🪴This Week In Houseplants🪴

Turns out we don't know that much about aroids at all...

I watched an amazing video from Legends of Monstera the other week. It was so good at explaining how to provide the best light for your plants BUT the best takeaway I got was that…we really don’t know that much about the tropical plants we bring into our homes.

When I first started Planet Houseplant, I wanted to provide the best information that I could find, and supplement it with experiments I’d done with my plants.

Turns out that there is no research 😂.

For every person saying that you need to feed aroids heavily, there’s someone else saying that you never need to feed them. WHAT ARE WE MEANT TO DO WITH THAT?

Scientists researching how much to feed plants aren’t experimenting on aroids, because we can’t eat them. All the information we have is based on the experience of others, and since everyone keeps their plants in slightly different conditions, there is no baseline ‘correct’ information we can use as a starting point.

Throughout the summer I ran various experiments and found that the fertilising schedule that fit both me and my plants best was aiming to fertilise every other time I watered. Sometimes I couldn’t be bothered, so it was probs more like every third watering, but my plants did well!

As for fertiliser brands, it’s similarly murky. We don’t really know what all the different plants need to grow best, so just find something that fits your budget and is easy for you to buy. I found a Facebook thread on a Monstera group where everyone said what feed they used - I made a table of what people used in this article.

(I use the General Hydroponics Flora Series on all my plants, I do like it, but I’ll probably go for something that doesn’t require three separate bottles in the future)

New articles from Planet Houseplant

• The Ultimate Guide to Monstera Deliciosa - I wanted to create a hub for all my Monstera deliciosa articles, so this links to all my smaller articles. Click through to see my VERY professionally drawn map.

• The Ultimate Guide to Rhaphidophora Tetrasperma - samesies, though there are fewer

• A homage to my new favourite tool - yes, I am still obsessed with my pressure sprayer.

There’s a new video out on the various options you have for staking Monstera. There’s an accompanying article too

I’m planning my content for next year, and I plan on covering a lot of info about one species at a time before moving on to the next, rather than flitting about from topic to topic. I’d love to hear which plants you’d like more info on - feel free to reply to this email if you want me to cover something super specific.

I haven’t really been buying plants recently - I’ve had to bring my plants in from outside and move the ones out of my bathroom (it’s too cold in winter) so I don’t really have the space.

I did treat myself to a Thanksgiving cactus though, and I *think* the buds survived the journey home 🤞🤞🤞

Any tips for caring for them? All the information I can find comes from big publishers and I find their care tips to be a bit generic and unreliable.

Have an awesome weekend! I don’t think I’m doing anything more exciting than the big shop followed by a nap, but I’m more than happy with that.

Thanks so much for reading

Caroline