🌱 Top 5 Weird Houseplant Tips You MUST Try! 🤯

are you always on the lookout for the new big tip or trick for when it comes to caring for your house plants whether it's pests or dealing with propagations stick with me and I'll show you some of my slightly weird and off-kilter tips and tricks that I do to keep my house plant collection happy hi my name is memo this is my channel house planted goodness and essentially it's a place where I like to geek out about my big passion you might be able to see some of it behind me it's tropical house plants so I want to dive into something a little bit different today I know a lot of my viewers will watch my videos because they'll get little tips and tricks that I do just by kind of talking about my collection and all these things and they can then see what I do and maybe kind of say oh I do that as well or maybe I should try that as well so I thought I'd give you a more of a specific video of some of the weird and unusual things that I've done in my collection to deal with different things that have worked for me now as I've said before I am not a botanist I do have some scientific background none of this is based in scientific background some of it Loosely but predominantly not but these are things that have worked for me again if you have any of your own tips let me know Down Below in the comments and yeah the more we share the more we can all learn essentially and stick around until the very end I've got a very cool kind of tip and trick that I've kind of learned from and adjusted to be my own if that makes sense from Lisa the happy plant collector on Instagram and I'll kind of Link Lisa up the top there as well but yes without further Ado let's dive into some of these okay and I think the first one I don't know whether or not no there's another one as well that's about pests but the first one that I want to talk about is something that I think a lot of us really got into using as far as I could tell basically and it is this stuff so you might recognize it if you've ever used it before but essentially what this is is the velcro plant ties and originally I think these were sold for kind of outdoor gardening and predominantly to tie things up that are a bit more fragile in terms of their stems like to and stuff like that so if you ever buy one of these potentially from Amazon you'll see that usually it's got an image of a tomato plant and these are really great I mean part of the reason why they became as popular is because a they're reusable but B they are a lot more gentle when it comes to kind of tying up certain plants the other option which a lot of people might have been using previously is something like um the wire coated in in plastic type of plant ties I know a lot of people potentially use something like twine or some form of string as well but a lot of us did gravitate towards this and to be fair I've still using it sparingly in my collection and my first tip and something that I've learned over the years now actually is that I need to be very careful on where I use these velcro plant ties and I'll elaborate a bit on that now what I've kind of noticed a lot of the times especially again for the people that have been here for a while mugs um this is a problem when it comes to mbgs I've noticed this time and time and time again basically and the the most obvious example I can give on this is on something like a hoya and you might kind of see where I'm going with this and you might also notice that this kind of heirloom hoer essentially isn't really attached on anything and when it will when I will attach it to the little support stick I will do this with the metal the plastic coated metal wire basically and it's only because I don't have string otherwise I would use string but there is a good reason for this so if I was to use this and when I have used this in the past and I had so many of my hoers with this being the thing that was holding it up because I'm just sitting there going oh my God look at the stem it's so thin it could be delicate these leaves can get really heavy and it can snap off so for a long period of time I was using the plastic coated kind of wire and eventually because I thought I was being a good plant parent I moved over to this now and I've been transitioning all of my hoers off of this velcro now and onto these again problem is the problem exists now and what is that this when it's wrapped around the stem I'm not even going to attempt to do it with this one at the moment it then creates so a couple of things first I think people were getting this because they're sitting there going you know what it can if a plant stem gets a bit thicker it can rip through the velcro better than it would the metal twine yes and no depending on how you've wound the the velro around if you've only gone once in a bit that should be fine it will kind of snap off and open up when it needs to but if you've gone down round a couple of times that stuff ain't moving you're still going to get that dent in the stem and you're still going to get some of that kind of coloring and restriction that's going to happen there the big problem though however with the m bugs it creates an area so if you'd imagine let me just bring this up again I don't know why I keep putting it down so if I get this to focus so if you can imagine the area between the plant and the actual velcro itself is the perfect breeding round for mbgs to hide in the hundreds basically sometimes I've opened up some of that Velar and I'm just I've been dealing with mbgs on this for so long and I keep getting rid of them and how