🪴This Week In Houseplants 🪴

I apologise if your plants die from this advice

Every time I water a plant because it looks thirsty BASED ON NOTHING BUT A FEELING I HAVE I get this weird shiver of guilt for not practising what I preach re. houseplant care.

But you’re all reasonable people! I can tell you the somewhat dubious sign I look for when deciding whether I should water or not without worrying you’re going to go all pitchforks and scythes on me!

So here goes.

I don’t use the proper methods to determine when to water my plants in winter.

I certainly don’t always do what I recommend others do, which is to check over all plants weekly. I don’t have time! I have a sofa to be on and a blanket to be under!

So how do I decide when to water?

I don’t. I’ve outsourced the role.

The title of Water Monitor has been assigned to my lemon-lime Maranta, which does a STELLAR job of telling me when to water my plants.

Maranta are prayer plants, from the same family as Calathea and Stromanthe. All of these plants curl up when they’re thirsty BUT my Maranta does it when the soil is *just* dry and, crucially, when the soil is *just* dry in my other plant pots too.

My Calathea curl up* when the other plants are still damp, and my Stromanthe won’t curl up until every molecule of water has been sapped from its soil.

This is not a foolproof system. It doesn’t work in summer when the drying-out rates vary a lot. But for winter, keeping a close eye on one plant is a lot more doable than watching them all.

*I don’t water them when they curl up. I like to make them wait. Treat ‘em mean, keep ‘em keen. Also, if they’re kept as hydrated as they want the soil gets really cold and they look droopy and sad.

There are, of course, exceptions

My maidenhair fern needs more water than most of my other plants, as does my fittonia.

Unfortunately, those divas are on their own separate, schedules, so my hack of keeping them on the coffee table so I can’t accidentally forget they exist is still going strong.

My orchid also doesn’t need very much water at all in winter. I keep it bare-root, and water when the roots go from green to silver. It seems to need watering every 2 dry Marantas (look at me making up my own time-measuring system).

At the other end of the scale, we have things like ponytail palms, which barely need any water at all over winter. I might spray the soil with my pressure sprayer if it seems dry, but most succulent plants can survive all winter in my house with no water at all.

No Maranta?

Any similar tough-ish plant that likes moist soil but can tolerate drying out a bit will work. Waiting for a peace lily to droop could work, as could waiting for a Syngonium to droop.

This is one of those houseplant care tips which is about keeping houseplants alive, rather than keeping them lush and thriving, but can be invaluable in winter when you don’t have the same inclination to care for your plants as you do in summer.

The weather has been weirdly mild in the UK…

I say weirdly like we’re not headed for ecological disaster, but you know what I mean.

So it’s been quite mild and very wet. My peace lily has therefore declared it spring and has produced a bloom.

Hilariously, I took this picture at 16:22 and it’s so dark that my phone wanted to use the flash. That should be enough to let my peace lily know it’s still very much winter, but she felt a mild breeze and rolled with it.

Video of the week

I was reviewing the recent videos I’d watched, trying to find a cool houseplant tour but settled instead on this plant funeral one instead. This is definitely lighthearted (as it should be!) and I think there should be a bit more transparency and a little less guilt about losing houseplants.

I hate the idea of houseplants being disposable because they’re often not great for the environment and can be wasteful BUT…they die. They’re famous for it. And as long as you tried your best, it doesn’t matter.

Becca also mentions that she rebuys certain plants that she can’t keep alive - like her Calathea Orbifolia only look good for a couple of years and then they go scraggy so she buys a new one. I think this is something many people do and feel guilty about.

Not to mention that certain mass-produced seasonal plants, like Thanksgiving Cactus, are very low quality, forced to grow quickly, and aren’t cared for well before being sold so you’d need to be an above-average gardener to keep them alive when their season’s over.

Also, My interest was PIQUED by that Notion plant database. I 100% wouldn’t keep it up to date but I love setting up new planner-type things and never returning to actually use them.

Spider plant update

OG subscribers will remember when I couldn’t keep a spider plant alive for more than a few weeks. I couldn’t seem to get them to thrive.

I never really worked out what changed BUT I think it’s a light thing. I have two atm, and the one in the cold, dry room with good light is doing great, and the one in the warm, humid room with ok light is looking scraggly af. If any of you are struggling with spider plants, try putting them in better light (and make sure you up the water too - they are THIRSTY when kept in bright light.

New articles

Not a new article per so, but an updated one. I consolidated a misting article with an article on getting plant leaves wet. Read it here:

Everything you need to know about misting houseplants

It’s actually quite dull because the upshot is that misting doesn’t really impact plants. It will neither kill them nor be their saving grace. They can obviously survive having wet leaves (because rain) but don’t really like it. It doesn’t raise humidity but it does knock dust off.

Plants

have rather the same view of rain as humans do - it’s necessary but uncomfortable.

And on that note, I’ll let you get back to your lives.

Hope you have an awesome weekend, see you next week.