There are so many great reasons to sprinkle houseplants throughout your home. Not only from a design aspect, but the best indoor plants purify the air, reduce stress and show everyone that you are capable of keeping another living thing alive. All wins in our book.
A lot of our clients enjoy houseplants when touring potential homes, but have mentioned being nervous to give them a try! Recently, our closing gifts have included a plant from our list of easy houseplants (included in our July Journal) and people are always surprised at just how easy plants can be!
As we do with most things, we researched our plants pretty heavily before deciding to test out our own green thumbs, but these tips from HGTV have helped us be a bit more confident, and we hope can help you too!
LIGHT - Tough survivors like snake plants, don’t mind dim corners or interiors. Others need bright windows, or sometimes even supplemental lights. Make sure you read up on your plants before you invest so you can give them the amount of light they need!
WATER - Most plants need a container with drainage holes, so water doesn’t stand around their roots and cause rotting. If you keep a saucer underneath your plants to catch drips, empty it after watering. Make sure to read plant care tags to know how often and how much to water. Most of my plants only need watered once a week - so I picked Tuesday as my watering day!
CLEAN - Make sure you dust your plants since dust can block the sunlight they need!
PRUNE When Needed - If you have flowering houseplants, keep the spent blooms picked to encourage more flowers. Take off dead or yellow leaves, too, and cut stems that have lost their leaves to the soil line.
ADD HUMIDITY - "If you see brown tips on the leaves of your plants, the air in your home or office is probably too dry for them. Add moisture by grouping plants together, or putting them on top of pebbles in trays or saucers filled with a little water. (Don’t let the pots touch the water so the roots don’t stay constantly wet.) You can also mist your plants or even add a humidifier."
REPOT when necessary - "If your plants start drying out faster than usual, or you see roots poking out of the drainage holes, it’s time to repot. Step up one pot size at a time, and always use fresh potting soil, since the nutrients in the old soil are probably depleted."
Check out more on hgtv.com!
Making Moves,
The Elle Kaye Group