Apartment Gardens
“WHEN YOU PLANT SOMETHING, YOU INVEST IN A BEAUTIFUL FUTURE AMIDST A STRESSFUL, CHAOTIC AND, AT TIMES, DOWNRIGHT APPALLING WORLD.”
– MONTY DON
WANT SOME TIPS FROM A COMPLETE AMATEUR?
Then you have come to the right place! I have been using this quarantine time to learn a bit more about my plants, and to continue my indoor gardening journey. This quote by Monty Don has resonated with me a lot during this time, because plants truly are such a sign of life and hope and joy! So here are a few things I have learned so far:
CHOOSE PLANTS THAT FIT INTO YOUR HOME AND ARE EASY TO CARE FOR
When you are looking for new plants for your home, think about the atmosphere of your house. Do you have pets? Maybe you need to keep your plants up and out of reach. Do you get little sunlight? Try plants that tolerate low light. Do you travel a lot? Maybe try some plants that need less water. There are so many options!
PAY ATTENTION TO SOIL AND DRAINAGE
Soil is something we don’t always consider when planting inside, but it can really affect the health of indoor plants! And, potting plants can actually be a great opportunity to have plants that wouldn’t normally grow in the soil that you may live on naturally. Plants can need any number of soils from sand to clay, which hugely affects the drainage around their roots and can with help your plants to thrive or even sometimes die. You can find packaged soil that is already premixed for certain types of plants (like cactus soil or tropical soil) or you can do a little research and create your own mixtures of things like peat moss, compost, soil, sand and gravel to create the perfect soil for your plant!
INVEST IN A FEW TOOLS
There are a few different tools that can be very helpful in caring for your potted plants. An obvious one is a watering can, which makes watering easy and quick. A less obvious one is a soil meter. You can get inexpensive meters that measure the moisture of the soil in your pots OR you can get a little bit of a nicer meter that tracks both soil moisture and other metrics like pH and light.
READ UP
Plant books can be GREAT references as you grow your garden inside. Rather than googling every time I have a question on a plant, I keep my Simon & Schuster House Plants book around and have all my plant pages marked. It’s really helpful at the change of seasons when watering schedules should be changed up, or when I am wondering if it is time to repot!
PLANTS TAKE TIME
Some plants seem to grow very quickly and others seem to take FOREVER. This could be a matter of the environment they are in or just the type of plant they are. Some plants even go fully dormant in the winter and won’t grow at all! At the end of the day, just remember plants (like anything else) take time to grow.
MOVE ‘EM AROUND
If you have a plant that loves direct sunlight, don’t be afraid to move it around! As the seasons change or even as the day goes on the sunlight in our houses tends to change quite a lot too. If you are home during the day, just move your plant from place to place when you think about it. It could encourage growth and bring joy to another room.
PAY ATTENTION TO THE SEASONS
Like I said, seasons can highly affect the growth of a plant. Many plants go dormant or their growth slows in the winter. This means that they require much less water (some almost none at all!). So this is an important thing to think about, especially if you live in a climate that gets very little sunlight in the winter like I do. On the flip side of that, there are a lot of plants that like the be fed in the summer or their high growth seasons, so plant food or fertilizer is something to think about and do some research on.
PLANTS NOTICE HUMIDITY
As much as we notice humidity, our plants notice it even more! Their delicate stems and leaves are very sensitive to moisture, so being aware of where they are in your house (don’t put tropical plants next to heat vents) and the general humidity levels of our homes (you may need a humidifier if you live somewhere that is cold and dry in the winter) is really important.
GIVE YOURSELF GRACE
So you killed a plant. It’s okay. It is a learning process to grow different types of plants and some are more sensitive than others! Also keep in mind that younger plants are a bit more sensitive to their environment, and more mature plants may be more tolerant or variations in atmosphere (but are also an investment if you are going to purchase them).
Remember that gardening is like any other creative pursuit! The process is even more important than the result, and the more time you spend learning and growing the more you will find joy in the craft of growing plants.