You don’t necessarily need a green thumb to have thriving houseplants. There are plenty of low-maintenance varieties to choose from. However, if you still find yourself in a situation where your houseplants could be doing better, it may be because you’re making common houseplant mistakes.
We've asked gardening pros to share six houseplant mistakes they commonly see and effective solutions to help them become healthy and happy again.
This is by far the most common houseplant mistake. “We as humans need to drink water daily, but plants have evolved to go through periods of ‘drought,’” Holly Mixon, owner of Itty Bitty Trees, says.
This is why many indoor plants, she says, prefer deep, but infrequent watering. Mixon recommends watering deeply until the water is flowing from the drainage, but properly allow it to dry afterward. By watering sparingly but deeply, you foster lower root growth and ultimately help support a more resilient plant.
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Plants need the sun to photosynthesize, a special process wherein the plant turns sunlight into energy. “This leads many people to believe that full direct sun will make all plants happy. Not so," Sonya Query, Marketing Director for Love, Plants, Inc., says.
Too much sun can lead to sunburns. Most plants, even the ones that love the sun, tend to do better with periods of indirect light. But how do you strike the balance between too much sun and too little? Query recommends a light, semi-transparent curtain in a sunny window or pulling the plant a few feet away.
Or stick with plants that prefer low-light situations and keep them away from full, direct light. “These include plants like Z.Z. plants, peace lilies, fittonia, snake plants, cast iron plants, and
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