9 Tips for Keeping Your Indoor House Plants Healthy

I love outdoor gardening and I admit, I enjoy growing indoor houseplants too! While I don’t consider myself to having a “green thumb”, I have learned several tricks over the years to keep my indoor plants healthy and happy.  Here’s some of the tips and tricks that I’ve learned and one’s that I personally use.

1. Keep the dust, dirt and grease off of your houseplant leaves! They breathe and to keep healthy, you need to keep them clean. Once every 2-3 weeks I dampen a microfiber cloth and walk around my home wiping off the leaves of some of my larger houseplants and indoor trees.

2. An employee at a local garden center told me about a trick that she uses last year and I’ve been using it ever since. Purchase a box of green tea teabags. Once a month, steep one of the tea bags in a cup of boiling water and let it cool to room temperature. Pour the green tea into a spray bottle and fill up the bottle with cool tap water. Lightly mist your houseplants with the green tea. I spray it directly onto their leaves (except for my succulents). In the past year, I swear that my plants look healthier by just following her trick.

3. Don’t be afraid to use houseplant food! It’s NOT that expensive and I get a package of it twice a year over at Lowe’s for $2.99 per package. I personally use the Miracle Gro Indoor Plant Food spikes. During the early spring season, all of my indoor plants get a plant food spike into their soil. I always water them really good after feeding them. I repeat it again during the early fall season, so that’s twice a year. I’ve used other indoor plant food type’s before, but this is the one that I personally prefer and use.

4. For some of my plants that aren’t doing as fabulous as I would like, I will rotate them around my home 3-4 times a year. By rotating them around, I can usually figure out which spot is best for that particular plant. Not all plants do well in the same spot, so don’t be afraid to rotate & move them around!

5. When it comes to watering…how often I do it depends on the time of the year.  If the soil feels dry to the touch, your plants need watered. If it feels a little damp, leave them alone for another day or two. You don’t want to water them too much or not enough. Always “feel” the soil before watering them.

6. When purchasing a new plant, keep all of the little tags and labels that often come with them in a plastic recipe box and taped/stapled to an index card. I will often forget the names of plants, how to care for that particular plant, etc. I went to the dollar store 2 years ago and purchased a plastic recipe box & a pack of index cards. I can now put the information onto the card and add handwritten notes as I go along.

7. Always water your plants using room temperature water! I will fill up my watering can with tap water early in the morning and let it sit out for 2-3 hours before I go around watering them. This allows the water to get to the proper temperature of ROOM TEMPERATURE!

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8. Educate yourself about the particular type’s of plants your growing by doing a few internet searches. Some plants will need to be trimmed down, dead-headed and all sorts of “other” things. Once you learn about what type of care is needed, you can update your specific index card on that particular plant.

9. Watch for itty bitty bugs, mold, fungus and disease! If you notice any of these problems on any of your plants, isolate that plant from the others. In other words, remove it from that room and put it in another location with no plants until you get the problem corrected. Some of these issues can be transferred from plant-to-plant.