are they coming back and I took some of the velcro off and you literally could not see the white back of the velcro for the white fluffy me bugs that were just living their best life in there so the biggest tip I can give you at this particular Moment In Time use the velcro very sparingly and check on it it's something we don't ever do and something that I don't think I've ever seen anybody talk about check behind your velcro plant eyes one more thing we all need to do um to see if you've got issues with medy bugs this is especially important I think if you already have a mbug at the station or if you've got M bugs that you do just don't seem to be able to shift and you've got some of this stop whatever it is you're doing and go and check on this because a lot of the mbgs might be hiding between the velcro plant TI and your plant and it basically means that they're just going to keep bringing out new babies that will still keep infesting the rest of the plant but that area where that velcro is attaching is probably getting sapped dry buy a lot of these mbgs so my big tip is use it but using sparingly and potentially go back to the good old trusty plastic tied plastic covered metal ties basically or twine and I know there own issues with this I do get it but ironically enough at least in my experience this gave me so much less trouble than this has the next one might seem a bit obvious but it is so I'm showing you the soil Ninja antherium bag here basically this is their antherium soil mix and essentially the point I'm trying to make here is use soil mixes that might be specific to something like antherium please don't sell this out because this has been a godsend at the moment I mean please do because the the guys of soil ninja are lovely people but please please please make sure that this is restocked because I desperately love and need this at the moment and the I'm trying to make is just because something says antherium and I think this one is also antherium and orchids basically just because it says that it's for one type of plant doesn't mean you can't use it for other types of plants and I'll give you a reason why so this ties a lot of the boxes and it's very good and it's very well created for antheriums because it has an awful lot of variation it's got the bark it's got the perite it's got the zeolite it's got loads of of air pockets inside of it but it also means that this does and can dry out a bit faster than some of the other mixes potentially something like an aliccia potentially something like a mix that might be used for monstera or even Hoya now why am I saying use other soil mixes other than what they're intended for this is specifically for all of us over waterers out there because and I don't know how much more bluntly I can put this this some of these instructions are not meant for us they're not meant for us they're not meant for us you know like the plants that you're sitting they're going they need to be evenly moist and they need to be like always getting water and you're using the right soil mix for them guess what you're probably still doing you're probably still drowning those plants regardless of whether or not you're using the regular soil mix that is meant for those plants so for an example an alloca and you're using the alloca soil mix and then you're still overwatering and it just like why am I why why is this rotting out and why am I having all these issues cuz you're still overwatering you're using the right soil mix but the problem isn't the soil mix the problem is us we overwater that's not going to change so using something like this if you are an overwater will give you that extra little bit of cushion yes it might mean that you need to water a bit more frequently and I know that's a bit of a pain in the summer I feel you but it's a safer bet and I have said this and everybody else on YouTube and Instagram has said this as well it's generally better to have underwatered than to have overwatered so this is a good one and and this flips both ways by the way so if you see a soil mix that is meant to be more moisture retaining for plants that are meant to kind of want a bit more moisture in their Roots so some something like a fern potentially if you are a chronic underwater guess what I'm going to say here is as long as there's some irration in it as long as there's some form of perlite or bark or anything else that will kind of break up that soil so it's not dense use that use that for for the exact same reason that the overwater should be using something as Airy as an antherium mix now how does this work if you're doing your own soil mixes because I know a lot of people aren't going to sit there and buy readymade soil mixers I hear you what I would say for you is if you are doing a soil mix and you're sitting there going you know what I'm going to if you're an overwater and I'm going to add because I've seen everybody else and a good aroid mix I'm going to add like this much perlite and this much like bark or anything like that that's going to give it Iration I would say stop and use twice how much you think you want to be using and flip side of that if you're an overwater stop and use half of what you think you're going to be needing basically on there you still need that Iration but if you're not going to water that regularly if you're one of these people that will water your plants like once a month or once every two months you want to keep some of that moisture there as much as possible you still need that Iration so it doesn't rot out so it doesn't stay sapping wet for the two months that you've