5 top tips for houseplant care

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Whether it’s from your parents, your partner, a cherished friend or otherwise, the great towering monstera monkey face plant is all the more beautiful knowing it’s from someone you love. You’re going to take care of it. Nurture it. Love it. And then (in the blink of an eye) it's brown, wilting, and dropping leaves all over your home. Fortunately, how you care for your plant is no reflection on how much you love the person who gave it to you. But it’s always nice to try, right? 

Given everything our plants do for us, knowing how to take care of indoor plants should be top of any plant lover’s priorities. Here are 5 tips to help you maintain indoor plants properly, from where to put them, to how to clean the leaves of plants. 

1. Know your plant 

There are loads of different types of indoor plants, and all of them have different preferences when it comes to light levels and humidity. These preferences reflect where those plants grow naturally. For example, ferns grow in streams and hollows, so they like low light and high humidity (like in a bathroom). Succulents, on the other hand, flourish in dry and sunny places.  

2. Choose the perfect spot

So now you know what conditions your little green friend enjoys, try and find a place that matches them. For example, plants that like a lot of sunlight will do well near a south facing window. If you have a few plants that like the same conditions, you can sit them together. When choosing your spot, try and keep your plants away from radiators and heaters: artificial heat can be drying, even to plants that like naturally hot and dry environments. 

3. Keep your plants fed and watered

It is important to ensure that your plants get enough water. Just don’t water them so much that you send soil-y water flowing all over your cabinets. A good rule of thumb for plant care is making sure the soil is fully dry before watering your plants. Cacti and succulents normally like a good water once a month, while plants that like humidity might need water a few times a week and a spritz of water over the leaves every day. 

To maintain indoor plants properly, you might choose to give them a little plant food from your local garden store. Just make sure you are giving them the right type of food for their species! 

4. Clean plant leaves regularly

Most of us are used to living with some dust in our houses, but our plants can be a bit fussier. Household dust can clog your plants’ pores and get in the way of transpiration, so cleaning plant leaves is a pretty important job. Here’s how to clean the leaves of indoor plants: 

• Be gentle when you clean. Indoor plants with delicate, feathery leaves, such as ferns, can do without a clean, especially if you mist them regularly. Only clean plant leaves that have hardy, shiny leaves, and remember to be gentle with these too.
• Wipe the surface and undersides of the leaves to remove excess dust or dirt with some very soft Plenty kitchen paper.
• Dampen the tissue slightly with water only and swipe it over the leaves again gently to clean them. You can give them a final wipe with a dry tissue to buff them to a shiny finish.

5. Look after your environment too!

Having houseplants brings the outside inside, which is fun! But there are a few elements of the outside you might not want there, like bugs and dirt. Even a relatively clean indoor plant comes with soil and the potential for mess on window sills, carpets and upholstery.  

There you have it! Our top 5 tips for how to take care of indoor plants. After all, our little green friends do so much for us, it’s nice to show them a little bit of love in return.