My Top 10 Tips for Plant Parents

hey everybody and welcome back to our youtube channel today i would like to talk to you about my top 10 tips for planned parents so let's get started they're not in any chronological order i'll just keep talking about them as they pop into my head so number one when you get a new plant don't worry about the leaves worry about the root system especially when you get a plant shipped or posted to you the plant is going to suffer a little bit from that transit it's going to suffer just purely by being given a different environment most likely the plant is going to put energy into building a root system because that's really what's going to enable the plant to grow further and in favor of the root system the plant might abort a couple of leaves so if you get a brand new plant it's totally normal for that leaf to start yellowing if you're propagating it's totally normal for that leaf that you use to propagate to eventually die off the plant is really just taking the energy out of that leaf sucking it back in and putting it putting all its efforts into the root system that's a good thing leaves come and going right that's what the plant does that's the plant's job grow new leaves as long as you keep the root system and the stem or the rhizome of the plant healthy new leaves will come brittles good boy which leads me to number two use see-through pots where possible now knowing that the root system is the most important thing to look after we want to have a look at the root system so i love using see-through pots because i can spy on the roots but also i can assess the moisture level of my medium just by looking at it i don't have to stick my finger in it now we're pretty lucky in australia these see-through pots are available at bunnings or at moist bunnings right across the country at least and they come in three different sizes 10 13 and a half and 20 centimeters and i use all three sizes and those are the only three i really use i have a few really large plants and they're in a 25 centimeter pot and they don't come in see-through but where possible i try and fit all my plants in one of these three sizes honestly when it comes to pot size don't get too caught up about a centimeter here or there or should it be 14 centimeters or 16 or 18 you know it's it's probably not going to make a huge difference if you have a medium that is well draining and aerated but i noticed that those three sizes work quite well for me now i do apologize if you're not in australia i can't really help you with whereabouts you could get these see-through pots from if you live in a country that's not australia and you were able to get your hands on some c3 pods please share down below with all the other viewers i don't know what's available in all countries and whereabouts you can purchase certain things so just have a look at um just just check locally now let me just have a look at what i mean by spying on the roots and spying on the soil all right so over here we've got my ala kaija regal shields and if you have a look at da you can see how happy the root system is it's probably borderline root bound it could probably do for a repot eventually but i know when i need to repot i know when i need to water i know if my plant is happy just purely based on being able to spy on the root system without having to dig it up whenever somebody asks me hey my plant seems to suffer can you let me know what's wrong with it my first advice is always check on the root system if the root system is healthy then you don't really have to worry about it if the root system isn't healthy then that's probably what's causing the issues with your plants but how are you gonna check on the root system if you potted it up in a container that is not see-through you would eventually essentially have to dig it up check on the root system and then it's probably going to suffer just purely based on you digging it up so you might check and you find the root system is healthy but maybe not anymore after you put it back in so to me these see-through pots really changed my approach to watering my watering routine everything has changed because i can now pretty accurately assess the moisture level of the entire pot not just the top centimeter or sorry just by looking at it another bonus is when i put up a moss pole or especially when i do a chop and extend because of the see-through pods i can actually check if the roots within the pole are expanding into the pot and i can tell that the chopping extent was successful because the plant is slowly building a new root system within the pot i enjoy looking at the roots as much as i enjoy looking at the foliage so if you can get your hands on see-through pots it's such a game changer number three use vertical space if you're anything like me and you have way more plants that you would like to grow than space you have available it might be a good idea to consider your vertical space so most of my plants grow on these moss piles and the actual shelf space or the footprint in itself is just that 20 centimeter pot but i can make a huge impact with these statement pieces because i'm using the vertical space and i'm giving them that moss pole so i'm kind of expanding the pot volume vertically rather than just using bigger pots so i can fit way more plants in my quite limited space and they really make an impact on the space visually as well so if you like climbers i highly recommend you utilize that vertical space to make the best out of the limited space that we have available so using that vertical spice is such a spice efficient way of growing your plants in an indoor setting number four and probably the most important one trial and error now of course you can do research on the internet i hope videos like these give you a little bit more insight and that's kind of your research as well but whatever people say on the internet including me just take it with a grain of salt i'm just speaking from my own experiences and my own experiences are based on the environment that i live in now unless you live in the same environment my experiences might not be a hundred percent applicable to you if you have different conditions your care approach is also going to be different so there's no point in me telling you water this plant once a week that watering frequency depends on the conditions the plant is in how large the plant is how big the pot is what medium you're using and so on so whenever you hear very very specific tips or very specific guidelines just be mindful that they might not apply to you at a hundred percent always take them as a principle or like a you know like a guiding principle and then apply it to your own environment and apply it to your own journey i've been growing plants for three years now the first year i wasn't majorly successful right i did a lot of things wrong in the first year and i learned from it and all of these lessons learned i'm now incorporating into my plan journey and i'm incorporating into these videos that i make for