Your Top 20 Indoor Plant Questions Answered!

[Music] welcome back everybody say the same thing every time but welcome back my name is Amanda from plant arena and today I'm going to answer 20 most commonly asked questions on my social media Instagram and some from here about indoor plants and this is most likely a beginner video because you know a lot of you guys know about plants and some of you are just getting into plants and you're not expected to know everything about anything when you first start something you have to research it you have to live with it so I'm gonna make it a little bit easier for you and just try to ask or answer some questions directly that I've gotten from social media let's just get started the first question you probably asking is why am i wearing a scarf inside I'm kind of cold all the time so I'm just gonna wear a scarf and now we're in a jacket we're in a scarf so alright question number one when do I water my plants when do I know it's time to water my plants it's gonna it's a confusing question sometimes because you don't really know until you've had the plant for a while and you've experienced the watering process so it starts with what kind of plant you have you know ferns are going to need more water so you're going to be paying more attention to them but then plants like this dafuq yeah I like this get really dry and the way I can tell when it's time to water it stick my finger all the way in there I lift it up I feel it if the leaves start looking droopy and this is something happened there but that's not probably from watering I think that's physical damage but you'll know your plants will talk to you they're gonna tell you they're gonna look super droopy and then you'll know it's time to water them so a good rule of thumb is just either get a moisture meter stick it inside there or use your fingers or lift it up if it feels really dry it's time to water it second question is how do I what are my plants what do I do do I just put a little bit of water in here do I put a cup of water in do I you know put it under the sink and the answer is in general is to just what are its the water it's thoroughly take a watering can turn the plant make sure you saturate the soil and then you lift it up and you'll see the water coming out of the drainage holes it's time you really want it to get watered all the way through some people bottom water I don't do it but you can also set your pot in a bowl of water or dish of water and let the water absorb through the soil it'll go through the capillaries and it'll rise and wick up to the top so then it will kind of stop once it's completely saturated and it's done so if you want to do that too you can do that but I'm not doing that these days I just go through quickly with a watering can and try to get it done because I have a lot of plants and sometimes I feel a little overwhelmed anyway so that's that so you water it thoroughly and so not just half of the plant the whole base of the plant turn it around get the water in there let it drain and you're done when do I transplant my plants so here's the deal when you first get a plant just look at the roots if they're not a lot of roots you don't have to transplant it just let it be in the nursery container let it sit let it just be this is from an old project that's why it's kind of I had me the yeah I've put hot glue on this and I it got ruined but you look at the roots this you know this is gonna stay in your for quite a long time because I like the roots to get kind of root bound for pretty much all of my plants because I find the plants do better when they're a little more group bound don't ask me why they just do and I feel like it's less time disturbing the roots when you just let them be I'm gonna show you something that is extremely root bound and this needs to be transplanted like as soon as possible where is it oh it's over there hold on okay question my next question I get is what is a root plant what does rootbound mean what does it look like root bound I like the way it looks but sometimes the plants don't really want to be root bound sometimes they do so it's not like an easy question to answer because a lot of the plants will perform really well when they have a hefty amount of roots like this this is a silver Pozos silver satin pothos skins APS's pictus and I took it out of the pot to show on an IG TV how dry it was but then I saw and discovered it was super roof ound so you know what I'm gonna do I am gonna put it in a bigger pot but it's doing so well so that's the thing like you like why do you change something in if it's doing well I don't know so I think I'm gonna do it but I don't really want to get it put it in a bigger pot because I don't like it in this eight inch pot I still haven't decided but this is what rootbound looks like it's just a heck of a lot of roots going all around the pot winding its way around and the danger is over time that you're gonna run out of soil it's gonna push all the soil out and this is gonna be a lot of roots in a pot so you do want to probably bump this up and you can gently break the roots apart pull it away from you know just you can break them a little bit too it doesn't make a difference these plants will respond it'll send out more growth in the roots and it'll you know I'll make your plant grow faster too but this is growing pretty quickly and super healthy so that's that I'm gonna leave it up to you if you see your roots looking like this you are probably going to want to pot it up into a bigger container that's my advice although I don't know what I'm doing with this yet it's gonna happen I'm gonna repot this not now though okay what is low light what is low light what the heck do you mean by low light low light just means that your room is not brightly lit it's still a certain amount of light in your room maybe you have a window maybe you have a few windows and it is basically light that is super filtered but it's still light and I like to look at low