• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Home Garden Joy
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Start Here
    • Seed Starting
    • Composting Basics
    • Vegetable Gardening
    • Growing Fruit
    • Growing Herbs
  • Recipes
    • Canning and Food Preservation
    • Vegetarian Meals
    • Salad Recipes
    • Soup Recipes
    • Dinner Recipes
    • Dessert Recipes
  • Books & Classes
    • Classes
    • Books
    • Books for Christian Herbalists
  • About
    • Advertise
    • Awards and Accolades
    • Privacy Policy

House Plant Care

February 6, 2012 by Jeanne

House plant care can be learned even if you think you have a black thumb.

I spent time on Sunday fussing with my house plants. Poor babies have been neglected other than the weekly watering. My plant room faces north east, with most of the light bright, diffuse morning light.  Luckily I seem to be able to grow almost any house plant I want to in that room, and I even over winter my geraniums from the front porch window boxes in the plant room and in a spare bedroom facing the same light exposure.

House Plant Care

This phaelenopsis orchid is still blooming. It’s the one I rescued from Lowe’s in late 2009.  It was on sale for a few dollars and had a big hole in the leaf. Well, the hole is still there, and it’s still blooming. I’ve never grown an orchid before and this one is extraordinary. When the flowering branch is finished, the petals drop off like tiny moths, and a new flowering branch quickly forms. It’s just stunning and I want to add more orchids to my collection.

House plant care also includes tidying up the African violets.  Most are the solid purple colored ones.  The one fancy variety I received from my sister is still growing and it looked severely pot-bound, so I decided to repot it. Much to my surprise, it wasn’t just pot-bound; there were four plants now instead of one!  I planted each one in a separate pot and am growing them under lights in the basement for the May Master Gardener plant sale, along with several purple ones I want to re-home.

I cleaned up some dead leaves, gave a few plants a good rinse to rinse out any salts that had accumulated in the pots, and general tidied them all up, ending by giving each one a shot of fertilizer.  One of our next household projects will be to create custom-build, tile topped plant bookcases under the windows.  My plant shelves consist of snack tables with a board over them.  It’s ugly but efficient.  My very handy husband has since sketched out a custom build shelving system that will go around two walls of the room. Tile will fit on the top and keep moisture off the wood.  Underneath, room for more books.  On top, room for more plants.

Does he know me, or what?

Jeanne
Jeanne

Jeanne Grunert is a certified Virginia Master Gardener and the author of several gardening books. Her garden articles, photographs, and interviews have been featured in The Herb Companion, Virginia Gardener, and Cultivate, the magazine of the National Farm Bureau. She is the founder of The Christian Herbalists group and a popular local lecturer on culinary herbs and herbs for health, raised bed gardening, and horticulture therapy.

Tweet
Share
Pin
Share
0 Shares

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Previous Post: « Blooming Out of Season
Next Post: Composting Basics »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. ~Gardener on Sherlock Street

    February 6, 2012 at

    You’re going to have a little plant haven. Perfect.

Primary Sidebar

Let’s Connect!

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • YouTube

Featured

logo of the american horticulture society

Home Garden Joy was featured by the American Horticultural Society on #plantchat.

My Books on Amazon

cover of plan and build a raised bed garden

Visit my author page on Amazon to find all of my fiction and gardening books.

Herbal Academy Teachers

Footer

a browned overcooked coconut bar on a blue flowered plate

Recipe Fail – Coconut Bars

Each weekend, I dig out my favorite cookbook – the Fannie Farmer Cookbook, 13th Edition. I flip through the pages, skimming the recipes, checking to see if I have the ingredients to make those that catch my eye. And then, I make the recipe, usually late Sunday afternoon after all the chores are done. It’s…

Read More

peach tree cuttings in a pot on a windowsill

Propagating Peach Trees from Softwood Cuttings

We decided that propagating peach trees from softwood cuttings was the way to go when we couldn’t find the variety we wanted at the store this past week. The best eating peach we’ve ever grown here at Seven Oaks Farm is “Red Haven.” It was recommended by our neighbor, a man whose family has farmed…

Read More

soul in a yellow mug against pine panelling

Made From Scratch Chicken Vegetable Soup Recipe

This is the best made-from-scratch chicken vegetable soup recipe you’ll ever taste. It’s a favorite of my family and I’m betting it will quickly become a favorite of your family’s, too. As part of my ongoing quest to test and taste every recipe in the Fannie Farmer Cookbook 100th Edition, I’ve made the Vegetable Soup…

Read More

A loaf of bread on a plate

Water Bread – Recipe Review

Once you make water bread, you’ll never eat store bought white bread again. In fact, you won’t be able to look at a loaf of “white bread” from the market and consider it bread, in any sense of the word, after you’ve taken a bite of the real thing. Hot. Crunchy crust. Tender, flaky, soft…

Read More

Copyright © 2022 Home Garden Joy on the Foodie Pro Theme