What NOT to do to with Your New Houseplants: 8 Common Mistakes!

[Music] hi guys welcome back this is Amanda from Planet Arena and you know what I'm gonna talk about today or yeah today I'm gonna talk about like what you should not do when you get a new plant when you bring home a new indoor plant things that you should stay away from because there's a couple not too many but there's a couple of things that you should keep in mind and the first thing I'm gonna discuss is that is the like the urge to repot a plant when you first get it you think like oh my gosh I got this great plant this is a Hawaii linearis which we had on the site which will have back on the site pretty soon but the first urge you might have is to get this into like a terracotta pot or into a different pot and you know I don't blame you because I've done that before I actually have repotted quite a few Hoyas into terracotta and I stopped doing that I stopped doing that because I found that when I stopped a repotting especially Hoyas they did better and I'm gonna explain to you a couple of reasons why I just move this out of the way so Hoya is in general like their roots take a long time to establish I'm talking like years and these have been growing for almost a year but still their roots just I'm gonna show you I'm just gonna show you because it's easier to show you it takes I took this out of the pot a couple of times to show somebody I think but it's rooted it's just they're very really shallow roots and you want this to actually become routier not root bound because it takes a long time for these guys to get root bound but you really want these to fill out and the mistake you'll make if you repot plants like this too early is that you can potentially damage the roots they're very tender roots and you know and then the soil falls off and you say like what did I just do and then the foliage suffers so if you start destroying the roots of plants that are just kind of started to grow if they're coming from a greenhouse or a grower it's going to affect the way the foliage grows cuz a lot of the energy is gonna be taken up and fixing what damage in a town there so just consider how long the plant has been growing for if you buy a plant that's been in a nursery or a shop for a long time and you know like you know it's root bound I'm going to show you something here then you absolutely can because root bound plants will stunt the growth sometimes that's a good thing if you don't want your mom stairs to get giant let it be rebound and you can even root prune it over time but for new plants just let them be put them in a cover pot because cover pots do the job you can't even tell it's in a nursery pot so don't actually yes don't know resist the urge to repot immediately I had even wait like six months I'll be a year it depends on the plant you have and for me Hoyas they're staying in the grow pots okay so that's number one another thing you might want to do or you might not consider this when you bring a new plant home let me take let me take me take this oxalis just because it's so pretty and it's come back you might think like I'm just gonna put this right in the brightest spot that I have I might even stick it outside in the porch or in the my front steps and let the Sun cuz plants love Sun and they do plants need sunlight to live but a lot of these plants were grown under a shade cloth and they're grown for the purpose of living inside your house and if you take a plant like this oxalis or you might take this peperomia cluesive folia this red edge and put it right in the Sun and what's gonna happen or what could happen is that it's going to start burning out the foliage is going to start saying wait a minute I'm not used to that and it takes acclamation it takes time for you for your plants to live in a different light lit environment so if you have a super bright spot where you're getting a lot of direct sunlight you want to take steps so move the plant closer to more direct light and put it outside in the shade a few weeks and then start putting it in the direct Sun and you'll notice right away if the plants vegetation starts turning brown move it back get it out of there so just think about the requirements of your plants before you just place it wherever you want to place it another thing here's another thing if you get a plant if you bring up plants home if you bring a plant home or you get a plant in the mail or wherever you get your plants from don't water it right away unless it's dry because oftentimes in I'd even say in big-box stores like there's people taking care at the plant sit there but sometimes they just it's not their job they don't really they weren't trained or they were trained or they were a slightly trained and they're just gonna go and water the plants because it's a watering day or it's that time of day they water and you'll potentially have problems before you bring some of those plants home so I always say take the plant out of the pot and look at the roots if you can right before you bring it home so yeah this looks dry but this is a terrible example but if this was wet there's no way I'm gonna water it I'm just gonna let it dry out to the point where the leaves start drooping a little bit and then I'm gonna water it again so over watering your new plants actually can be really really bad because think about it they're probably a little stressed out from travel from multiple travels if you know they've been passed around from a grower to a wholesaler to a real wholesaler to a retail store it depends where you