Tools

Recommended Tools

You may be asking yourself, “Where do I even start?” Well, start with buying yourself a plant. It doesn’t end there though! There are some items required to adequately take care of your plant. Here is a list of tools the first three articles on Google for house plant tools tell you to get.

Watering Can So, plants kinda need water in order to survive. Watering cans come in many different sizes and materials. You could probably pick on up at the same place you're getting the plants from.

Pruning Shears Is one of your leaves looking a little sad? Don't just leave that shit on there, it looks bad! Plus, removing the dying parts will help the plant focus its energy on the healthly parts. Pruning shears are designed specifically to cut plants so the plants go through as little trauma as possible when you trim it.

Spade A spade is a very useful tool for moving plants from planter to planter. News flash, plants GROW and when the grow, they get bigger. Most plants can be repotted every six months, and to make that process easier, use a spade!

Gardening Gloves Dealing with plants is a messy process. There's a lot of dirt involved, and I've never seen a situation with dirt that ended with a clean floor. Help yourself out, save on some of the mess and hand scrubbing with some gloves.

Moisture Meter Some plants need to be kept moister than others. I know, terrible. Most of the time, you won't be able to tell how moist your soil is just from sight. The moisture meter keeps track of that for you. That way, you don't have to stress over guess the moist levels of the plant. Ok, I'll try not to say moist again, but no promises.

Plant Mister Just like moisture levels in plants, humidity levels matter for plants too. More tropical plants get some of their water intake from the humidity in the air. Give your plants a little spritz now and again.

Tools You Will Actually Use

OK, let’s be real here. You aren’t made of money! You already bought a plant, are you supposed to put more money into this hobby? Well, yes. Realistically you should buy all those things on the previous list for fully thriving plants. But maybe it’s better to buy each of those tools over time. These are fine alternatives. They’re REALISTIC alternatives.

A Glass of Water from Two Days Ago If you really think about it, watering cans are pretty useless when you have perfectly good cups at home. Plus, the internet says leaving tap water out for a few days lets the chemicals evaporate or something. So, you definitely do it intentionally. Definitely.

Scissors Who cares if you use one pair of scissors for food preparation, arts and crafts, and trimming your plants! It’s not like anyone knows that.

An Old Spoon Let’s call a spade a spade, aka a dumb tool. You have plenty of old silverware from your grandma, put it to good use! Just make sure to wash it off a bit before you use it for your cereal.

Your Hands Trying to stay clean is for wimps. A REAL PLANT PARENT gets down and dirty with it! Sure, you’ll have dirt stuck under your fingernails for days, but you’ll save a couple bucks.

Dollar Store Spray Bottle This is stretching it a bit; I’d be impressed if you really did buy anything to mist your plants with. Maybe after a year of collecting plants, you’ll work up the motivation to get a spray bottle, give those plants some extra love! Trust me when I tell you, those $20 plant misters spray exactly the same as a spray bottle from the dollar store.

I have no good alternative for the moisture meter. That thing was just weird. Maybe just stick your finger in the soil and check. Your fingers are dirty enough already.