5 Things Houseplants HATE That Might Surprise You

because they think is making their plant healthier but in fact it's actually damaging the plants if you have a few house plants in your home then you probably understand that house plants don't like certain things like direct sun or to be left without water for weeks well in this video i've got six things that house plants hate that might actually surprise you and could be one of the reasons why your plant might be struggling without you knowing why it might surprise you that house plants are like people and that they like to have a settled home without a settled home our plants become fussy and you start to see things like leaf drop on the plants moving your plant around your home constantly is not providing a stable environment for your plant and they really don't like this have you ever brought home your plant from the shop and then watched it inexplicably drop its leaves and suffer for a few weeks well i have and the reason this happened is because we are moving the plant from a relatively settled spot in the garden center into a new environment in our home garden centers are able to create optimum conditions for houseplants they're consistently warm and humid and when we remove them from this environment into our homes which are generally less humid they get a shock this results in leaf drop in some cases house plants like consistency this is because they generally come from the tropics where they naturally get warm and humid environments year round our homes on the other hand are warm and humid in the spring and summer and warm and dry in the winter when we put the heating on this inconsistency in humidity often results in crispy leaves on plants like califares or leaf drop on ficus plants my advice then is to try and maintain a consistent environment for your plants and this includes not moving them around your house too often it may not be noticeable to you but your house will have different environmental conditions in each area that your sensitive plant will pick up on a south-facing living room will be warmer and more humid than a north-facing bedroom for example so if we regularly move our plant between each space we are not creating a consistent environment and our plant will become fussy so pick a spot and try to leave the plant there to become settled without a strong root system your plant will not grow healthy and strong if the roots are good your plant is good so it's therefore really important that we look after the roots of our plants and ensure they do not become rotten rotting roots is one of the most common reasons beginner plant owners kill their plants and one of the main causes of this is planting your plant into two bigger pots i think we can all appreciate how time consuming and messy are potting all our appliances each year i know this is one of my least favorite plant care routines and one way you may be shortcutting this is to pot your plant up into a much larger pot than it's currently in i've done this myself in the past the detriment of my plant the school of thought may be that if you put your plant up into a much larger pot you won't have to do it again for a few years but be warned this can be seriously detrimental to the roots of your plant if you pot your plant up into a pot that is far bigger than the root ball of the plant then the ratio of soil to roots will be weighted far too much to soil which will lead to excessive moisture problems for the roots of the plant soil retains moisture which means that the root ball of the plant will be sat in a mass of moist soil for too long due to the amount of soil in the pot outweighing the size of the roots and this can eventually lead to rot it's important therefore to only up pot your plant into a pot that is one or two sizes bigger than its existing pot this won't shock the roots of the plant it means the roots can slowly stretch out into the new soil [Music] this next care tip is a common plant hack among indoor plant growers but it's one that your house plants hate because it's not good for the roots of the plant and it's adding gravel or stones to the bottom of the pot your plant lives in this care hack is a bit of an old wives tale and is commonly used to help with water drainage in the soil the importance of good soil drainage is often highlighted amongst experienced indoor plant growers and adding gravel to the bottom of plant pots has long been thought of as a good way to improve drainage gravel or stones is added to the bottom of the nursery pot with potting soil added and the plant planted this means that the plant is satin soil with a layer of stones at the bottom of the pot that acts as a reservoir for water to pull and for the roots to avoid it's full that this prevents the roots sitting in water and becoming rotten this really does not work in practice your plants roots won't stop growing as soon as they hit the gravel they'll continue to grow into the reservoir defeating the point of the hack all we are doing is essentially reducing the amount of soil that the plant can use in the pot which will be unhealthy for the plant your plant needs soil to draw up the moisture and nutrients it needs for growth and depriving the plant of this will mean a less healthy plant than one field with nutrient-rich soil the only thing that will happen here is that the roots of the plant will want to grow into the gravel and water reservoir instead of soil which will lead to unhappy roots instead of adding