you but again these are just my experiences that i've made over the last three years if you live somewhere different if you've got different plants your experiences will be different meaning that your lessons learned are different meaning that your guidelines or your care tips might also be different but we're all achieving the same result take whatever you hear on the internet with a grain of salt don't just copy and paste somebody's plant routine because you like the look of their plants on instagram always take the guiding principles and then apply them to your own plant journey your own plants in your environment trial and error is the way to go number five conditions versus care when that clicked in my head it really changed the way that i'm approaching my plant journey so i like to differentiate between conditions such as light humidity temperature airflow and care which is potting medium size of the pot watering watering frequency what sort of fertilizer you use and so on the conditions are really based on the plant's dna that's not up to you to decide what conditions the plant likes it's really based on the native environment this plant comes from so there's not much you can do you should really be trying to meet its native conditions as closely as possible when it comes to care however there isn't one approach fits all and your care is also heavily reliant on the conditions that your plants are in so for example you know there's people that grow beautiful specimen in hydroculture i use an organic medium instead there's not one that beats the other there's not one that's superior over the other it just really depends on what works for you and the way you want to grow your plants and you can have amazing results with both care approaches the conditions for these plants however would be the same right they would still enjoy the same amount of light humidity temperature and so on you just might use a different growing medium so when it comes to looking after your plants make a differentiation between conditions and things that you can't really control you just need to align yourself to the plant's natural environment or grow plants that are native to the environment that you live in but when it comes to care there is no black and white there is no 10 step guide to grow a plant perfectly right when it comes to care you have a bit more flexibility and you can really try things out that's where the trial and error comes in number six be creative through trial and error you realize that some things just don't work or you might encounter a few issues and you might not find a solution on the internet for example in my ikea cabinet i'm using a very strong brow light because i wanted to reach all the way to the base of that ikea cabinet if you want to learn more about the cabinet in itself i do have a cabinet tour which i'll link at the end screen anyway so i've got a really long so i've got a really strong grow light in my cabinet which means that the plants at the bottom of the cabinet are really happy but the ones at the top are you know getting by too much light so i need to do i needed to find a creative solution to throw a bit of shade onto the top plants while making sure that the plants at the bottom still get sufficient light and i just built a little shade cover from shea cloth and a coat hanger that's it i just saw the problem and i found some sort of creative solution before i built that one i had one made from paper and wire and it also worked it just didn't look that nice right but there's so many ways of you being able to solve that problem whatever solution i found might not work for you or you might not like it or i might have used materials that aren't available where you are so don't get too caught up about trying to replicate something somebody else has done to a t just be creative focus on the problem in itself and try and find a solution that works for you your plants and your environment number seven embrace the chop don't be afraid to cut your plants if your plant is healthy at the time of cutting your plant is essentially going to multiply imagine you have a plant and it has four nodes you cut them all into single node cuttings you propagate them you let them all grow they grow four leaves each you cut them all again suddenly you have 16. this is exponential growth if you'd continue to do that if you'd had the space for that now of course that's probably a bit excessive but overall it's really easy to multiply multiply your plants if you're not afraid to chop them and with multiple plants comes the opportunity to sell them or swap them so you can expand your collection without having to just purchase plants when i started my plant journey i went pretty slow like a couple of plants at a time but i made sure that whenever i get a plant i actually propagate it and then i'll try and swap it or sell it so i can you know expand my collection without just having to empty my bank account it's also a great way for you to just create lush plants i i usually try and have multiple plants on a pole or multiple plants in a pot i don't like just having one empty little vine growing up a pole or just trailing down the side of my fridge like that to me is not aesthetically pleasing so i chop my plants pretty early on so i have as many plants as possible to then start racing up also when you chop a plant um and i'll insert a photo what i did with my milano so usually i do the chop and extend and i chop the full pole but what i tried over here is i just chopped the top cutting off the top is usually where the plant sends all of the growth hormones right so now that i chop the top off the plant doesn't really know where to go with all of these growth hormones it has a large established base and it has a lot of leaves so it's able to produce a lot of energy by where to go with all of that energy so i had two binds on that pole initially i cut both of them and then each line had two new shoots meaning i then had four plants i then did a chop and extend and all four vines then had again two shoots so i ended up with eight vines on that pole and so on now of course it's not a guarantee that every time you chop your plant is going to be shoot in multiple spots but it's quite likely if your plant has a large root system and a lot of leaves available so it has all of that energy and it needs to redirect its growth somewhere so chopping plants isn't just a way for you to expand your collection overall it's also a way for you to just make each specimen in your collection look really nice and lush so don't be afraid to chop your plants but make sure that your plant is healthy at the time of chopping it and you won't really have to worry about it which leads me to the next point start with your basics if you're not feeling confident with your propagations then maybe don't start with one of the most finicky or most expensive plants in your collection you know i started with plants like monsteras and zinconiums and potholes they're quite easy they like the environment