Let's Talk Houseplants with Guru Joy
Pet-Friendly (and not!) Houseplants
Joy talks about how to keep your pets and your plants living happy and healthy together. Joy shows you which houseplants are pet-friendly and which are not. If you have pets at home, be sure you know which is which!
Wintertime Houseplant Care
During colder months, your houseplants have to live inside and hibernate for the winter just like the rest of us. Joy, our houseplant guru here at The Gardener’s Center, tells us what to watch for and how to care for our plants during this time.
You can also read all about winterime houseplant care in The Buzz Blog.
Identifying & Treating Houseplant Pests
Joy talks about common houseplant pests. Oftentimes these pests are so hard to see that you don’t really notice them until you see your plant looking sickly.
Joy has the deets on three common little buggers that will wreak havoc either to your plant or your sanity. She’ll tell us how to identify them and how to treat them. We are talking brown soft scale, mealy bugs and fungus gnats. Wait until you see the close-up photo of a mealybug! It looks prehistoric.
You can also read all about identifying and treating houseplant pests in The Buzz Blog.
Up-Potting Your Houseplants
Joy talks about re-potting (or “up-potting,” according to Joy), and the signs to look for to know now’s the time. You’ll also get instructions on how to choose the new pot and how to prepare your plant’s new home for a happy transition.
You can also read all about up-potting your houseplants in The Buzz Blog.
Eye-Catching Alocasias
Joy talks about how houseplants just make us feel better, especially in winter when not much else is green. Plants make people feel good and we are all about that! Joy also zeroes in on alocasia plants and their popularity, and it’s easy to see why.
There are many different varieties and each one is more interesting than the next. Think lots of texture, lots of patterns and lots of veining and variegation. All of these things make these alocasias super eye-catching. Joy will tell you all about them and the deets on how to care for them. If you would like a closer look at our alocasia selection, stop on in or check them out on our website.
Houseplants with Fascinating Foliage
Joy talks about interesting and unique varieties of houseplants. Some of these are incredibly cool in the ways they react to touch and vibration, lighting and growing patterns.
Joy gives us the lowdown on the Mimosa Sensitive Plant or Shy Plant, Philodendron Goeldii with the crazy cool way its leaf structure pattern grows, the Tradescantia Callisia Navicularis that can look like two completely different plants depending on the lighting conditions you give it, and the unique Monstera Dubia or Shingle Plant.
You can also read about houseplants with fascinating foliage in The Buzz Blog.
Propagating Houseplants
Joy talks about propagating your plants by taking cuttings of them and helping the cuttings to root. This is a great way to share plants with friends and create new plants from your existing ones. You can even trim unruly or long vines from your plants, then root those cuttings and add them to that same plant’s soil base for extra fullness. There are a couple of different methods you can use to achieve this, and there are certain plants that are very easily propagated, and some, well, not so much. Joy shows us a few that work really well and she has a few products to introduce you to that will help ensure success.
Orchid Care
Jaime talks about best practices for taking care of your orchids. Orchids really are a breeze to take care of inside your home, but we’ve heard from many people who shy away from them, usually telling us they think they are hard to care for or that they always kill them.
As far as indoor flowering plants go, orchids really are your best bet. Jaime discusses best practices for watering orchids (NO ICE CUBES!), where to place them in your home, and when and when not to fertilize them to ensure success.