light or determine if it's low light by kind of using the shadow method if you put your hand against a wall and you can still see a shadow deep barely that's kind of low light and some plants will do well in that kind of condition but you have to remember that most planets tolerate low light so you should try to give your plants more light than you think you might be giving them so ferns for instance are you know they're they're understory plants they can tolerate dappled light but outside in nature shade is so much brighter than our low light inside so just consider your your situation as opposed to what they're used to and what they were expecting so low light means low light tolerant and give them a little bit more light if you can so I hope that helps but because it's hard to measure it you can get a light meter but they never work for me and I'm always very surprised how tolerant plants are of a pretty dark room okay and you have to experiment with it so if it's not doing well here move it five feet over closer to the window and see how it starts behaving and if it's not doing well there move it a little bit closer and your plants are gonna tell you when they're happy really it's experience and and moving your plants around until they they're telling you they're happy right your plants are going to talk to you they do I mean you have to listen that's kind of what low light is what's medium light well medium light is light okay I have a better idea if we're gonna say it like this medium light is when your plant is getting between like four to six hours of diffused sunlight a day and most of all of the houseplants that you will have or have or will get in the future will love being in medium light you just they're gonna be looking healthy and strong I keep showing you the same plant I should show you other plants they're gonna be healthy and strong and they're just gonna stay looking good this guy this was this is a mondo grass I had in the back porch I really wasn't sure if it was going to do well inside because I never brought it in for the winter but it's been in here for about like three months now two months I don't remember and I keep it here on this back wall I have grow lights above it I have some sunlight coming in from the West so apparently it's enough light if I noticed a major decline in this I would move a closer to the window so it's a good shifting it around because there's really no way for you to tell for me to tell you without seeing your house like where your plants are gonna do well so it's the moving thing you got to move your plants a lot and and just know what their requirements are if you have a highlight plant like like this ficus Loretto they want a lot of light I mean they want a lot of light so let's talk about the next question what's highlight what's direct light there's are two different things let's talk about highlight highlight is probably six to eight hours of diffused diffuse diffuse sunlight a day and I just sprayed this that's why it's wet um yeah so these guys like that and these guys could actually take quite a bit of direct light depending on where you live if you live in an area that you have really hot hot Sun and it's there's nothing obstructing it from your windows you might want to watch it because these could get scorched so you could scorch the leaves but if you have like early morning Sun and it's getting using the SOI the hitting the foliage directly it's gonna be okay and you can acclimate your plans like this is a small enough plant that if it's getting kind of direct right light in the morning and then a little more diffuse in the afternoon it's gonna do well to get this small and it's gonna learn to love it so that's what you do with these guys so that is bright light and direct light is literally when the sun's rays are hitting the plant surface it's like on it touching it it's there's nothing there's no screen there's no there's no curtain between it it's just like you and the Sun the planets on the Sun and some plants like it like certain cactus and even Sansevieria certain plants can can live in that environment and they do but um a lot of us don't have that situation so that's why that question is not asked that much but if you have your plant sitting in front of an east-facing window a north-facing window it's probably not getting direct light but it's getting pretty full bright light you got to figure it out on your own you're on your own after this just move your plants around until they're happy and then leave them there all right what's the next question why are my leaves drooping why are my leaves drooping well they droop I'm sure I have a plant that has droopy leaves here we go okay perfect why are my plants leaves droopy that could be a couple of different things going on here and in this case I haven't watered this I forgot about it so this poor Miranda desperately needs a drink of water and or it could have been it could be the opposite it could be that I overwatered it and it's just like in the least our curling and they start turning brown so if you are at all concerned about what direction you should go in like over watering or under watering I always say go with it under watering so yeah if your plants are droopy it's usually an indication of inadequate watering or it could be that it has not enough light or something a little more serious is going on it could have like a bacteria could have root rod it could have some infestations so you need to get up in that plant and look at it just say like okay this is obvious because I haven't watered it so I'm leaving it right here so I remember I can remember so that's one of the reasons why let your plants are gonna be drooping and there's a lot and it's I just just have to cut you have to like troubleshoot to figure this stuff out start with the soil first start with the roots start with the soil then move on to the foliage and you look for pests you look for any indication that something else is going on okay