Taking care of plants would be so much easier if there was one uniform way to do so. Unfortunately, there is not. Some plants prefer to be in full sunlight while others opt for the shade. One plant may need to be watered every day while another can go days without a drop and still live. Some plants can even be ignored for days and weeks and still thrive.
It can be tough keeping the various plants in your home alive. Plus, have you ever noticed that outdoor plants seem to deal with anything that Mother Nature throws at them? Meanwhile, our inside plants are finicky and spoiled. What exactly is the deal?
One little tip has gone unheard of for a long time. If you had heard of this tip years ago, you may still have some of your old plants that found their way into the compost heap. It’s one thing that every plant loves. From now on, we expect that you’ll manage to keep all of your houseplants alive and thriving!
I stumbled upon a fascinating time-lapse video produced by Darryl Cheng. The video, titled House Plant Journal, had to do with plant aeration. Up until that point in time I had never even heard of doing this to a plant. I was thrilled to learn that there may be hope for my plant skills after all. After you learn why you should aerate your plants, you’ll wonder why you never thought of it in the first place.
According to Darryl, we all water our indoor plants because we don’t get rain inside of our homes. That makes sense, right? Well, we also don’t get worms in our indoor plants. However, outside plants do. The worms move around and aerate the soil, which is something that can help plants thrive. What a concept!
Aerating indoor plants
The best part of this revelation is the fact that you can do it easily with either chopsticks or a stick that is similar in size. Read on to learn how to properly aerate your indoor plants.
Use the chopstick or stick to poke down deep into the soil a number of times. It’s okay if you snap a root or two- they do grow back. A few broken roots here and there is nothing compared to the many benefits of aeration.
Next, water the plant you have just aerated. Listen closely for a crackling sound as you do. This means that the water is traveling throughout the soil instead of just seeping down from the top. This sound means that you have good aeration in the plant.
Aerate your plants often but not every single time that you water them
If you notice that the stick has a hard time poking through the soil of your plant, that is a sign that your plant should be aerated. The dry, tough soil will make it hard for water to reach down into the roots. Get the water flowing by pushing down hard and creating the holes your plant desperately needs. It will thank you!
