Indoor Plant Care - How to Houseplant Care

Watering for Healthy Plants Watering Rules, House Plant Care Working in the interior landscape business for more than 20 years has gotten me lots of questions about how to care for indoor potted plants. Customers ask about their own plants at home...why does my plant have yellow leaves... what causes brown leaf tips...how come the new growth on my plant is dying...I water my plant every day but it still isn't doing well...how much should I water my house plant? It can be hard to diagnose every indoor plant problem when you do not have access to the plant itself. So I generally find myself asking them questions about how they care for their plants. Most often, the problems are solved by changing watering habits.  In almost every instance, changing the way they look at watering their indoor plants gives them positive results with their house plants. I care for indoor plants as my job and I know that there are not many plants that I care for that always us...

Do you need care information for your Poinsettia plant? The holiday season is when the Poinsettias show up in the stores and in holiday displays. Many people buy a Poinsettia when they see them in the stores or perhaps you have received one as a holiday gift. Poinsettia are beautiful plants to use during the holiday season. It used to be you would find red or cream colored Poinsettia plants but now you can find them in pink, marbled, and even in colors close to black. There is quite a variety to chose from. Each Christmas season, I had hundreds of these lovely "flowers" in my care.They are delicate and fragile and you must use care when handling them. Place them out of high traffic areas and away from places where they might get a cold draft. If you are moving them during cold weather be sure to enclose them in a loose fitting sleeve or plastic bag. Just be careful not to break them. When shopping for your Poinsettia, be sure the bracts are well colored up. For maximum use of...

Indoor House Plants Pictures Names Neanthe Bella Palm Plant Do you have indoor house plants that you would like to identify? There are many indoor plants that we use to grow indoors. Many of those are only available at a greenhouse or from a tropical house plant grower but some of them are sold at your local home improvement store or local grocery store. There are a few house plants that most people have had if they ever tried to keep and grow an indoor potted house plant. Pothos is a very common indoor plant and I see them everywhere as I am out taking care of plants in commercial interior landscape accounts. Peace Lily is another plant that many people have in their home or office. If you have an indoor house plant that you would like to learn the name of and how to care for it, I have created a page on my website that shows pictures of common indoor house plants for identification, their names and links to care pages for each plant. Check out my page of indoor house plan...

Dracaena marginata plant Dracaena Marginata Plant Care The marginata plant is one of the most popular houseplants. It is one of my favorites and I get so many emails asking questions about Dracaena marginata that I have to think it is one of everyones favorite indoor potted plants. One of the care questions that I get most often about this beautiful, indoor plant is about pruning. Is it alright to cut it back if it is too tall? Where should I cut the stem? The answer to the question is yes, you can cut back the stems or canes of dracaena marginata. You should cut the stem just above the height that you want new growth to start. It is best to do this in the spring time when most plants do much of their growing. If you look closely at the stem you will see rings that encircle the stem. This is where the leaf nodes are and where your dracaena marginata will push out some new growth. You will most likely get a few new "heads" starting before you know it. ...

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...

Poinsettia Plant Every Christmas season  for twenty or more years, I have had hundreds of these lovely "flowers" in my care.They are delicate and fragile and you must use care when handling them. Place them out of high traffic areas and away from places where they might get a cold draft. If you are moving them during cold weather be sure to enclosed them in a loose fitting sleeve or plastic bag. Just be careful not to break them. They are quite fragile and easy to damage. When shopping for  your Poinsettia, be sure the bracts are well colored up. For maximum use of your flowering Christmas Poinsettia, the flower, small and yellow in the center of the bracts, should be.... read more about Poinsettias

Norfolk Island Pine The Norfolk Island Pine is a versatile plant. It can be used as a unique indoor potted plant, a decorative focal point on your patio as a container plant and it is often decorated with miniature ornaments and used as a holiday tree. Yes, the holidays are almost here. The poinsettias will soon be out and the Christmas trees and other holiday decorations will be showing up everywhere. Time sure does fly! The 2014 holiday season is about to begin... An evergreen tree native to Norfolk Island in the Pacific Ocean, the Norfolk Island Pine, or Araucaria heterophylla , is often used as an indoor live Christmas tree during the holiday season. We often give these out during the holidays to our great interior landscape customers.  Read more about the Norfolk Island Pine...