why are there brown spots on my leaves I definitely have some of those around here let me go I probably don't have to look too far brown spots brown spots why are there brown spots on my leaves well here's the here's the the truth flat out you're not you're never gonna have a perfect plant you did you can't expect to have a person if you want a perfect plant get a fake plant because that's the only way you're gonna have like perfection I'm not telling you to get a fake plant I'm saying you know take it easy and your plants a little bit like let them be imperfect they're not you know they don't have makeup they don't they can't go to the gym like they're relying on us and that's kind of a scary thing so give them a break give your plants a break like this guy use pork Alethea's in general like listen from a distance it looks good it's like a Monet it looks good if you don't get too close yeah you see what I'm saying about that so get a little bit closer and you're like wait a minute she's a really bad plant person like I'm not I'm just a little forgetful so you're gonna get brown leaves and it happens from the same thing with the droopy leaves if you don't get to it fast enough this stuff happens and then it's still fine just guess what you cut it back and then you give it a little food which means fertilizer and if it's in the growing season and then it generally pops back but the phileas will get brown edges if there's not enough humidity this is just my bad this is my fault this one and also you know if the foliage is starting to turn yellow and brown underneath and you get brown spots it's probably cuz it's not getting enough light because this is creating like a little mini canopy so that what was the question I forgot what are their Browns but why are there brown spots on my leaves okay so it could just be from a lack of water a lack of humidity or could be a fungus or a bacteria and if that's the case just remove the leaves quickly and get rid of it get it out of house get it as far away from your plants as possible because you don't want to spread that nasty stuff so anyway so my point is don't freak out just remove it get rid of it and that's kind of all you have to do if it starts spreading you might want to get rid of the whole plant because it's not worth it start again just save your other plants so okay I'm gonna water you too I'm literally making I need to water pile I'll put that I just buttered and I'm ready to do it again alright next question this is a good one why do my plants look sad like why do I just they just look pathetic and they're not doing anything and that's a good question so let me find a sad plant let me find the static plants I know I have to have a sad plant around here okay so this this is a sad plant you're a sad plant and I'm gonna tell you why okay because I I wanted to make this little project which I did I made this little twine II um stake and this guy was hanging it was looking really good and then I decided I was gonna put it up and pull and then I stuck it in a corner so it's getting like pretty bad light and um and I manhandled it too much I think so it's looking sad and the other thing I think the soil is kind of bad and and it probably needs to be fed it's one of the plants that unfortunately I just pulled out now to talk about and I should have pulled you out about a couple months ago and helps you out but this needs to be top dressed potentially with worm castings and probably cut back a little bit you can see the new growth maybe you can't but the new growth on top it's kind of small and dinky its dinky and it's just not happy it's not happy where it is so one of the reasons why your plants might be sad it's in the wrong spot it's in the wrong spot or you're neglecting it or you've over watered it or you didn't water it enough you know there's many many reasons so if you want to have a plant bounce back move it move it a little bit and I'll talk about that in a little bit and just give it a little bit of extra love meaning attention not necessarily water or extra fertilizer because that could also be detrimental to your plant just start trying to have it bounce back especially it's better to do it in the spring because right right now this is probably not gonna grow that much but I just want to kind of keep it keep it alive I'm gonna keep it alive until I can give it a good growing season to bounce back so just notice your set of plants and think about how you you're gonna kind of create away a path to plant success with it sorry sorry you don't know where to put you I'm gonna put you out of the way okay here's another question kind of cut back my plants can I cut them back can I prune them where can I prune them that's a lot of questions you must start with like can I cut them back the answer is yes if you find that one of your plants is taking over an area in your home or just getting too tall and hitting the ceilings yes you can cut it back plant actually respond really well to being pruned so you'll want to know where to prune it you usually want to prune it right above a node or an existing lateral bud so it has a place to grow from you don't want to cut it in the middle of the internode and Suffolk is and it just leaves that area to rot so cut it just right of it and then you'll have new growth pretty much depends on what the plant is I'm not gonna get into that right now but the short answer is yes you can prune back your plants you can prune back your vines you can even cut back like Miranda happen to have one year and it happens okay well this was a hanging basket that I just literally took from the porch and put it in that pot and you can cut this back if you find that it's getting too big I wouldn't cut this back because this just finally starting to grow and fill in and it's really dry it's really dry back to my point everything I have gets pretty really dry and then I water it and that's why they kind of live I think a little less love they're more independent than a lot