Indoor Home Garden

« Brians Tip to Control Pests Safely / what will be some winter veggies I can plant..anything I need to know..New to winter gardening? »

Posted on Dec 04, 2008 under gardeners belfast |

photo credit: Bitman

An indoor home garden is a delight. When it comes to interior decorating, people are just as concerned with their choices of plants as with their choices of furniture and other soft furnishings.

Some take the easy option and opt for realistic artificial plants, but most wish to go for the real thing. As winter draws in, and Christmas approaches, many people focus their attention on their indoor plants, or lack thereof.

Apart from their decorative function, nearly everyone knows that there are also health benefits from having live plants indoors. Provided that several important factors are attended to, indoor plants will clean the air during the daytime of carbon dioxide, giving off oxygen in return.

Lighting

This is perhaps the most important factor. Most indoor plants must have a good source of light. Most of the time this is provided through natural lighting and good plant positioning in the room of your choice, or through the use of electric lighting. Luckily darker leaved plants usually don’t need as much light as others.

This is where armed with a little knowledge, you can avoid choosing plants which are a going to be a challenge to provide adequate lighting for, and give yourself a much better chance of a successful outcome in creating your indoor home garden.

For an indoor garden, there are five varieties of plants which require medium to low light, and which will suit our purposes admirably. I’ve listed these below.

a. Philodendrons
b. Boston ferns
c. African violets
d. Cyclamens
e. Creeping Fig

Watering

The next biggest mistake in caring for indoor plants is over watering. This leads to rotting roots. Pay careful attention to the label that comes with your plant because each plant type has differing watering needs. Of course the biggest mistake following this is under watering and neglecting your plants to the extent that dust builds up on leaves. We’ve all done it at some point, haven’t we?

Potting

Choose good quality and attractive container for your indoor plants. Make sure that the pot is clean before placing your new plant into it to prevent infection and to encourage healthy growth.

Humidity

The fourth biggest mistake in indoor gardening is having the correct humidity for the plants. The amount of moisture in the air surrounding the plant has an effect on its growth. During mornings, you should spray the plants with water for their much-needed moisture with a fine mist atomiser. A small open container ornament with a small amount of water inside placed discreetly nearby is helpful.

Fertilization or feeding.

Feeding isn’t such a big issue as a good slow release indoor fertiliser can be bought from most home department stores, however just like watering, each plant type requires different amounts of feeding. If you’ve got most of the other factors right, fertilising isn’t going to require that much of your attention, unless you’re growing orchids for your indoor home garden which will require special fertiliser and a bit more of your loving attention.