Table of Contents
- Routine Is Personal
- Your Watering Routine
- Plant Maintenance Routine
- Adjusting Your Plant
- Fertilization Routine
A lot of places and a lot of websites out there will recommend that you stick to some type of schedule. They will say your plant needs water generally every 3 to 4 days or make sure that you water your plants once a week. They will say to make sure that you are giving all of your plant’s water every 2 weeks. This is not generally the best thing to make your routine around and this is specifically why we have said routine is not scheduled.
Routine Is Personal
As the seasons change and the environments in your house change, As your plants grow and become root-bound, your habits and what your plants need are going to change as well.
This means your house plant care routine is going to be personal and up to the individual. It is not going to be something that you are going to find on an app or blog. This article’s intent is not to tell you exactly what to do and how to do it. This article’s intent is to show you how to develop your own routine that is going to work best for your plants and help you keep your plants alive with your own methods.
Your Watering Routine
This is the first thing you want to look at when developing your plant care routine. How often do you need to water your plants? Do your plants need water every couple of days? Do you have specific plants that need water less than that? Are you doing one section of a room and then onto another section of a room?
It also really depends on how many plants you have and what kind.
If you just have three or four plants and they are plants like a Dieffenbachia or ZZ Plant, they are not going to need water very often.
You can probably go a few weeks to a month. It also depends on what you have it in and your environment.
So you just want to take a look at what you have going on in your own home and see how often you really need to be doing this.
Then you can develop a personalized routine. Revisit your routine every season because there will be seasonal changes in your plant room. This will be due to many factors such as seasonal lighting, heating, air conditioning, opening windows, or pests. If your plants have pests then they are going to possibly need water a little bit more often or just a little bit more maintenance in general. There are a lot of factors to take into consideration and this is why you have to develop what is best for yourself.
Plant Maintenance Routine
Next you want to take a look at the regular maintenance that you are going to be doing for your plants. Pruning off the dead leaves. Removing dead foliage. Trimming back vines or shaping vines around trellises. Just the general maintenance of the plants.
If your plant is growing quickly is it going to need a pole or trellis soon? Also, take a look at how dirty your plants are and how quickly they get how dusty. You always want to try to keep the leaves of your plants clean if possible. This will reduce pests and it will help your plant photosynthesize and grow better.
Maintenance things can be anywhere from just a little bit every single day or just once a week or it can be a once-a-month thing. It depends on what’s going to work best for you and you’re routine. If you really don’t have a lot to do in this part of the season then maybe just once a month works best for you but daily or weekly would be better for you if you had pests or it was a growing season.
Adjusting Your Plant
Some plants need to be turned regularly to keep their even shape.
This can be done once a week or whenever you’re watering them. This can also be done seasonally depending on what is going on with your plant. If your plant is going to be losing light it needs to be moved under a grow light. If Spring and Summer are coming up and there are plants that need a lot more light they need to be moved as well.
Generally, you want to look at rotating your plants and seasonally moving them every couple of months depending on where you are and what your environment is like. If you are down South in the tropics you may not see that very much of a seasonal difference. You may have one side of the house that gets a lot more light and you might have to shuffle your plants over there depending on how your plant room sits. Just take a look at the position of your plants every couple of months. For the most part majority of plants are not going to need to be moved except for every couple of months to adjust for seasonal things. This is something to add to your routine though.
Fertilization Routine
Fertilization is a big part of a plant care routine.
Also, fertilization is what is going to give the vitamins and nutrients to your plants. They absorb all of their food through photosynthesis from the sunlight. But the basic nutrients that allow them to do that are going to be found in fertilizers.
After you have chosen your fertilizer and figure out what’s going to be best for your plants.
You need to make sure that you are incorporating that into your routine and doing it on a regular basis. Every watering, once a week, once a month (if it’s slowly fertilizer every 3 months).
Take a look at how your plant has grown and how much you need to adjust the fertilizer as well. You definitely want to make sure that this is something that you are keeping track of and adding to your routine. This way you will be able to keep your plants happy and healthy by making sure that they are getting what they need.
All of this seems like a lot to do, but once you get on a routine basis and learn your plant after a couple of seasons it will be second nature. As you get to know your plant better and you research your plants more you are going to be able to do this.
It is OK to make mistakes and it is OK to miss a watering. Your plants are not going to die from it and if it does you can always try again. Everybody kills plants and accidents happen. Pests happen. Mistakes and routines happen. You are learning and adjusting adding new plants as you go along.
It is a very fun adventure and it is not a one-size fits. What works best for you is something that is very personal to you. Hopefully, this encouraged you to make your own houseplant care routine and not just rely on the proverbial “water every 3 days or water every 5 days”.