of people that I know so let's just talk about the fact that we can cut this back and it depends if you want to propagate it you'll want to cut these back pretty close to the base so as close as you can to even grab some roots out but if you're not into propagating you just want to clean it up cut back as close to the base as you can so you don't want to leave a lot of area for bacteria and fungus to develop bacteria to fine and fungus to develop so just a nice clean pruning so yes you can do it vines you know plants that have stalks and stems and bushy types of plants just cut them back don't be afraid I will say though when you're cutting it back um don't cut back more than like a quarter or so or the foliage because you don't want to remove too much of the plants ability to make energy so do it a little bit at a time don't just whack it back all the way I mean you can with like a privet hedge outside but inside it needs its foliage to live so and they're not going dormant so don't remove like more than half of their of their foliage or more than a quarter actually I would take it I'll do it like in baby steps yeah baby steps are good do do your plants need more light in the winter you know I'm getting a lot of questions lately about can you recommend grow lights you know it's winter it's darker I can't recommend grow lights yet because I'm just experimenting with them and quite frankly I don't know if it's working or not I have light that comes in here so to me it's just added support for this dark back wall that I have so in general I think it's happy I think it's working I think it's helping but um yeah if you can you can supplement lower light levels in the winter with grow lights you gotta find the ones that work for you I mean it's an aesthetic thing for me I don't like the purple I don't like the red and the blue I just like the full-spectrum white light because I just have to work in here and I don't wanna I can't I just it'll be like it drives me crazy and they need to be close enough to the plants that it works I mean the closer the better so if you can come up with a beautiful aesthetic way of doing it I would recommend doing it and if you can't you just want to get some lights on it get the lights on it like just make the decision and do it but or is move your plants closer to the windows but far enough away if they're drafty that they don't get cold so again it's finding that sweet spot but yeah they could use a little bit more help in the winter especially the ones that really like a lot of sunlight in direct sunlight oh there's another question here's another question what are these little white things on the top of my soil like what is that and this is you know for pretty beginner beginners because it looks a lot like weird bug eggs or fungus but it's not it's just perlite and the perlite because it's light it's like a volcanic rock it rises up to the top of the soil every time you water it so all of a sudden one day I'll have just like a film of this white egg looking like substance but it's not don't worry about it it is perlite but sometimes it can be a fungus so just if you can pick it up and it feels like a volcanic rock and you squeeze it don't breathe it in but squeeze it and you'll know it's perlite don't worry so much about this little white spot it's when they move is when you have to be freaked out Kenny you don't just deal with it why are my leaves changing color what's going on it's is it fall in here is it autumn no it means that it's either a natural process if you have a nice full plant and like I said before oftentimes the inner leaves and the lower leaves will fall off or or turn yellow and you'll have to remove them that's a natural process but sometimes it's not sometimes you know it could be like this this actually the monster esta página I had take cuttings I took cuttings from it and this guy is not taking so that's okay because all the rest did so I'm just gonna pull this one out but kind of pull it out look it looks that thousand times better so yellowing and leaves changing color is sometimes a natural process but if a lot of the leaves start doing it that's not natural that's not good and it's time to assess this situation and figure out what the heck is going on in there so it's you know it's a yes I know man sir it's okay and then it's not okay I feel like I'm being so vague but there's so many reasons why things go wrong and it's just you can't I can't tell you exactly what it is you're gonna have to do the figuring out but if you know what to look for you know you look in the soil you look at the foliage you feel like the temperature is too low or too warm if you know you've I said the water thing already but you know there's a series of events that could happen that can make that can make this happen but when I'm saying if it's only one leaf it's usually nature doing its thing just shedding stuff it doesn't want anymore why are my peace lilies not blooming what the heck I got them they were beautiful and now not a bloom well I'll tell you why well at least in my case it's not getting enough light and it probably needs to be fertilized because these guys are fertile pretty heavily in the greenhouses and when we get them I don't know why we forget to fertilize I do I'm like you don't need it you're like you can do anything you can live through you know war but basically and this is dry - yeah so they need to be consistently watered and I think consistently fertilized I would even say throughout the a little bit in the winter a little bit a very light light solution of a liquid complete fertilizer to keep those blooms going and a higher high in phosphorus right as it passes phosphorus high in phosphorus because that promotes more blooms you need to be water to add you to the collection Wow I'm telling you I should just do my Tuesday's plant care because and I can just water and talk and then get two things done at once here's a question I get a lot I'm moving I'm moving to a different