got it there but the tip still stands you don't always have to use an antherium soil mix for example on just antheriums I have used this on a lot of my plants now some philodendrons some Monera some of my ferns as well they are loving life Calas Calas love this so all I'm saying is and again because of the care that I give them experiment use different soil mixes I know some of us will do this because we're lazy inherently and just go I haven't done any other Soul Mix I'm just going to use this and some of the other things then you discovered just like oh my like this is the good stuff so yeah use different soil mixes for what they're intended basically the next big tip that I've got for you is using something like the humble rooting powder and I'm not specifically talking about the gel here I am talking the gel probably could actually to be fair but the rooting powders which is the ones that most people can find more easily they're relatively cheap and affordable but again not entirely for their intended purpose bear with me with this one it will all make sense now yes you will always get the benefit of a rooting powder if you put it on a fresh cut plant basically so let me see I've got one here that's rooting out in water has it rooted out no it's done something but say for instance this cheia Pence which I do need to try just putting it straight into soil I think everybody else has kind of said anything but just water with these things will do better but say I didn't have any of these Arrow roots and I just made the cut there on this plant and I just had a fresh cutting and everybody's always like you know what you need to let that end bit callous over I'm always a proponent of just letting it sit in the air for like a few hours maybe a day maybe 24 hours there trust me there's enough moisture in the stem and in the leaves to sustain the plant whilst it just callouses over however I also know that people are in a hurry and there's a lot of people that have been doing certain things when it comes to being more kind of atome ways of callousing over that cut a lot faster and essentially what you're trying to do is make sure that no moisture goes in so that you don't get any kind of pathogens or anything like that going in through the cut or even even encouraging kind of rot really and people have used cinnamon people have used I think dietas the Earth some people have used honey um I think I've seen some people also use charcoal all of these things and I know there's a lot of people that get pressed about these kind of methods and techniques and they're just we'll call these things but I'm just like if it's worked for you don't listen to the rest of us if it has always worked for you don't listen to the rest of us it's as simple as that basically at the end of the day if it works for you if it ain't broke don't fix it but if you want to maybe attempt something else a lot of the rooting powder yes it will have small amounts it's not huge amounts trust me because if you do try to find very concentrated versions of rooting powders and kind of growth hormones for plants you can and if you do a bit of Google research you can find what they are they Ed a lot of the times for tissue culturing house plants because that's the hormones that's needed this usually most of the rooting powders have got some variation of rooting hormones but not necessarily in huge volumes but a lot of the rooting powders one of their predominant thing that they're there for basically cuz keep in mind this a lot of times rooting powders are not necessarily meant exclusively for house plants they are meant for the garden now think about the garden you're going to take a cutting from a plant and you want to shove it into some soil because you basically want it to root out you are not most average gardeners they not going to sit there and go I'm going to let this callus over for like a couple of days and see how it goes and I'm going to baby this plant they don't they just they want to take the cutting they want to shove it into the soil straight away so part of what the rooting powders have had to do over the years other than the fact that they've got rooting hormone in them they have got as far as I understand some either antiviral antibacterial kind of properties which would basically at least seal that cut it won't be like it's just been calloused over especially if you're going to put it straight into something that's wet but it will help to inhibit a lot of things from growing it doesn't stop the entirely and it's not a foolproof guarantee but if you are in a hurry and you've just taken a cutting and you just want to put it into something to root out yes the the the point of a rooting hormone is to kind of promote those roots but say for instance you've got your aerial Roots which is where you think the plant is going to root from but it's higher than when you've made the cut this is still a relatively viable option to use and again this has worked in my experience if you've had different experiences that is fine but this is this is kind of essentially what has worked for me and I still use it quite frequently and it does a really good job and obviously I'm still adding rooting hormon so double whammy here now the next thing is about artificial lighting and I've got a packet here which I haven't used yet but I will show you and hopefully it will make a bit of sense if I hide my S there so essentially this is a spool of LED lighting strips and a lot of the times you'll get this for under the kitchen counter and all these things this is stuff that you'll get in DIY