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4 minute read
Become a New Plant Parent
House Plants Are All in the Family
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Blogger and Instagram phenom Darryl Cheng offers fresh perspectives on growing house plants with confidence.
The first tagline I used for my House Plant Journal blog was: “A journal for my house plants”. Although it was completely redundant, I wanted to emphasize that I would be documenting my experiences with my own house plants—I enjoyed watching them grow and change. Naturally, when I started out, I looked to books and the Internet for guidance. As I read more and more plant care advice, I found an imbalance where the appreciation of house plants was assumed to be mostly visual, while their maintenance was looked upon as a chore and focused on identifying and solving problems. Hardly anyone talked about the long-term satisfaction of owning house plants. Instead, there was an accumulation of “tips and tricks” that would lead one to believe that plants are either super easy to care for, requiring little consideration of environmental conditions, or finicky drama queens that keel over and die if you don’t mist them every five minutes.
Most plant-care advice is given as a set of instructions tied to individual plant species. The advice reads like a baking recipe that advertises guaranteed results. At the same time, a plant’s supposed imperfections are highlighted, and blame is assigned for failure to overcome them: overwatering, underwatering and so forth. The expectation derived from such advice is that a plant should always look the same or even grow to a state of thriving perfection, except when it mysteriously fails to do so. Reading the reassurance that “this plant is easy to care for” only adds to feelings of being a bad plant parent when a few leaves turn yellow and fall off.
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I think a shift in the plant care mindset is needed. In documenting my experiences with house plants, I focused on understanding what environmental factors were most important for house plant enjoyment. I wasn’t looking for perfection—I just wanted to know that I was doing everything I could and that the plant was trying its best too. I applied my engineering thinking to the hobby, optimizing my care efforts for maximum house plant satisfaction. My goal is to empower you to understand your home’s growing conditions, to be observant and to accept what nature has in store. It’s about equipping you with the right knowledge and expectations, so you will know that you’re doing the best you can, given the conditions in your home. Finally, I want to help you break away from old habits and ways of thinking that hinder you from truly enjoying plant parenthood.
Some plants demand attention to prevent permanent damage. Take wilting, for example. When their soil dries out completely, some leafy plants, such as the peace lily and the maidenhair fern, wilt dramatically. With a good soaking, though, the peace lily will perk up and look just fine, but the maidenhair fern may not recover. A plant that you can easily kill can be reasonably described as hard to care for, and some plants require more vigilance to keep them alive. Fortunately, most of the plants you will grow are more forgiving.
If you don’t want to put time and energy into plant care, growing certain kinds of plants will be hard for you. Growing lots of plants, especially large ones, can be overwhelming if you don’t enjoy the process of caring for them. If you need to spend an hour moving plants around simply to water them, you might consider them hard to care for.
If you expect every plant to look “beautiful” all the time and never drop a leaf, then every plant will seem hard to care for. Truly, this is an impossible expectation to meet, so get used to removing some dead leaves. Older leaves must die off to balance the resources required for new ones. Most plants develop physical imperfections despite all efforts, and every plant will look different once it has adjusted to living in your home. If you know to expect this, you will learn to appreciate your plants’ resourcefulness and character. And, of course, any plant is hard to care for if you don’t understand its needs.
Can you give it the amount of light it needs to survive or to thrive? Do you know how to assess soil moisture and how to water? When you understand your growing conditions and care methods, many house plant “problems” fall into the unavoidable and non-life-threatening category: They are your problems, not the plant’s problems. But if you can change your expectations and accept what nature has in store, you’ll get great enjoyment from your plants for many years.
Excerpted with permission from The New Plant Parent.
Darryl Cheng is the creator of the House Plant Journal blog. With more than 350,000 Instagram followers, he is one of the most trusted resources in the Internet house plant world. Darryl has also published The New Plant Parent.
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TBG LECTURE
The New Plant Parent
Wednesday, October 23, 7:30 p.m.
In his lecture, Darryl brings a fresh perspective to an old hobby. His science-based, practical approach has helped thousands understand the essentials of house plant care so they can become confident plant parents. In this lecture, find out how you can become a good house plant parent. Floral Hall.
Members FREE; Public $15; Students (with valid ID) $12. Book signing follows lecture.
Pre-Lecture Plant Swap
Wednesday, October 23, 5 to 7 p.m.
Come to the TBG’s first ever plant swap! Trade your extra house plants for something new. Participants will receive one exchange ticket per plant (regardless of plant size). Prior to entry, plants will be screened for pests and diseases—only healthy plants will be accepted. House plant experts will be on site to offer free advice. Suggested donation, $5.