Indoor Plant Care - How to Houseplant Care

Snake Plant - Houseplant As an interior landscape technician , I get a lot of questions from people during the work day. Some want to know why their plant is not doing well. Others ask what the little bugs on their plant are and how to get rid of them. Some people want to know the best way to prune or propagate their houseplants. Another common houseplant question is: What is the best houseplant to get if I have never had an indoor plant before? That is one of the easiest questions to answer as it doesn't require finding out alot of other information. The answer to this question is undoubtably... The Snake Plant! Snake plants are great indoor plants as they will tolerate an owner that doesn't pay them much attention. They will live in lower light but they will become thin and leggy over time if the light is not sufficient. However, if you are one of those people that likes to water their plants everyday, you should not get a Snake plant! There are not many in...

My New Variegated English Ivy  Thinking About Getting a New House Plant? If you are thinking about getting a new house plant, you should consider carefully before you purchase a new one, especially if you are a little new to house plant care . Pictured here is one of my new plants, a Hedera helix or English Ivy.  Looks nice and healthy, right?  For the most part, it is. However, before I bought it I made sure to check for spider mites. I found what I expected to find...Spider mites! I have been caring for indoor plants for over 20 years and I can't remember any time that I had a new English Ivy that did NOT have spider mites. English Ivy usually come from the growers looking pretty clean and spider mites are hard to detect at first unless you know what to look for (and where to look). But they reproduce rapidly , especially in hot, dry places and can do quite a lot of damage to your house plants. Before you know it your English Ivy will b...

Dracaena Warneckii One of the easiest to care for indoor house plants is the Dracaena Warneckii . Besides being an easy care house plant it also quite attractive and will survive in lower light situations and tolerate some watering mistakes and a little neglect. Of course, you should not neglect your house plants and you should provide the best lighting and watering that you can. To illustrate my point I have a little indoor plant story or two to tell. I just love to tell silly plant stories! The first interior landscape company that I worked for as an interior plant technician was Tiffany's Decorative Plants in Fremont, California. This company no longer exists as it was eventually bought out by the larger interior landscape company called Ambius . Back to my Warneckii story... One of the accounts that I serviced for Tiffany's was a french restaurant called Papillon on Mission Blvd. in Fremont, California. Intended to be a romantic place to eat, the inter...