How to and Ways to Shop for, Show Love, Care for and Grow Your House Plants and Houseplant by Watering! It's Easy!

Would you like to have your home develop a more comfy, homey feel? When you come home from a hard day's work and if you do or do not have a significant other, dog, cat or pet to greet you, I have the perfect thing that will calm you! This thing will give you a special zen feeling the minute you look at it as you walk through the door!

Want to know how to add another pleasurable dimension to your life?

"How's that?" or "Come again?" you might ask.

Ok. I'll explain further and I will not keep you in suspense! A beautiful, well-loved, full, green house plant is the key that will open the door to your zen pleasure zone! As with most things, including those of the human persuasion, the (well known?) saying is mostly true -- "Love it and it will love you back!" (You know there are always exceptions).

That's right -- a house plant will not only calm you down, but will also add an aesthetic appeal to your place of abode. Just show your love for it and I see nothing but bright, sunny, or should I say, "green" days ahead for you!

By all means, once you obtain a house plant, or even if you already have one, be sure your plant stays full, green and healthy! Do you not want your plant to reflect you, your ideals and outlook on life? What's that I hear...Ummmmm....Positive, fun, refreshing, exhilerating! Sounds good to me!

Put it into practice!

It's important to learn how to take care of your plant and keep it vibrant and healthy. It is not enough to just learn how to take care of your plant. You must also be able to put what you learned in practice!

You can read gardening books, surf the web for house plants care advice and instructions all you want-- but if you do not put into motion what you have learned, you have done no more than to enrich your brain cells with information, that is just sitting there, dormant in your brain -- never being able to be put to any good use, because you have not lifted even a finger to take that first step to care for your house plant. Act now!

But, I'm getting ahead of myself here. For simplistic reasons and so that you can follow me easily and began taking care of your house plants, I will start from the beginning and work my way to the happy ending!

Warning: The flip sides of cared for plants are sad-looking plants with rotted, drooping, yellow or brown leaves, sparse foilage, with lots of spaces between leaves, and of course, ultimate demise! Or even worse, long skinny brown stems hanging on for dear life (as shown in the picture to the bottom right), without nary a living leaf on them. Who wants to come home to and be around such a neglectful sight?

I will tell you how to take care of your house plant, and I will include a secret that I do periodically to make sure my plants know how much I love and care for them.

Ready to start? Let's go!

Disclaimers (the small print)

First, some disclaimers. My advice here is mostly for green foliage type house plants. I will not be talking about flowering plants, or that flowered pot of plants you may have bought for yourself or was given to you as a gift.

I will only be discussing house plants that have leaves -- no flowers, or anything like that. I will not be covering growing house plants from bulbs, planting seeds to grow house plants from scratch, or anything along that vein.

So where will I start my discussion on the love and care of house plants? Let's start by going to either a grocery store that sells plants, business establishmets or even garden centers to pick out your plant.

Pick out the perfect house plant!

House plants are similar to people in some, minute ways. For instance, once you see someone you like (romantically speaking), you almost know instantly that he or she is for you. Things may not go as well later in the relationship, but right now in the honeymoon phase, as you are gazing, star-struck in his or her beautiful eyes, you know, and may even be thinking "You are for me!"

Just as you may instantly feel that special something for someone, so will you as you look, or even gaze upon a plant that fits your fancy.

This feeling has happened to me before -- Yes -- with prior significant others and with plants. But I'm talking about plants here, so let's stay on the subject. Shall we?

Now, if I get a nagging feeling that, yeah, this house plant looks ok, but there is something about it, that just doesn't quite jive with me. When I get that feeling, I ponder about possibly purchasing the plant, but at the end of the day, I simply do not buy it.

So go with your gut! If I went against my gut feeling, I would have bought a house plant that would take up valuable space in my real estate -- sharing space with a plant that I really did not care too much for. (Is that statement relateable to people too? -- Just sayin!).

Once I leave the store without buying the house plant that did not totally overwhelm me, I have no regrets, especially since the plant did not tug at my heartstrings the first time. If the feeling is not there, it's just not there. No need to force it.... there'll be other house plants coming my way. What is that saying about elevators? -- if you run to one, and happen to miss the first elevator, just wait a few minutes, and another one will show up. It's the same with house plants, that do not appeal to you instantly. You'll find another/the right one at another time!

But sometimes magic occurs! You meet the amazing house plant that you absolutely must have! No doubt about.

This phenomenon happened to me recently, when I was just shopping, nonchalantly, not even in the market for a house plant, when out of the side, in the peripheral vision of my eyes, I saw this magnificently beautiful house plant that seem to beckon to me. I glanced fully in its direction, and lo and behold, there it stood. Just waiting for me to admire its beauty in all of its glory. Such full green leaves, with sprouts, with even more shiny leaves flowing out of its base.

I walked over and got a closer look, and noticed that it had a companion house plant that looked very similar, that was situated close beside it. Decisions..... decisions....decisions. Should I take this beautiful creature home with me now, should I wait, should I buy both plants, should I just pretend like I never even saw either of them? What should I do?

Guess what I did. Yes.... I bought the first plant that caught my eye.

Just a quick update -- I recently went back to purchase the other house plant, and found out that it, as well as the others had been pruned quite a bit and were not as full and lushious as before. I also noticed there were lots of smaller plants (babies from the larger plants?) for sale. Oh well. Lesson learned... next time I think instead of trying to choose, I'll just buy them both!

