How to Create a House Plant Rehab

HOW TO CREATE A HOUSE PLANT REHAB CENTER FOR RECOVERY AND POSITIVE GROWTH

I have a confession to make…(sing that in your best Dave Grohl voice)….I do not always have a GREEN thumb. So I have created a HOUSE PLANT REHAB aptly named Kuball’s Serenity Rehab for Unwanted Plants!

Sometimes house plants struggle to survive in my house because I make common mistakes. But I want to be good at this so bad, I created a safe place to let my plants recover from my heavy watering hand.

Do you know the benefits of having greenery in your home?!?

Air purification – Studies show that if you have a plant every 100 square feet, the air in your home will be 87% less polluted. This is NASA research….find it here.
Easier breathing – We breath oxygen and release carbon dioxide…DUH! But having plants around means the carbon dioxide is absorbed by the plants and exchanged for oxygen on a molecular level. THUS giving your house more oxygen to breath……and you need that oxygen, not the carbon dioxide…….make sense?
Humidification – Plants release up to 97% of the water they absorb. Why does this help you? Humidified air leads to less respiratory distress, less dry skin, and less coughing. WHUUUUUTTTTT?!!!?!?!?
Stress relief and focus – People say that plants help maintain focus and reduce your stress. It gives you a feeling of being outdoors and decreases your fatigued feelings.

So what do you do when you’ve almost killed another plant? You try to make them go to rehab. Rehab…as in a friendly plant spot in your house.

Let’s think about where that could be for you.

You’ll want indirect sunlight for about 6 hours and close proximity to a water source. In my house it’s the kitchen window sill. I’m there at least once a day (haha more like 4500 times a day but who’s counting) so it is an easy reminder to pay attention. Is the plant happy with the amount of sun? Does it need more water? Is it getting better?

Some like it hot….some like it HHHOOOOTTTTT. Oh wait, we are talking about plants (Personal side note: I have a soundtrack playing in my head almost all day….so don’t be alarmed at my random song references). Some plants like light, some like water, some like attention, and some aren’t meant to be…..this is why it is important to know what kind of plant you have in rehab.

When you buy plants, you have a label to tell you what they are….BUT when your beautiful mother makes you a bunch of off chutes, you don’t always know what they are. So, I found an app that could help me a) identify the plant AND b) figure out what it likes and needs. PlantSnap is free and all you have to do is snap a picture of the plant in question.

Once you know what your plant is and what treatment it likes…you can begin your rehab.

Let’s explore common house plants problems:

Over-watering – yellowing leaves or lack of new leaves. Solution – touch the soil BEFORE adding water. If it still feels damp, don’t water. Simple, right? Well, you need to check first!!!!
Low light – spindly (tall with not a lot of leaves) and lack of flowering. Solution – move the plant to a spot with more indirect sunlight.
Too much light – leaves are dry and crusty (that is a scientific term), fall off the plants when touched, in other words – the leaves are BURNT! Solution – move the plant to a place with less INDIRECT light.
***Keep in mind that most INDOOR house plants want INDIRECT sunlight. That means about 3 feet AWAY from the window that gets DIRECT sun. Just having the sun FILL the room should be enough for most plants to survive.
Under watering – brown leaf tips and wilting leaves. Solution – most plants will come back after a good watering, but be careful not to OVER water! If the plants doesn’t absorb all the water, the water will sit in the soil, causing ROOT ROT!
Last thing – powdery white stuff on the soil….it is a FUNGUS. Not harmful to the plants, yet….but it can be a sign of things to come. Over-watering the plants can cause this fungus to develop. It is an early indication that if not remedied, root rot will set in. Solution – scrape the white stuff off using a spoon. Till the soil, taking care to mix the wet soil with the top “dry” soil. This is should help with drainage and oxygenate the soil for now.

What problems do your house plants have? What are your solutions?

The need for rehab means we’ve gone past the above problems and the simple solution didn’t work. After consulting with your plant app, you should try different things. All of my plants get moved to the window sill in the kitchen (as I mentioned before). They will stay there for a few weeks or until I start to see signs of health again. New growth, green leaves, better root system.

This is Kuball’s Serenity Rehab for Unwanted Plants.

On the far left is part of my succulent, it hates me. It fell off another plant and wants to take root but doesn’t have enough strength…so I tried to make it go to rehab. It’s not making much progress.

The one in the middle is an aloe leaf that also wants to take root but this is not how these plants propagate. I thought I would let it try….nothing is happening.

And finally the far right cup is a clipping from one of those “mother specials” I mentioned before. Once I found out what kind of plant it is, I decided to prune some leaves and propagate. I placed the leaves in water and waited for roots to appear. It only took 2 weeks.

Above is a picture after some progress. The plant previously in the princess cup got some good roots and was transplanted into soil (above in the middle). The succulent is STILL not happy! And the aloe plant did die

This plant has been through a lot! It was originally so beautiful and then my dogs attacked it. Those turds knocked it over and got soil everywhere, it was basically uprooted. I moved it to a place the plant killers could never get to it. Well, the plant did NOT like it’s new spot….and this is what happened. It became spindly, lost it’s beautiful color and stopped producing new leaves. I moved it again. It is too big to rehab on the window sill, so I made a special one for this plant. I moved it closer to a window and added water to the drip plate. AND………you see the new leaves right???? Those dogs are lucky this plant is showing new life.

Freshen the soil annually – it’s important for growth

Once a year, I take all my house plants and assess their hardness, usually it’s in the spring. I repot them if needed, but usually add more soil, fertilize, and just give them a good cleaning!

These were another mother special, but they were much easier to care for! I have pruned and propagated this many times. But this is an example of my spring repotting session, where I add soil, spray off the leaves, and flush out the old water.

Get your rehab started and your clean air house will be all the rage!

Happy rehabbing,