get them from so just feel the soil and lift the plant up and only water it when it needs to be watered ok so just pull back pull back and think about it before you just go crazy with the watering can that's a big killer it really is a big killer so you might also be very very tempted to divide a plant that you just got and this is a single name a quarrel I just picked it up before but this actually is a plant you can divide I'm gonna show you how you'll know so you'll see in this plant here that there's actually there are three plants in one plant so if I really really wanted to I could separate this into three individual plants put them in smaller pots and they'll be fine but when I do that I actually don't want to do it to this one because I really like this and I don't want it I like it full I'll do it with this so here's here's a Sansevieria cylindrical some giant kind uneven know the name of its thick it's a thick one so I'm gonna do this because it kind of loosened up a little bit when I got it but here's a situation where you pull it out of the pot and this was probably this is not ready this was not ready to be sold this was given to me as a possibility of something we might put on planet Reena calm so I'm still thinking about it but you see each one of these has its own root system very individual root systems and I'm not doing any damage to the roots by pulling this sucker away from the whole massive plants here so I mean this is a little bit entangled so if you do want to separate your plants gently pull away and free the roots until you know you have enough of a root system that will support the growth of this of this plant all right so now I have five individual Sansevieria cylindrical here the kind of like horns so that's what you do and you can do it with fiddly fig you can do it with ficus elastica you can do with any plant that you just got right that is that the roots are are not already entwined but check it out look at it if you look like you think you might damage the whole root system just put it back in the pot put it back in the pot and enjoy a nice full plant so don't feel tempted to do it right away unless you really kind of know what you're doing and you know the root system can handle it but I would not recommend dividing like a clay Thea right off the bat because first of all this is kind of dangerous to do you see it's one solid kind of base here right this whole base here is just one pretty much a lot of little stems coming out and you can do it but I would wait at least six months to a year if you got a new planet and what I'm seeing a new plant I'm a plant that has just come out of a greenhouse that is still really establishing insert system it's going to take quite a while for it to establish its root systems so Polly Thea and even plants like skinned APS's picked up they near me we do I do they have a hard time being transplanted so be super careful if you get a plane because this is a nice full plan right it's a nice full four inch plant think well I want to you can do it but be prepared for some decline because I noticed especially with these guys if I divide them they kind of go limp they go limp for a while so think about it think about it before you do it and just maybe resist the urge for a little bit until you know that you know it's gonna be able to handle it and also maybe wait till spring so you give him a fighting chance and I don't know I just feel like it's not that necessary especially for a plant this size I was just all over the place but I hope you understand what I said here's another situation so you bring a new plant home your love you're in love with it you're in love with it so you've got this cool little peperomia and you're thinking like I'm just gonna put you right in I'm gonna put you right in to my plant collection and you do and then you say wait a minute what is that oh no you got mealy bugs you got Athens and especially with aphids are kind of hard to see when you're at the plant shop or you know wherever so keep them isolated keep them isolated at least for a couple of days check them out check the soil look under the leaves look inside the pot just like you know what's going on with you guys and once you've established that your plant is kind of safe and pest free and disease-free move it back or put it in with your with your plant family let it live there I think currently you know not currently but in general you just want can give it a little bit of a isolation period and if you're concerned at all like if you think I don't know is that something is that not something you could spray it with like a horticultural oil or a neem oil I like to spray horticultural oil and then wait a few days and then spray a neem oil then wait a few days so I can kind of rotate and alternate how I treat my plants but that's a preventative treatment and I'd like to do that because it helps it's like a prophylactic for plants yeah just think about doing that anyway so isolate them three or four or five days and then move them in with their friends Oh eventually just give it give it a little time okay you never know what you're introducing most greenhouses take a lot of pride in really keeping their plants clean and reputable greenhouses you're really not gonna have problems although sometimes it happens it just happens to part of nature and also there's a lot of people selling plants online that aren't license that don't have the phyto sanitation certificate so gotta be careful where you're getting your plants from so dig a little do a little deeper and ask