stores a lot of the time I tend to get mine from Amazon just because it's easier and I can get the longer kind of stretches of this that I need but a lot of the times if you don't want to or you've got really kind of awkward places or you've got shorter shelves this is predominantly when you've got short shelves basically so something like this might be a bit too call but say for instance I've got a shelf that's maybe I'm trying to see some of my shortest shelves that I've got this on so maybe about 30 cm 35 40 about there basically and I'll hopefully put the translation for the people that don't do metric basically that kind of distance could work quite well because you need to remember if a shelf is this big you're probably going to have a pot so the plant is going to be even closer to that lighting Source now the issue that a lot of people would have with something like LED strips is it just like oh it's not bright enough however the thing that I would say with some of these strips is go for the brightest one that you can buy and a lot of the times they'll have lumens or they'll have anything like that that you can buy it's interesting because I used to buy the cold colored ones so the ones the white that leans towards blue I'm not these are not grow light so they don't you don't get that purple light basically these are just regular kind of white LED strips basically I would always go for the colder light and I think I saw a couple of The Growers and sellers here in the UK that not necessarily talking about LED lights but they were talking about kind of just using regular light like light bulbs for growing their plants and they've had great success and they were actually saying that the warm light light bulbs tend to do better than the cool light light bulbs so I haven't tried this is unfortunately I'd already bought this before I kind of realized that but I will be testing that out and seeing if there's a difference but even with the cool light one I've had some good success now the other thing that I would say if you're going to be buying something like that you can get them a lot of the time where you'll get something like this attached or within the same packaging as the actual grow lights and what this is is a dimmer now the reason why this is quite a good thing is when your plants say you've got that shelf that I was talking about and your plants are getting really really close to the top and where you've put the LED strip to get some extra supplemental lighting there they're getting quite close and it might be a bit too much light for them this is especially true if all of your plants are kind of growing roughly at the same rate so they're all about the same height basically you can turn down the dimmer it's as simple as that rather than having to move things around because the issue that you will potentially get with this is when you attach it it's attached basically a lot of the times these come with like tape on the back of them so you can just stick them there and in my humblest of opinions this might be a bit more faff to set up when you've got shelves but this in my humble opinion looks a lot better in most spaces rather than just having a random light bulb even what it doesn't matter what you put onto them grow lights are not sexy this isn't particularly sexy but this is at least in my eyes slightly less offensive basically and it it's worked like a charm it's the thing that I've been using for years and it's worked really well do I have proper grow lights as well yes do I see a bit of a difference yes the proper grow lights I might get slightly faster growth rate but this still does me so proud because some of these kind of LED strips I have got in my darkest of shelves again smaller shelves I'm talking about works like a charm otherwise I wouldn't still be using it nearly four years later basically does really really well especially and I will give you this as a free little tip if you've got antherium seedlings because antherium seedlings they need light you need to have it on for x amount of time I'm not going to go into that kind of detail but they don't need too much bright light and unless you've paid a lot of money for a very expensive grow light that has got a dimmer on it this will do you proud because this even at the brightest level even with the dimmer even in a very long length is still a lot of the times at least at least here in the UK a heck of a lot cheaper than buying a very standard basic grow light bulb and you've got a bulb then you need to get a fixing for it it adds up relatively quickly for me this is this was an no-brainer and it still is an no-brainer and coming into my final little tip that I said which is the one that I kind of saw from Lisa for the first time ever basically and I've kind of adjusted it so this might seem really odd but and I thought you know what I I didn't have anything to lose because these things don't cost that much money so what this is and it mine looks a bit Mankey but I do it did come in a pack of like five or 10 so what this is is a brush I bought this on Amazon I think this is meant to be for like people that do art um and this part of it is just a clear container that you're meant to use colors or dyes or anything like that and then it just kind of twists back on and it twists the wrong way around if that makes sense um and you can use this brush for kind of art projects mine is slightly leaky at the moment but so the way that Lisa was originally using it and I have found that it's worked quite well and I think I did a video about kind of like trying to get leaves