Hello and welcome to healthyhouseplants.com, where we teach you all about gardening in the great indoors. If you’d like to support our show, please use our Amazon affiliate link below.

Today I’m going to talk about seven tips for being an amazing indoor gardener. If you follow these seven really important things to do, you will find yourself with an incredible indoor garden.

The first tip is correct watering. The number one cause of house plant death is under or over watering. Both will do a lot of harm to your house plants. Before watering your house plants, you want to make sure that the plant is ready for watering. Just because you watered last Tuesday doesn’t mean your house plant needs water again this Tuesday. The most important thing to do is to check the plants for water readiness when using something like the moisture meter, for instance, to check on that.

For most house plants, you want to water when it shows four, which is next to the three which is dry. And I do have videos, actually two videos, on using the moisture meter effectively. So proper watering, obviously, don’t forget your house plants and forget to water them because dried-out soil is going to lead to dried-out plants. There are plants that will recover, some such as peace lily will recover even when they’ve gotten very dry, but other plants will be gone once the soil has dried out. So they will die and you will lose them from your collection. Be very careful with correct watering. Additionally, always water with warm or tepid water. Very cold water is going to produce die back on plant roots, and that can lead to root rot as well as poor growth.

The second tip for being an amazing indoor gardener is correct lighting. This is critical to house plant growth. House plants grow because of the light they receive. They grow when they photosynthesize, and they can only photosynthesize when they receive light, and that doesn’t mean dim light. Most houseplants need medium light. There are some houseplants that will do okay in dim light, but no houseplants are going to grow in really dim light. If you don’t have good lighting coming from windows, you want to get full spectrum lighting. It’s easy to find full spectrum lighting today which mimics daylight. They make bulbs that can fit into just about any lighting fixture and special lamps with octopus arms that you can move around in order to light up plants. I have videos on lighting as well, and I’ll put the link below. As mentioned, plants require that light, proper lighting to grow. You may think you have enough light coming from your windows, but it may not be sufficient light, so keep an eye on that.

The third tip for having an incredible indoor garden is fertilizing. Remember, as I always say, you are father or mother nature. The plant only has access to the soil in its pot. It can’t send its roots around in the ground to find more nutrients when it needs it. It’s waiting for you to feed the soil, which will then feed the roots and feed the plant. So it’s very important that you do give your plants fertilizer. A lot of plants, a lot of houseplants don’t need fertilizer constantly, but I would say try to aim for every three to four months at the least with most house plants in terms of fertilizing them. Some plants like African violets, those that flower, will need more regular fertilizing. And when you do fertilize, use an organic fertilizer. I have videos on why that’s important as well, and I do have an organic fertilizer product as well. So remember, nutrients are important as well.

The fourth tip is controlling pests and diseases. Keep an eye out for pests and diseases. Things like mealybugs and scale can take over very quickly and quickly turn a once healthy plant into an ailing plant. So in order to keep that from happening, when you water your house plants, check them also for any signs of pests or diseases. You can use a jeweler’s loop. I have a video, I’ll put a link below for that, how to use that, and it’s a really good way to look up close on the leaves to see if there’s any signs of pests or diseases as well. And when you do see any signs, make sure to deal with them right away. I do have a pest series playlist. I’ll put the link below. There’s a lot of things you can do to keep them under control, and remember, as mentioned, the sooner you find the pests and deal with them, the better, because once you get an infestation, it’s very hard to control it after that, and a lot of plants just won’t make it if it’s just too far gone.

The fifth tip for having a great indoor garden is re-potting. As mentioned, you are mother or father nature. Soil does break down over time, and it does become full of salts. Those salts come from fertilizing, those salts come from watering, and salt will break down roots and can cause root rot and will cause a plant to not do as well and start to actually die back. So you do want to repot most house plants every two to three years, sometimes more frequently, especially if the plant is growing considerably and you continue to pot up into a bigger size pot. When you do re-pot, use a high-quality organic potting soil. Pro Mix BX is one of my favorites. Happy Frog also has some good soils as well. I’ll put a link below. As mentioned, it’s good to do so that you keep your garden nice and healthy. Time of year, however, when repotting is important. It’s best, generally speaking, not to repot during the winter months, especially if you live in a climate that gets very cold during that time. So wait until late winter, early spring to pot up. Spring is a great time to pot up because plants readily start to grow at that time, so when you give them some nice new soil, they are going to really grow well for you.

The sixth tip is providing sufficient humidity. Insufficient humidity is not necessarily going to kill most house plants, but some house plants require high humidity. African violets and maidenhair fern, for instance, really like high humidity, as does spike moss. I have videos on how to provide more humidity to your plants. The best way to get more humidity to your plants is to get more house plants because houseplants humidify each other. There are other ways as well, as mentioned, and there are links below. Signs of not enough humidity include brown leaf tips, crispy edges with some leaf loss as well. So that’s something to keep in mind if you start to see those sorts of signs, especially during the winter months when the air is a lot drier, or if you live in a dry climate that gets very low humidity in the summer months or year-round as well. Also keep in mind, however, that those could be signs of over watering and/or root rot, so you’re going to need to do a little investigation to figure out if it is indeed a lack of humidity.

The last tip for you is to have faith in yourself and your houseplants. When you lose faith, you tend to lose interest. When you lose interest, you don’t water the plant, don’t give it enough light, and then it goes downhill, as does your faith. When you have faith in the plant and in yourself as an indoor gardener, you’re going to have really happy, healthy plants, and you’re going to be happy and potentially healthy as well yourself because plants do clean the air for you. And I have a video on how plants do that. See the link below. So keep that in mind. That is my last tip: to have faith in the plants, in yourself, and the fact that you can grow really healthy, happy plants. Will you have some failures? Of course you will. I’ve had plenty of failures. But at the same time, you can’t have successes without failures.

Thank you for stopping by today. Please leave any comments about any indoor gardening tutorials you’d like to see. Remember to like, comment, subscribe, and share this video, and please check the bell if you’d like to be notified when new videos are released.