House Plants

Feeding or fertilizing indoor plants can be a fairly controversial topic. There are those that think indoor plants should be fed every other week.

Some feel that you just should not bother, some advise every 6 months, and on and on. So, everyone has their own idea as to just what is best – but what about the newcomer to indoor gardening?

Firstly there is, in fact, a problem with people over feeding their plants. Too much fertilizer, and certainly, the wrong fertilizer can have devastating results. Too much, will result in the burning of a plant’s roots. Just over-feeding can result in a house plant producing far too much growth.

Although that sounds like a good thing, in fact it is quite the opposite. Over-abundant growth results in a sappy, weak plant, far more susceptible to damage and insect attack. Let us not forget that too much growth means you are going to have to repot your plants more often, as they becomes unmanageable in their current pots.

Let us take the middle road.

Personally, I feed 1 teaspoon, every 6 months with a readily available, slow release fertilizer, specifically for indoor plants, just on top of the soil. It’s the one with all the shiny little beads.  Very easy to apply and no odour – a consideration with plants that are indoors. I soak each potted plant in a weak solution of either worm juice that I produce myself, or seaweed solution – every TWO WEEKS.

Let me clarify this, the slow release fertilizer is the big guns and all that is really necessary. The worm juice or seaweed solution, is a tonic which addresses the overall health of the plants by providing those essential trace elements not readily available in commercial products. The application of the tonic into my indoor plant routine, is a significant one, mainly because the results are notable.

I have indeed often made comparison tests with and without the tonics, either of them – purely when I need to shut some doubting client up, whinging about the very small additional cost.

I also give all plants a burst with the hose on high pressure spray, just to remove any dust and freshen them up a bit, so really it’s a bit of a wash. After they have dried off a bit, all plants are given a spray with a weak solution of tonic via a hand-held mister, or atomiser.

This is a fortnightly event, that I always perform outside, generally in the shade or broken sunlight, and all plants tend to spend about 12 hours outside.

When there is a large number of plants and sufficient available space, I will use a rotational method where I double the number of  plants. This then allows me to have those plants that I have watered and washed,etc, to spend an entire week outside – the following week, I swap them with the one’s inside.

This does require more work on my part, but also affords me two major pluses. The whole process can be done without having to worry about making a mess with water, maintenance can be carried out on the plants, such as pruning and any pest spraying, re-potting, etc – and the results are un-beatable.

The previously mentioned tonics are the only concessions to organic gardening that I will make with indoor plants. I have often been asked about using compost for potting up house plants, and I advise against it. With good reason.

For starters, compost, unless it is well aged, will continue to decompose and ultimately the soil in the pot looks like it has disappeared, leaving the plant without enough material to either hang on to, nor feed from. Also, compost can harbour a great many nasties. Viruses, bacteria, fungi, and seeds, not to mention live creatures – limited only to the imagination.

Commercial potting mixes, are aged and sterilized. Therefore the soil will not continue to decompose, at any noticable rate, and there will be no critters, nor pathogens.

As we can see there is more than meets the eye, when you begin feeding your indoor plants.