5 mistakes + 1 not to make with your plants this year!

Here we are today with a fundamental article for houseplant novices (but also for experts looking for a refresher)!

I want to continually study, discuss with you to also improve my green thumb and experiment with new schemes that can help us have greater success with the cultivation of plants, in particular indoor ones which are in fact sometimes more complex than garden plants, for the simple fact that they are not at home.

And so I reiterate the core of my belief on the subject, that is, approach these plants by first trying to understand where they come from, what habits they have in their habitat, how temperatures, light and rainfall vary throughout the year in their places of origin.

They are there though needs which with good approximation can be considered transversal and that if we make a mistake in satisfying them, they can make our life very difficult.

1. Substrate, the importance of excellent quality soil

With the new year we say definitively goodbye to low quality potting soilLet’s all make this promise together!

When I respond to messages on Instagram asking for help for plants with health problems, in 90% of cases the soil in which they are grown is wrong.

The health of the plant starts from the roots and a non-optimal growth environment has repercussions on the entire individual: loss of leaves, root rot, attack by parasites, etc. These symptoms and many others are all encouraged by low-quality soil.

When we grow plants in containers (pots but also planters and balcony boxes on terraces) the water does not have great depths into which it can disappear and risks being detained exaggeratedly in substrates that lack coarse aggregates in the mix.

So the first advice I give, if you don’t already do it, is to try growing indoor plants in a soil that has a good amount of pumice stone and perlite dispersed in the mixture. I am convinced that the thumb will suddenly become a little greener already.

Less frustration, less difficulty, more enthusiasm.

2. Light, the right exposure should not be underestimated

Despite many indoor plants they tolerate less bright positions well this must not force us to necessarily choose dark positions for them.

A Zamioculcas, a Pothos, a Sansevieria, although tolerant of little light, can thrive if exposed to a bright position, particularly in winter.

And it is in this season that I see a recurring mistake being made: thinking of having to shield the plants from direct light.

Two valuable considerations:

1. Inside a house, direct light can rarely burn the leaves because transparent glass still significantly reduces radiation, even in the brightest seasons. The positions of light therefore only those in the central summer weeks are potentially dangerous and concern only windows facing south. I would add that plants with a tender and thin blade (certainly not an imperial philodendron) may be sensitive and may have been suddenly placed in this position without the transition having been completed naturally: if a plant is fixed in front of a south-facing window all year round it will have the opportunity to gradually adapt to direct light conditions and will benefit from it. However, we always keep the situation monitored.
2. In winter there is no direct lighttherefore plants should always be overexposed if possible and the precaution of shielding their exposure should never be taken.

If you want to know more about the issue of light, here is the article for you 😉

3. Wettings, can they be programmed?

This third aspect does not work if point one is not fulfilled. So let’s start from the assumption that we have used a draining and light substrate.

One of the most dangerous myths in circulation is the belief that a fixed time interval for wetting can be defined: like, for example, every 2 weeks.

Let’s forget this thing and learn to water when the earth is almost dry in summer and when it is dry in winter. If the plant then showed symptoms of wilting, we would have time to remedy the situation.

Differently, what it is difficult to resolve it is a problem of excess wettingwhich almost always occurs with poor quality, very compact soil, devoid of inert materials.

If a soil struggles to dry and easily gets soaked, it is most likely an unsuitable soil or one that is cheap to cut. To cost a few euros, a soil must necessarily be made up almost essentially of compost which to a limited extent is an excellent ingredient, but in percentages above 40-50% it becomes problematic, both due to high salinity issues and the lack of those spaces that we call macropores, i.e. the interstices between the soil particles that host the air and are functional for the correct oxygenation of the roots.

If you are afraid of giving too much water to the plants, know that a good soil drains all the excess from the drainage holes, but if this still worries you and you don’t have plants in gigantic pots, you can resort to sub-irrigation: in this way the soil will absorb from the saucer or pot holder only the quantity of water necessary to moisten itself, filling the micropores without saturating the macropores, leaving them available to the air.

4. Fertilize the plants correctly

I said at the beginning of the article that even after so much time spent with plants I continue to experiment and inform myself to understand if there is room for improvement in my practice.

One of the things I stopped doing is fertilizing all year round: limited to mineral fertilizers, if I observe the absence of new growth on indoor plants during the winter season, I don’t insist on fertilizing which I interrupt and resume only when they start again in spring.

This primarily avoids waste because, if the plants don’t grow they don’t even eat. Secondly, any unconsumed fertilizers accumulate in the soil and are made up of mineral salts progressively increase salinitysomething that is not pleasant for the roots and for the plant in general.

In case of reduced growth one can at most think of halve the doses or cadences.

However, what I never miss throughout the year is… administration of biostimulant products which are not strictly mineral fertilizers, but organic substances that have a strong impact on the health and luxuriant growth of plants.

They are products that can be used in the wetting water according to the doses and methods indicated on the label and which in the case of the products I use can also be administered via the leaves, which is very useful when in winter we are not watering with a certain frequency.

Be careful because these products are often not exactly scented and therefore we avoid giving them before the New Year’s Eve dinner at home, but choose a warm and sunny afternoon if we are in winter, so that we can take the plants to the balcony and spray the product on the leaves, leaving them outside for a few hours before bringing them back into the house.

5. Indoor plants brought outside

There are countless benefits that we can derive from positioning our indoors outside the house from April to October.

In particular, an extremely scarce factor in the home will abound: light.

Normally, some are chosen positions sheltered from direct summer lightperhaps exposures not to the south, or the bright shade of a beautiful porch.

THE rain and moving air are other panaceas for our plantsin particular to recover the vegetation that the winter of the house has affected a little: if you find them a little plucked at the end of the cold season, take them outside, give them a good fertilization and start again.

This year I left them all outside for the winter too, sheltered in a cold greenhouse, under the porch. There are several species of indoor plants and for the moment they are reacting very well.

6. When to repot a plant?

Some plants can wait for biannual repotting, others I find that by mid-summer they are ready for a bigger home. On average one repotting per year it becomes necessary.

But to be sure of doing well you need to view the root ball of the plant And check the condition of the roots on its surface and not so much below.

If you bundle it up, otherwise it’s better to wait, nothing happens, but if you want to know more I refer you to this very useful video.

The The appropriate period is the one preceding a growth phasethen April, possibly September for a second operation. I have seen that it is dangerous to repot in a moment of rest because the earth is not yet colonized by the roots, therefore not allowing them to absorb the water which, consequently, remains in the soil.

We proceed from a vase with an increasingly larger diameter: 14-18-24-30-38 until we stop, without moving on to dimensions that are excessively different from the starting vase.

To restore the fertility of a soil that will no longer be renewed, the surface layer is removed, Leonardite is spread and the topping is redone with fresh soil.

This will prevent the soil from becoming exhausted since we will no longer repot.

I hope this was useful information, let me have your feedback or opinion on the matter 😉