This is my MOST requested blog post topic, so without adieu here’s How To Pick Your First Houseplant – including WHERE I buy my plants and some easy plants for beginners!
When New Year 2019 rolled in, I declared “I will keep a plant alive this year!” My husband straight up laughed at me. Because I have killed SO many plants.
But nope, I was determined to have a houseplant. Good lord, I just wanted one green, alive plant in my house.
Roll forward. It’s 2021. And I have roughly 60 houseplants. SIXTY. My husband is drowning in plants and rolls his eyes whenever a new one appears in the house. Sorry, not sorry.
So I want to break down a few of the most-frequently asked questions I get.
HOW do I choose a plant for my house?
This can be SO complicated, yet so easy. So let’s stick to the basics here. Do you have a specific spot you are looking to fill OR are you looking at a specific plant and hoping you can keep it alive?
You’ll want to know which direction your windows are facing. Yes, a good old fashioned new fangled compass app is what you’ll use. Just figure out which direction the light is streaming in. And now use your eyeballs and your brain and ask yourself if you get bright full sunlight during the day or if you get mostly filtered shadowy light. You got this! Whenever you read plant descriptions, it’ll say something like “prefers a south-facing window” and now you’ll know exactly what you’re working with.
If you’re looking at a specific plant you saw on Instagram or in a cute shop, you’ll want to look up everything you can find about that plant. Is it a tropical plant that loves high humidity and filtered light, yet you love to keep your house dry and cold? Is it a bright light lover but you only have a small amount of natural light streaming in all day? THESE are the kinds of basic things that will take you from feeling like you’re killing everything you touch to knowing you have the capacity to keep a green friend alive.
So here are my BASIC STARTER HOUSEPLANT recommendations: start with a snake plant, a pothos, a zz plant, a pilea, a rubber tree or a monstera. Look each of those up, because they are all different sizes and all thrive in different lighting conditions, depending on YOUR house. And the best part is many of them don’t need frequent watering! In fact, I often forget to water my snake, pothos, and zz for weeks and weeks and they’re fine.
Planterina vidoes on YouTube area always helpful to spot plants you’ll want or troubleshoot.
That being said, DON’T over water your plant! That’s right. We tend to baby a new plant, afraid if we don’t smother it with love it’ll die. Well love is not water every single day. Nope.
You can’t be afraid to pay attention to your plant and take cues from it. Is it droopy? Is the soil dry when you shove your finger down in it? Is it soaking wet?
Importantly, make sure you choose one that is FRIENDLY for your household. Do you have a cat that eats your salad? A dog that digs up flowers or eats anything on a tabletop? A kid that puts EVERYTHING into his/her mouth? Make sure your plant is NON-TOXIC then.
WHERE do you buy your houseplants?
Although you can easily start by grabbing a houseplant at the grocery store, I want to encourage you not to do that. A lot of grocery stores get huge shipments of plants from huge growhouses and they soak them with water so they look shiny and gorgeous then they shove them in your cart. You could be taking home any number of plant bugs in these situations, but primarily fungus gnats and spider mites.
IF you grab a grocery store plant, make sure you study it in the store. Stare at the soil for a solid minute seeing if anything is moving in there. Gently shake the plant and see if you are disturbing any critters. And when you bring it home, set it in your area BUT away from any other houseplants you already have (yup, quarantine) for the first 2 weeks just to make sure you aren’t spreading buggies to your house.
I find a lot of interesting plants at Trader Joe’s but I’m still really cautious when I bring them home.
Besides that I use local nurseries because the staff can usually tell you a TON about the plant you’re picking. They also usually have a guarantee about their plants, so if within a few weeks you are just floundering or think there’s a problem with the plant, you can bring it back in and ask questions or choose something else.
Memphis: Millstone Nursery
Knoxville: Stanley’s Greenhouse and Oglewood Ave
I also find plants on Etsy and Facebook local buy sell trade groups. A lot of small plant nurseries also have an Etsy shop, so that’s a great option. Just be sure to read carefully the size of plant you’re receiving, the length of time it’ll be in shipment, and reviews the shop has on their page.
Last but not least, I want to beg you to DON’T BE AFRAID! Have fun with this! Google pictures of what different plants look like at different stages of their growth, look through Pinterest until one catches your eye, talk to a nursery specialist about plants they love.
Drop all of your questions in the comments! PLUS, let me know what other blog posts on Plants you’d love to see! I’m thinking a complete list of the plants I currently have? What else?
