10 Stategies to stop murdering your houseplants

You can have a lush indoor landscape. 

Just follow these tips.

1. Don't Listen to the Internet

Not every site vets their advice as carefully as (ahem) others. Just say no to these popular internet ideas to water your plants:

• A damp sponge in the bottom of the pot.
• Melting ice cubes.
• An upside-down bottle filled with water.

No, no, and no.

2. Watch Your Water Content

“You don’t have to use bottled or distilled, but don’t use water that’s passed through a softener; it’s too salty,” Feldstein says.

If you’ve been using softened water and your plants seem fine, it may be that you’ve chosen hardier plants — or not enough time has gone by. Softened water has sodium in it, and over a long period of time can build up and be toxic to your plants. If softened is your only option, create a reservoir at the bottom of the pot with rocks where the salt can collect, or periodically leach out the sodium with an alternate water source, like rainwater.

3. Be More Afraid of overwatering than underwatering

You love your plants. But just like your grandma trying to hard-sell you a third serving of lasagna, sometimes too much love is just too much.

Overwater and you’ll kill your plants. “Underwater, and your plants’ leaves may droop and yellow, but you can save the plant once you water it,” Feldstein says

If soil stays moist all the time, no oxygen can get into the soil, the plant roots can't breathe, and then they'll rot, and the plant will die.

4. Feed Them Coffee and Egg Shells

Try mixing coffee grounds or egg shells into the soil. Yup. Garbage. Store-bought potting soil has all the nutrients your plants need, but about once a year, calcium-rich egg shells can give plants a great boost (do it too often and you’ll change the soil’s pH balance). Clean off the icky stuff, let them sit out to dry, and then crush them to a coarse powder. Pour that around the base of the plants, and water.

5. Keep 'Em Separated (From Your Pets)

Cat got your mother-in-law’s tongue? Hopefully not, because that plant can make your cat sick, and being eaten doesn’t work out well for the plant, either. Feldstein recommends the following to keep cats away:

• Put orange or lemon rinds on the soil. (They don’t like the smell.)
• Spray spicy cayenne pepper on the leaves.
• Place crumpled tin foil on the soil. (Cats aren’t fans.)
• Put camphor balls in the soil if you’re brave enough to risk smelling like your grandma’s closet.

These are just the first 5 idea's - for more, click on the link below -

https://www.houselogic.com/by-room/yard-patio/how-to-care-for-house-plants/?cid=eo_em_mkt_newsletter