unstuck on philad dendrons I am looking at you pink princess but what she would do with this is say there was let me use my finger say there was a catap fill here and it was stuck what she would do and this is why these types of brush brushes that are very very thin are quite good thin and flat she would go in between the leaf and the ceril she would fill this up with just plain water and make sure that this is damp the brush part of it is damp and then she would go in between very gently and see if she can get it unstuck without forcing the leaf out necessarily but seeing if she can get some moisture in there yes I know there's risks with this yes I know that this could encourage other things but actually her little tip worked like a charm I don't know if it's her but I I saw it for the first time from her so I'm giving her credit for this what I have done however with this it's a double whammy and it's the thing that has been working for the people that have been here for a while that know that I've been dealing with mbgs for a very long period of time this has worked a charm this is rubbing alcohol what is in this is not water at the moment it is rubbing alcohol three guesses what I'm using this for really well actually this I'm using so the the kind of the usual advice when it comes to dealing with mie bugs is you use rubbing alcohol and you get a little Q-tip and you sit there and you just basically try to pick every single one of these up I know it's a thing that you don't necessarily have to buy but actually when you've got quite a few Mei bugs this is this is really useful basically because I'd be just wasting too many Q-tips and this is slightly more sustainable I mean it's plastic still but but this has worked a charm and I the the Big Brush as well has worked really well I still need to spray I find rather than just relying on the alcohol from here I still need to spray but then when I've sprayed it's a lot easier for me to go up over the entire leaf and just and it picks up and you will get and this is why there's so much discoloration on this brush and it used to be like brilliantly white has a whole bunch of dead M bugs in there and yes I will kind of then after I've kind of dealt with all the M bugs go into maybe something like water and kind of brush it out and make sure and I know there's going to be some people saying you know what there's probably some mbug eggs or lava that's stuck in there yeah but guess what that got rubbing alcohol in it good luck to them is all I'm going to say basically because this is something that stays relatively permanently wet game Cher absolute Game Changer and it's the randomst of things that you wouldn't normally be doing and yes it still requires you to sit there and like paint on the leaves and see if you can get the me bugs off but like a charm absolutely like a charm whether or not you could use this in a similar way with some of the other kind of solutions that we might all use possibly I don't know if this would do quite well with like oily Solutions so anything with NE oil I don't know whether or not this would work and you wouldn't necessarily want to be brushing on something like NE oil with this small the take a while basically but absolutely I mean amazing and it has worked like a charm for me do I still use it occasionally to pull out leaves stuck leaves yes and actually I'm leaving the alcohol in there as well because at the end of the day with the alcohol instead of water it still manages to get it unstuck you need to be very very very very gentle um and there's no water then left because the alcohol will evaporate but it's enough usually to get that leaf unstuck from the sheath as well but yes as I said cannot take claim for this as the leaf thing because it was a Lisa idea I can't even take a claim because it's still a Lisa idea that I've just slightly edited um but for mbgs works like a charm okay and that is all of my tips for this video I know probably some of you might want me to do more of these videos and I will I promise when I have enough of these kind of weird and cookie tips to show you these are the predominant ones that I'm using quite a lot these days but as I said as I come up with some new weird and unusual things I will share with you I try not to gatekeep as much as possible basically but as I said in the very beginning let us all know your weird and unusual things do not be sh sh do not be shy to share the weird and wonderful things that make you you and they make your plant caring your plant caring basically also I will say this for anybody there that wants to be mean no judging anybody if it works for them it works for them I get it I get it we all think we are experts none of us are experts we are only experts with our own plants in our own collection do not claim this on other people basically but yes hopefully you've enjoyed hopefully I shall see you here soon and I truly truly hope that you have a great rest of your day thanks bye

Channel: Houseplantygoodness

Views: 3,085

Keywords: houseplants, indoor plants, rare plants, uncommon plants, plants, tropical plants, houseplant care, house plants, beginner houseplants, houseplant hacks, overwatering solution, plant propagation tips, affordable grow lights, DIY grow light setup, plant care secrets, rare tropical plants, houseplant enthusiasts, indoor gardening, plant care routine, plant tips and tricks, plant care advice, plant care video, houseplant growth, optimal plant care, easy plant hacks

Id: 0WbtZabMNwQ

Length: 28min 52sec (1732 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 20 2024