Houseplants are a really fun hobby, but if you don’t know how to take care of your houseplants, it can end up being a really frustrating and sad event! No one wants their houseplants to die, but it happens often because people aren’t sure how to keep their flowering houseplants alive. There are a couple of things that you can do to ensure that your flowering houseplants stay alive! Here are a couple of suggestions that might help you out:
Find out about the care for your plant:
The first thing that you need to do in order to keep your flowering houseplants alive is to find out about the basic care needs of your specific plant. For example, you should find out how often your plant needs to be watered, how much sunlight the plant should be exposed to, and if the flowers need to be deadheaded (usually they do, in order to keep blooming). African Violets are flowers which only need to be watered if the soil is dry, whereas you can let a Christmas Cactus go for a day or two if the soil is dry. Make sure that you know about all of the care needs for your plant, so that you will be better able to keep your flowering houseplants alive.
Mulch and fertilizer:
Another thing that you can do to keep your flowering houseplants alive is to use mulch and/or fertilizer. You can find out if mulch and/or fertilizer will be helpful for your plant by also reading about the basic care information for your plant. However, if you do use fertilizer, you should be careful not to use too much – you don’t want your plant to “burn” from exposure to too much fertilizer.
Light lamps on a timer:
You might have a problem with keeping your plants alive because they are exposed to too little (or maybe too much!) sunlight. If this is the case, you might want to consider buying light lamps and a timer for your flowering houseplants. This way, you will be able to make sure that your plants get exposed to the right amount of light. A timer can turn the lights on or off automatically, so you won’t need to worry about remembering. Light lamps work well on a lot of plants, such as African Violets, but you will want to double check and make sure that your specific houseplants will do well with a light lamp.
Make a calendar or chart:
Sometimes in our busy lives it is hard to think about taking care of your houseplants. If you are a busy person, then you might like to make a calendar or chart for when you need to take care of your plant. Mark days on the calendar when you should check your plant’s soil, or when you should spray your plant to keep it moist. Place this calendar or chart in an area that you will see it regularly, such as on the refrigerator. Then, you will be reminded more often of what to do in order to keep your flowering houseplants alive.
“Dead head” if necessary:
There are some flowering houseplants, such as Chrysanthemums, which require you to cut off the dead flowers, so that the houseplants can continually keep blooming and growing. You should cut stems back to about six inches after blooming ends, so that the plant can recuperate and start to grow blossoms again. If you want to keep your flowering houseplants alive, healthy, and blooming, then you will want to “dead head” your flowers if they require the dead blossoms to be removed.