some questions too because um you don't know what you're getting sometimes and you don't know what it's coming in with sometimes okay I just wanted to say that let's talk about leaf shine don't use it don't use leaf shine it's just a waxy buildup that gets in the pores and the stomata of the leaves and it these are shiny enough do ya I do you want it to look like a fake plant uh-huh maybe I don't I like looking at nature but nature just does on itself the new leaves are shiny anyway and then guess what you can clean the leaves take some warm like lukewarm room-temperature water put a little organic dish soap in it you could even put a little neem oil like heavily diluted neem oil just wash the leaves that's all you need to do just try not to use the leaf shine sorry leaf shine people but that's just my take on it so you might have a plant that you think I'm not doing as great as I would like it to maybe it's a little droopy this isn't droopy it's just the way this plant is you think well you know it just needs something and so you rush to fertilize it don't rush to fertilize your plants because again you have to think where is this plan coming was it just fertilized is there still a slow-release fertilizer in their soil how long has it been there there's a lot of questions I can't even answer for you because I don't know I don't know the answers but if you're buying it from a greenhouse directly from a greenhouse you'll probably you should assume that it has been fertilized and probably wait at least a month or two so it's a it's a tricky question but if all I really wanted to say is that it's not I got panacea to fix your plant by just fertilize fertilizing it you could potentially do more damage than good by over fertilizing it so take it easy with the fertilization when you first get your new plant even wait I'll wait a month or so the other thing about fertile over fertilizing your plans is that it really adds a lot of heavy salts into the soil and that can lead to major decline and death to your plants you really don't want that to happen so again just leaching the soil helps and not over fertilizing helps does that help want to talk about here's here's the deal with some of the mr. deal who says here's the deal when you first bring a plant home you're not always gonna find the right spot you're gonna move it around it's gonna have a different experience in different places and once you find the right spot for that plant the plants gonna tell you it's gonna say you did a great job you know you did a good job you got me where I need to be and so you just guess what keep the plant there that unless you're designing with plans and you're treating plants like cut flowers and you're not really that concerned about losing a planet after three or four months because you're gonna replace it and it doesn't really matter but if you are you know your intention is to keep a plant for a long time and maybe a lifetime of a plant I don't know how long that can be but if you're concerned about that leave that plant in that spot when you find the right spot and I find larger plants like fiddly figs ficus elastica palms like any larger plants like once it's in that prime happy spot you just leave it you rotate it every time you water it so it stays in full but and plus plus they're heavy so for me that the larger plants want to stay away that where they are and where they're doing well and if it's not doing well like say you bought a brand new large plant and just stuck it in a corner and it's not getting enough light you probably want to move it but if for some reason it loves it there goes but just leave it leave it and enjoy it and your plant will tell you they'll absolutely talk to you and say like you got to get me out of here now this place is scary so what are your plants and the final thing I want to say is I don't set yourself up for plant disaster if your intention is to build a plant collection think about the plants you're bringing in your home think about the light that you have think about your ability to take care of plants and this don't over invest in something that you're not prepared for take it slow bring a few plants in experiment with them move them around until you find the right spot don't transplant them right away just like let them be let them be plant beings okay just let them be and you'll know you'll learn a lot from your plants by observation and don't beat yourself up if one or two died because it's it's right it's a journey we're on this plant journey and let's just not beat ourselves up and just try to do things that we think will actually enhance the plant's lives and our lives that's kind of it I think that's it so you guys enjoy Tuesday this Tuesdays are not so bad Tuesdays are weird days because no one talks about Tuesdays I guess because it's kind of the beginning of the week and we're like well it's only Tuesday that's a bummer anyway thank you guys thank you so much for watching thanks for subscribing and if you guys have any ideas for videos I'd like to hear some more and that's really it I just want to say thank you and enjoy bye guys take care

Channel: PLANTERINA

Views: 819,372

Rating: 4.9315386 out of 5

Keywords: plant care, houseplants, house plants, indoor plants, low maintenance houseplants, low maintenance indoor plants, low light houseplants, hoya, calathea, watering indoor plants, how to care for plants, plants, houseplant care, foliage plants, interior plants

Id: z8qRFOZdERc

Length: 17min 21sec (1041 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 18 2020