they're growing on the streets right if i walk around the streets over here like i see monster delicious are growing in the wild everywhere so i know they're gonna have an easy time adjusting to at least my condition so i can work on my propagation care methods a little bit more you know and only once i felt comfortable with the basics that's when i started you know doing like chopping extends and chopping my very closeum into 17 pieces and so on because i knew that my methods will work and i don't have to worry keep in mind this is supposed to be fun like if you're worried about chopping your plant and you're afraid that it might die then don't do it i'm of course like make sure that whatever you do it still makes is fun for you it's supposed to be a hobby but maybe just give it a try a couple of times and over time with experience you will gain the confidence and then you just you know i never look back i now just chop my plants almost too much i enjoy the chopping in itself anyway i'm definitely waffling on you can tell how how passionate i am about propagation um now when it comes to propagation i usually just propagate in water apart from the plants on my moss pile because they're already air layered so that's it i really like like i don't do anything fancy i don't use any hormones i don't use any you know disinfecting things i just cut my plants i pop them in water put them in the bright spot and i let them re-shoot number nine have a long-term focus what i mean by that is consider what you want your plant to look like in a year's time i start all of my moss pulse with small plants or small cuttings now at the beginning that looks a little bit odd you have like this tiny little leaf on a huge moss pole it definitely doesn't look the nicest but annoy that this plant is gonna attach to the pole and it's gonna raise up that pole in no time so i'm having a long term vision over here i want this plant to look nice in a year's time what's the point in taking an already established plant and popping it on a moss pole and the top of the plant is already reaching the top of the moss pole where is it gonna go it doesn't make any sense to me so if you want to grow plants to maturity and you want to grow them large like the ones behind me highly highly recommend that you start them with small plants and you just have that long-term vision it might be a little bit annoying in the short run but trust me it's worth it in the long run number 10 use local materials and plants where possible now of course you can use whatever you want you can grow whatever you want who am i to tell you but have realistic expectations call me old-fashioned but i like to go to the shops and i buy all of my stuff just in shops apart from the cocoa chips in perlite which i actually get delivered by a local hydroponics store here in sydney but they only deliver in sydney so unless you're in in sydney itself i don't really know where to help you or how to help you with sourcing certain materials like these see-through pots i just go to bunnings and they're there i just buy them i i don't i don't go through a whole lot of effort in trying to source materials that i found on the internet it's rather the opposite i look at the shops that are locally over here and i look at what materials do you have available and i get voice materials and i incorporate them into my plan journey or i experiment with them a little bit i'm sorry don't get too caught up by trying to source a very specific ingredient and having to import it for example i'm sure there's ingredients local to you they might just be called differently but they might have very similar functionality so for example if you can't find pumice you might find lava rock pumice is lava rock and so on right so you don't need to source exactly what you saw on the internet just try and find things that are local to you or if you can't find anything locally try and reach out to local plant parents and understand what they're using same goes for plants now of course you can grow any plant you want i just want you to be realistic that if you import a plant from a tropical climate that's not really supposed to live in your environment you need to put a bit of effort into supplementing your conditions to work for that plant that's totally not impossible you just need to be realistic with the work the amount of work that you need to put in of course none of these plants behind me is native to australia but these plants thrive in australia they thrive in our native environment over here as i said like you can walk on the streets and there's monstera deliciosa growing outside of the house it's like monstera delicious is literally growing up like the the tree outside so annoy that the conditions that we've got over here naturally are gonna be suitable for these plants so i don't struggle having to grow them i i don't i don't need to put a whole lot of effort into the conditions part i can just focus on the care because the conditions are pretty much taken care of naturally so if you're in an environment that isn't quite as fortunate when it comes to growing tropical plants maybe tropical plants aren't the best choice for you if you want to keep it low maintenance but if you're willing to put the effort in it good on you you know there's definitely lots of ways that you can supplement your conditions to make it work but maybe don't start there if you're a brand new planned parent maybe you wanna you know start with your basics first anyway you can see these top tips are kind of starting to move into each other always keep in mind plants you know they're supposed to be fun it's not brain surgery so don't get too caught up about exactly what you hear on the internet it could be absolute rubbish and i'm not saying that's because people are purposely putting out wrong information it's just because people speak from their own experiences and their own experiences might be of no value to you so take everything with a grain of salt make sure you enjoy this make sure you enjoy this hobby if it's starting to become a chore for you if you feel anxious if you're afraid of chopping your plants and so on i don't know is this still a hobby are you still enjoying it and if you're not then maybe just reconsider your approach to planned parenthood about of course you do you i do me and i'm just here to share my experiences with you in case this adds value to anybody else's plan journey anyway i actually need to head to the airport i'm flying overseas that's why you can see these weird dots on some of my plants i'm gonna have a plants that are looking after my plants and of course looking after my baby bread so i kindly indicated what plant they should be watering for me anyway i better get going please like and subscribe and i'll see you next time take care

Channel: Sydney Plant Guy

Views: 18,729

Keywords: houseplants, indoorplants, urbanjungle, mosspoles, gardening

Id: BEw2bJ64MmQ

Length: 19min 52sec (1192 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 20 2022