How to kill a houseplant
Healthy house plants!
I’m going to have to come clean! (it’s apt timing because I’m in the middle of a full house de-clutter!) One of the things on my list to get rid of are house plants that, rather than adding a softening, air purifying flourish, punctuate our home with a whiff of sad despair! As I trek towards the compost heap with a sorry looking specimen in hand I always ask myself where I went wrong in order to try and avoid any future houseplant disasters!
1. You die of thirst…
Spider plants do very well here. Yes, they are renowned for being a very easy customer in the houseplant world any way, but what I love about them is they very clearly communicate with you that they need attention! In our busy household it’s easy to forget to top up everyone’s drinks all of the time- if you’re thirsty, help yourself, is how we generally roll, but the poor plants are relying on me to do it poor mites! Well, my friends the spider plants tell me they want a drink by getting paler green as they get thirstier and thirstier. The really wonderful thing though, is that they are quick to forgive me once I have topped them up and perk up quite quickly. Our peace lilies are similar in that they also let me know but they have a more dramatic look about them- giving the appearance that they have already wilted to death under my neglect! Still a good drink brings them around quite quickly! What I would say is that the plants that generally do best here are those that have found themselves located close to a water source- kitchen and bathroom plants are likely to get noticed and served a reviving glug but our living room plants also benefit from an undrunk glass of water or two a week. Alas the playroom plants, that den of chaos I least often visit, has had most of it’s plants shifted outside to RIP! It’s certainly a case of location, location, location here!
2. You get too big for your boots…
I am currently guilty of having put off potting up my house plants (moving them into bigger plant pots) for about 3 consecutive years! The poor things are all feeling like they are currently wearing shoes at least a size to small for them and are bursting at the seams with their roots coming out of the bottom of their pots! Spring is the best time of year for them to undertake the move but it’s not bad to do it in Autumn either so it's a job to get done ASAP! Buying specific houseplant compost and shifting them up a pot size or two will give them a much needed boost and the nutrients they need to keep healthy. After that it’s just a case of giving them a fed during growing season with a few drops of liquid food in their water- Sounds easy enough but I get round to it about once every 3 months rather than monthly as is ideal. Still, they have to get what they’re given bless ‘em!
3 You can’t take the heat…
Plants have an optimum temperature- makes sense right, given that naturally they’ll grow in certain climates. Ideally they want our house to emulate that. This can mean popping them in a very specific spot in the house and that can be different places at different times of year. Our porch is a very different place in summer than it is in winter (think Spain verses Iceland!) so very few of our plants can hack it in there all year but it’s filled with plants in Spring and Autumn. It’s just timing the moves right that can see them wrong- I lost a beautiful Maidenhair fern last year when a week’s holiday for us meant a week of cooking in the porch during our absence! Shifting them about at the right times is crucial to survival it seems! In the winter with such low light many of our houseplants will be thankful of a shift closer to the window but beware them being too close to any radiators- remembering that dying of thirst was the first way they might perish… I’m hoping to avoid creating a vicious circle ending in an over flowing compost heap!