light
Although each plant prefers various amounts of shade or sunlight, none will grow in complete darkness. Your plant won’t thrive if you place it in a closet, high up on a shadowy shelf, or tucked away in a dark corner.
To thrive, your plant requires at least some sunlight. Because of this, windowsills are excellent locations for plants. However, if your windowsill isn’t big enough, you still have other choices. Place them in front of a window or somewhere with lots of natural light, on a table or a cart.
Keep Your Pet Away
Although it should go without saying, if you’re unfamiliar with houseplants, you might not have considered it. Animals may like your plants, but sadly, they frequently do so to the point of death. Specifically, your pet could consume or destroy your plant out of excitement.
Try putting your houseplants in areas where your pet can’t access them to solve this issue. Maybe place them on top of a cupboard or high up on the counter. Just remember to strike a balance between putting the plant somewhere safe and making sure it gets sunlight.
There are numerous plants that are poisonous to animals, therefore keeping plants and pets apart is also important to keep in mind.
Learn About Your Plant
Whether you’re taking care of garden plants, hanging outdoor baskets, indoor houseplants, or something else else, this is a fundamental precept of plant care. Spend some time getting to know the kind of plant you are taking care of. Find out how much shade or sun it prefers. Find out if it need daily watering or if it can go up to two weeks without it.
Every plant has a distinct set of needs of its own. While there are many general guidelines that can be applied to most plants, learning about each kind of plant separately will yield the best outcomes and the highest success rate.
How frequently should indoor plants be rotated?
Lon & George, a leading provider of premium plant delivery, brings you the most recent plant care advice for maintaining the happiness and health of your foliage.
Like people, plants have positive and negative aspects. For balanced growth, plants, unlike humans, must exhibit both on an equal basis. And if you’ve ever seen an indoor plant that is substantially leaning, you can know it wasn’t being rotated on a regular basis.
So why is rotating indoor plants a good idea? Unlike the sun, which moves across the sky throughout the day, windows and artificial light place restrictions on the amount and location of light exposure our plants receive. And as all plants incline themselves toward the light, this frequently results in unequal growth patterns. By rotating them, we essentially make sure that our plants receive an even distribution of light, which reduces lean and encourages new growth where it may otherwise stagnate.
So how frequently should indoor plants be rotated? Rotating plants once every few months should work for those that prefer lots of light. However, you might need to rotate a plant more frequently, up to once every few weeks or once a month, if it is put in a medium- to low-light region.
Additionally, as a nice reminder, if it has been a while since you rotated your plant, you might need to give the side that has been hidden a little bit of a clean up! Remove any dust accumulation from the leaves, and while you’re doing it, don’t be afraid to pick up any dried-out leaf.
What should I do with my indoor plants?
Many of us learn how to garden for the first time with houseplants. Potted plants, particularly in colder climates, add color, beauty, and fresh air indoors when chilly temperatures and wintry weather keep us inside. No matter where you reside, the advice below will help you make the most of potted plants in your house.
How Much Light?
How much light a plant will receive where it will be grown should be one of the first factors to be taken into account while choosing and cultivating it. The majority of houseplants require bright, indirect light, such that from an east-facing window. As long as the harsh sun’s rays don’t touch a plant’s leaves directly, especially in the summer, south and west windows also function nicely. African violets and other popular flowering plants need a little bit more light than ferns or ivy that are kept primarily for their leaves. Light offers the extra vitality that flowers need.
The Most Important Requirement: Water
The most crucial—and frequently most difficult—aspect of growing healthy houseplants is watering. Instead of drowning them to the point where their roots can’t breathe, err on the dry side. In the summer, use water more liberally. It’s time to water when the top 1/2 to 1 inch of the pot is dry. Water the plant thoroughly until the water drains out the drainage holes in the container’s bottom.
Don’t Forget Plant Food
Another crucial aspect in developing outstanding houseplants is feeding the plants. Your houseplants’ roots are restricted to a pot, preventing them from foraging for nutrients in the nearby soil. You have the choice. In general, giving your houseplants a weekly or biweekly dose of plant food made specifically for them, like Miracle-Gro Indoor Plant Food, will result in happy, healthy, long-lived plants that add color and life to your home. The summer is a crucial season to feed indoor plants because this is when they are actively growing and will benefit from the nutrients.