gravel to your plants pots put your plant in a plastic nursery pot with drainage holes so that excess water can escape from the pot it's as simple as that house plants don't like to be fussed over i mentioned this earlier with my advice not to move your plants around your house too often but something else that house plants don't like is being touched too much particularly succulents succulents such as echeverias have something called farina on their leaves farina is the white powdery coating of wax you've probably noticed on the leaves of succulents like echeverias and it plays an important role in keeping your succulent healthy this powdery coating protects the leaves from excessive water absorption because it's water repellent excessive water for the succulent will lead to mushy leaves and a generally unhappy plant therefore really important we do not touch the leaves of our succulents to avoid this coating from rubbing off if you were to look at the leaves of your echeveria you'll probably notice lots of marks on the coating of the leaves generally keeping this coating completely intact without any marks will be difficult but it is important to try to avoid this as much as possible this is because damage to the farina is irreversible and cannot grow back so we are left with a mark on the leaf smudging or leaving our fingerprints on the leaves will be permanent so the plant will look unsightly until that leaf falls up i do really struggle with this myself as you can see with my echeveria it's something i'm looking to improve going forward plants need light to photosynthesize and store energy for growth without this process your plant will die that's why it's so important for plants to have lots of clean foliage to capture sunlight dirt on the leaves of houseplants is therefore something they hate and it's advisable to keep your plants nice and clean for them to grow properly if your plant has a thick layer of dust on its leaves then this will reduce the amount of light it can access to then photosynthesize and store energy now this is something i struggle with myself because i have a fair few plants in my house to go through and clean and it can be quite time consuming but the old adage a wiper day keeps the deep clean away really pays off here as part of my weekly routine whenever i water my plants i always give the plant to look over to see how they are doing are there any pests or disease to deal with does it look like they're getting enough light are the leaves free of dust and dirt if the plant is starting to build up a layer of dust i'll give it a quick wipe and move on to the next plant this allows me to keep on top of keeping them clean this way of regularly caring for my plants is much easier than deep cleaning all my plants when i finally realized that they're looking very dusty this method can take hours and nobody wants that the next thing houseplants hate is a common thing that lots of people regularly do because they think is making their plant healthier but in fact it's actually damaging the plant it's a house plant care tip that gets banded around constantly on youtube and blog posts even though there is no evidence that it does anything good for your plants and that is to mist your plants misting the leaves of our houseplant stems from the idea that houseplants need high humidity to thrive in our homes califares for example do need high humidity to stop them developing those infamous crispy brown edges on the leaves of the plant so if we can increase the humidity in our homes then we can have happy califors the problem is that increasing the humidity in our homes is very difficult without a dedicated humidifier our homes are generally low in humidity particularly in the winter when we have central heating on and many people believe that misting our plants increases the humidity around them this is really not the case in fact there is no real solution to this without investing in a humidifier that you can set up to the requirements of your house plants i guess it's assumed that the water you have sprayed onto the leaves of the plant will slowly evaporate and provide extra humidity in the air around your plant in the process the problem is that misting your plant only serves to moisten the leaves of the plant which then dries quickly therefore not providing any extra humidity for the plant the amount of evaporation given off from the wet leaves will be so minuscule that no extra humidity is provided doing this will only increase the risk of fungus and rot developing on the leaves because you're leaving water droplets on the leaves to dry there are other hacks out there that apparently increase humidity such as placing your plants on top of trays of pebbles with water or the more outlandish hack of boiling water in your kitchen all day to evaporate water into your house but all of these will not increase humidity for your plants like i say the only thing that will do this for you is a dedicated humidifier that you can place near your more sensitive plants check out this video here where i talk about five beginner houseplant care tips i wish i knew earlier so that you can learn from my past mistakes and have healthy happy houseplants in your home

Channel: Sheffield Made Plants

Views: 208,258

Keywords: how not to kill houseplants, what houseplants don't like, things houseplants hate, how to look after houseplants

Id: OBXT69VmU-o

Length: 10min 18sec (618 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 31 2022