Lady Palm - Rhapis excelsa If I had to choose which indoor palm plant is my favorite houseplant , it would be Rhapis excelsa palm . This lovely plant is a favorite with interior landscapers as it is hardy and will survive in lower light levels. It is also more cold tolerant than many other tropical indoor palms. Most types of fan palms are not well suited to life in the average home because of their tendency to spread out, requiring lots of space. While used in large interior landscapes, most fan palms tend to quickly outgrow any available space in smaller areas. Rhapis excelsa , or Lady Palm, has more of an upright growth making it a good choice for use in your home. It has glossy, dark green fronds and while it can be maintained in somewhat low light levels, it will look its very best in bright light with some morning sun. Read more about the care of this beautiful indoor palm...

Mealy Bug Insects (Missouri Botanical Garden) House Plant and Pesky Insects! The very best way to be sure you don't have insect problems on your indoor plants is to check for bugs before you buy. Always try to buy your houseplants when they have just arrived at the local retail store from the growers. The folks that produce your plants at the nursery follow a regimen of treatment to make sure they do not have insects damage their plants. However, once they arrive at the local store, the probability that they are going to end up with some kind of insect problem tends to increase. I usually walk through the indoor plant section of the local home improvement stores (I won't name any names) whenever I am there to purchase something else. I can't tell you the number of times that I find insect problems starting up on the house plants. My recommendations for keeping pests from being a problem indoors is to always check plants before you buy or bring home. Once you...

Grandfather Mountain NC These are a couple of photographs I took of Trillium flowers. The first one to the right was growing on the East coast, near Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina. From what I have read, this particular Trillium is fairly rare and Grandfather Mountain is one of the few places that it grows. That may or may not be so. Any information about Trilliums? The next photo of what I assume is a Trillium was taken in the forests of Oregon. I happened upon it as I was taking a little hike with the dogs and spotted it on the side of the trail. There were only a few but they are kind of pretty. Oregon forest I just thought I would post these, even though my website is about the care of indoor houseplants. Any one out there an expert on Trilliums or have any information to offer about them? Houseplant care and information available here . If you need some advice, I would be happy to help out. Hope everyone's new year is going great.

Euphorbia pulcherrima - Poinsettia Pretty Poinsettia Plant Care Your pretty #holiday flowering #Poinsettia #plant will need some TLC or maybe I should say TLPC. Yes, that is tender loving #plant #care! It is the holiday season once again and Poinsettias usually start to appear just after Thanksgiving week. When the  Poinsettias , or Euphorbia Pulcherrima, are put out, the Christmas trees and decorations start going up. Poinsettia is most commonly used as an indoor potted plant at Christmas time, at least in the United States. In some of our milder climates, it can also be found in exterior landscapes. A member of the Euphorbia family, Poinsettia is a succulent plant. That tells you something about your beautiful Poinsettia flower. These native plants from south of the border do best if placed in bright  lighting  and average room temperatures. Poinsettias are not difficult to care for it you just use common sense  watering  practices. Do not expose t...

Question from Michele: P lease help, I just received a 25 year old Pothos with very long vines. I left it outside the first night I got it and it was very windy. Every leaf on the vines are gone. Will they grow back? Answer:  Thanks for your question, sorry to hear about your Pothos losing all of its leaves. However, as long as there was no tissue damage to roots or stems from excessively cold temperatures or the wind, your plant should regrow, if cared for properly. It may be a good idea to cut back some of the longer stem to help your plant fill out faster but it should regrow even if you don't prune it back.  Read more about Pothos plant care...