While we may be bundled up inside, that doesn’t mean we can’t still surround ourselves with greenery and plant life! We just need to know how to properly care for them and we can continue to enjoy the beauty and benefits of the natural world – inside the safety and warmth of our homes!
Plants bring a sense of calm and peace, no matter where they are, something we could all benefit from at the start of the new year! Plants are not tidy, the gardeners have soil in their fingernails, splinters in their thumbs. With curious perplexity, the non-human world, despite our best efforts to tame it, will entice, enamor, and challenge our concepts in return. Plants maintain their mystery, and by extension, ours, keeping alive a curiosity around the sensorial realm. They train the hands of those who tend them to turn to the world of texture, pattern, and surrounding. Our companions in the practice of slowness and attention.
Quick Tips for Indoor Plant Care
Hydration Hack: Adding a drop of soap or detergent helps high light plants drink by breaking up the surface tension of water.
Nutrient Nudge: Be mindful of your cities fluoride or boron levels in tap water, it can cause yellowing in plants.
Fern Watering Tip: Avoid water pooling in the center of ferns new growth emerges from here which will drown and rot.
Moss Magic: Moss is now associated with indoor terrariums and top dressing, but during WW2 it was used as a natural wound antiseptic due to its antibacterial properties.
Kitchen Remedies for Bugs and “Ughs”
Gnat Busters: Spraying hydrogen peroxide onto the soil, with a 1:4 ratio to water can help eliminate fungus gnats by targeting larvae in the soil, slowing their reproduction rates. Bonus: it aerates the soil by breaking down into water and oxygen, similar to its use in swimmers’ ear!
Ideally to be used in alteration with:
- Diatomaceous Earth: Sprinkle a thin layer on the soil surface to naturally deter gnats; it’s made from fossilized algae, wear a mask!
- Beneficial Nematodes: Tiny, soil-dwelling allies that eat gnat larvae, easy to water in and completely organic.
- Mealybug Defense: Spray twice with alcohol, wiping each leaf in between.