Price considerations

After looking everywhere on my beautiful plant for a price sticker. I thought.... Wow... this plant is a lot bigger than the others... I wonder if it costs more than the other ones.

So I quickly lifted the plant from its resting place, took it to the sales counter and inquired about the price. I was practically on cloud nine (if there is such a place), when she checked and came back and told me the plant was the same price as the smaller ones.

"Should I bag it?", she asked. Of course not. I wanted to hold it and let everyone see and share my admiration of my new found house plant, before I took it home. Even if the look was brief, since I took it a short distance to my car and placed it down carefully, so as not to ruffle or dislodge any of the leaves.

But I digress. Let's continue on!

First Steps

After picking the house plant of your dreams and taking it home, you want to be sure to keep it watered. Not drenched, but mildly watered.

Overwatering will cause the roots to either wash up to the top, or rot out. Remember, it is never good to overdo a good thing-- which includes watering your plants!

I do not have a set schedule to water my house plants. I specifically pick house plants that do not require a lot of watering. So if you are prone to forget to water your house plants, try to buy a type that do not require that much watering. I'm not talking about those cactus type plants, which are personally my least favorite house plants. But if you like this type -- then "to each, his own!"

Soil Test

If you are not sure if it's time to water your house plant, then it's time to water your house plants! No need to waste time trying to remember the last time you watered your plants. Just go ahead and water your plants while you are thinkiing about it!

What I do periodically, is I use my fingers, to gently touch the soil to see if the soil feels wet, dry or damp. Depending on how wet (or dry) the soil is, I will water my plants.

I also have this cute, neat spray water bottle (with a shell design) that I use to sprinkle the leaves themselves, after I have watered the roots. I know that the plants get their nutrition from watering the roots, but somehow, I feel my watering is not complete until I have sprayed the whole complete plant.

There are automatically watering gizzmos on the market, that I have not used (yet), but you can give them a try if you like.

Oh, and if you plan to go on a long trip, please either use one of those automatic watering devices, water a little heavier than usual, or have someone water your plants for you while you are away.

Update: I was away from my beautiful plant for about 11 days. Even though I watered it heavily before I left, when I returned, lo and behold, I was greeted by about seven to ten yellow leaves, and my plant had a overall droopy look. I immediately watered my plant, and got rid of the yellow leaves. I also fluffed out the drooping leaves with my hands the best way I could.

The next day, I again watered my plant, and by the third day I saw my plant was rejuvenated and back to normal, with uplifting, perky leaves. Whew!

My lesson learned from this is there is a definite time frame house plants can go without watering, and more than 10 days is really pushing it!

The next time, if possible, I will probably take my plant with me if I will be away for an extended amount of time. Or maybe I'll try one of those self-watering gizmos!

Talk to your plant?

No, I do not talk to my plants. But it is totally up to you if you decide to do that. I think it is a waste of air, or breath to talk to something that will and cannot talk back to you, or understand what you are saying. I do my talking by actively keeping my plants watered often. And my plants talk back to me with body language by showing me their beautiful, full green foliage!

Touch your plant?

Now, this, I do! In fact, this is my secret that I'm sharing with you that I mentioned earlier. I touch my plants routinely and periodically. For some of my plants, I usually just fluff out the leaves a little to give them a fuller look. Or I may touch my plants to move the leaves aside so I can water their roots. The secret here is sometimes I touch my plants when I'm not watering them. I'm not sure if florists do the same thing when they are making floral bouquets, but if my plants appear to be hanging not quite right, I fluff them ever so gently, so the leaves will stay in tact.

What about those green plant food things?

If some of my plants need a little extra attention, I sometimes use those plant food spikes, and insert them in the soil. I saw some positive results from using the plant food, but I do not have a ritual of doing this for all my plants. Only, when I think some may be floundering do I use plant food spikes.

Pruning anyone?

Your house plant is a living organism (trying to remember the botany word for this), so you need to treat it as such. Water often, and when there are yellow, or even brown rotted leaves, please go ahead and pull them off the plant. The brown and yellow takes away from the beautiful overall green color of the plants, so the sooner you remove the dead leaves, the better for the plant. Look on the bright side. Once you remove the dead leaves, the plant has more space to fill in more foiliage.

Replanting

Since you have heeded my advice, your house plant should be growing rather nicely now. However, at some point, your plant may outgrow its original "plant pot" (as opposed to "flower pot."). So you will have to cut its little babies away and replant some parts in another pot.

There is a method to do this. When cutting your plants, make sure you are cutting beneath the little piece that sticks out beneath the leaf. After cutting my plants for replanting, I help with the transition from home pot to another pot by placing the cut leaf stems in a glass holder filled with water. Once the roots appear, I transfer the plant into a pot filled with potting soil.

I watch the new baby plants closely to be sure they are ok with their new home. I do not recall having a problem with replanting plants. I did have a problem with leaving the leaf stems in the water too long so the roots almost overtook the plant itself -- so be careful and be timely in replanting your houseplants!

Your Options

With so many choices of who and what can greet you or have around you in your home or apartment -- Why not pick, love and care for a beautiful house plant? Their sheer aesthetic appeal will certainly brighten your day!

Cheers!

Congratulations! You've done it! Here's to you and your beautifully cared for plant having wonderful times now and even more fun times together in the future!