state I'm moving into a different apartment a different house how do I move with my houseplants and the best thing to do I think it depends on how many you have but if you have a pretty big collection like 50 or 150 you might want to make a separate trip no no I mean I don't know depends on your getting a moving truck pack them in boxes right like shallow box is like a gift in the nursery maybe visit a nursery and ask them if you can have some and then protect them it depends on the time of the year so you want to protect their foliage you could use it with paper I would I would recommend using paper or if you don't have paper and it's warm out just keep them in the box so they don't tip over and don't leave them in the car if it's hot I'm telling you I've done it it's a mistake and don't leave them in the car if it's cold so plan it like maybe get a hotel room that allows plants like dogs but they allow plants and then take the plants in with you if you're doing like a two or three day trip so pre plan it I don't know if there's a company that actually will transport your plants for you but that would be a cool thing for someone to do maybe there's an uber I don't know there's got to be something that does it but just make they don't fall over and make sure they don't they're not exposed to extreme temperatures and and what are them a day or so before you move so you don't have to deal with a watering throughout the process when when do I transplant my cuttings guess what they're finally growing they look fabulous there's a lot of roots everywhere you know let this go a little bit too long but when and the question or the answer is do it when the roots are about like two inches and you have enough root system that you think will support the plant when you transfer it to soil and also when you transfer it to soil keep that soil moist for a couple of weeks until the roots have felt their way through and are feeling a little bit more comfortable in their new home so just two inches is a good number to remember and or you can keep them in water for a long time if you want and that's another question can you keep your cuttings in water for a long time indefinitely and you can but you're going to have to supplement it the water with some sort of soluble talk so much I forget what's a plant food I don't used fish emulsion because I've tried it and it doesn't work it smells it's disgusting don't do it in water but you can use any any type of liquid complete fertilizer and do it like once a month they need nutrients they're not getting any in this water and they're asking for it I can see you're asking for it so you're in the pile of things to do with plants when I'm done with the video okay well back we're gonna talk about this more and I just got into propagating I'm so excited but I don't know how often to change the water on my cuttings that's a question so do it as much as you can don't do what I do don't wait like a month to do it you should do it like you can do it every day if you really feel like you have the time to do that and and the need to do that or you can do it once a week once a week is probably fine they like the replenished oxygen so as much as you can as the answer and that's super cold and water either gets a little shocking you know what it is like when you get into a cold shower it stinks so like lukewarm room temperature that's at room temperature this is the last question for today I think I might do more videos like question videos but the last question is what are the easiest house plans to take care of what are the easiest I'm sending somebody a gift I travel a lot I forget to water like what are the easiest house planets to take care of for me snake plants like number one snake plants number two Zizi plants number three monstera because I don't do anything i water it I water it and I feed it and I sometimes forget to water it and it's like I love you for that so monstera I'm looking around just like yeah just trying to find planets that are easy yeah I mean dumb canes but I would say they're easy but the easiest like steel plants peperomia peperomia is super easy you can just like set it and forget it for a while and come back and what else is like I'm talking like really easy um cactus very easy I just don't love them I don't have the house for them if I had the house room I would have them all over but I just need a little more time with them but yeah so those guys are the easiest houseplants Pozos are easy like that silver satin just look I don't water it if it allows me so anyway that's it so those are my questions that those are the questions that have been asked a lot lately and I thought I would just address them here and I'm sure there's more questions and I will definitely do another video answering the best ability because sometimes I think I confuse you more and myself more than help but I don't know anyway listen you guys have a great week I'll see you guys on Friday we're gonna start doing some videos from the greenhouse pretty soon like showing you updates and what's going on I'm super excited about that so that's gonna happen pretty soon I don't know when but soon and that's it take care thank you so much again for everything I guys oh thanks yeah and we I guess to get out to 200,000 so that was pretty exciting I was like when did that happen but thank you guys for all the congratulations I really do appreciate it and I'll see you guys soon take care bye bye

Channel: PLANTERINA

Views: 349,800

Rating: 4.9354744 out of 5

Keywords: indoor plants, houseplants, house plants, beginner indoor plants, beginner houseplants, top houseplants, best houseplants, easiest houseplants to keep alive, unique houseplants, east care houseplants, houseplants that don't need sun, low light houseplants, low maintenace houseplants, top houseplants for sale, how to water houseplants, how to keep houseplants alive

Id: YmJESeQM3ds

Length: 33min 16sec (1996 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 12 2019