- Hey, I'm Darryl Cheng.
I'm the creator of House Plant Journal.
I've got about 100 plants in my home.
And I'm the author of The New Plant Parent.
If there are five things that you need to know
about indoor gardening, here they are in five minutes.
First is lighting.
Light for the plant is the same as how we humans
wouldn't be able to cook our food
unless our oven was working.
Without the right light,
the plant cannot make its own food through photosynthesis.
First, your plant needs to see
as much of the sky as possible.
That really means that it has to be against the window.
And then secondly, you have to consider the number of hours
that the sun shines directly on the plant.
Now for shade and bright indirect light,
that goes from zero to two hours
'cause you know, the sun moves across the sky.
But for something like succulents and cacti,
that number may need to be up to four to six hours
of direct sunlight.
Second is watering.
Once the light is right, then there's really only
three strategies to watering.
The first applies to cacti and succulents,
where you're going to wait until the soil is completely dry.
And then at that point, give it a good soaking.
The second applies to most tropical foliage,
and that is where you're gonna wait till the soil
dries maybe to about half.
And the easiest way to tell is to lift the pot
and if it's a little lighter than what it used to be
right after you watered, then it's time to water again.
And the third strategy, keep the soil evenly moist.
This applies to really delicate leaf plants,
something like maidenhair fern.
Three is starting seedlings.
We talked about light and watering
and how the balance between the two is really critical.
When you're starting seedlings,
you're essentially starting like little babies.
So if you have something like an AeroGarden,
then it takes care of lighting and watering for you.
As you can see, it has a built-in LED light
that is extremely bright.
I'm just gonna bring out my trusty light meter
to show you an example of the light
that comes from the AeroGarden compared to natural light.
We're getting close to the same readings,
maybe even a bit higher.
And the difference with the AeroGarden is the lights
stay on for 18 hours.
And that's the perfect light to start seedlings with.
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One tip is that you have to make sure we adjust the height
so that it sits just above the leaves, so here.
That means when you're starting the AeroGarden,
you're gonna start it at the lowest setting.
And the next thing is you wanna fill the water
in this little reservoir here.
The AeroGarden will tell you when it's time
to add more water to it.
Four is repotting.
See the AeroGarden herbs, once they reach a certain size,
then it's time to transplant them to soil
and grow them outside.
This basil here has gotten quite tall
and it's starting to even flop over a little bit.
So we're gonna pot it into a regular nursery pot
that has drainage holes.
First thing you wanna do is take some regular potting mix.
Line the bottom of the pot with it.
So with one hand, you're gonna stabilize the plant.
And with your other, just put the soil around the plant
and shake it so that it evenly distribute the soil.
And when you fill to the top,
then you're going to gently tamp down the soil
around the stems.
Once the plant reestablishes new roots in the new soil,
it will become sturdy and grow up towards the light.
Now for repotting houseplants,
we want to make sure that the plant actually
needs to be repotted.
And the clear sign of that is when
roots have been poking out from underneath
the drainage hole.
And when we repot, we want to go into the next size up,
so something not much more than two inches more in diameter.
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Finally, it's important to leave room for nature.
Quite often when we see plant care advice,
it gets us really worried about all the little things
that could possibly go wrong.
Like this plant for example.
All of these lines on the trunk here
are scars of leaves that have fallen off.
It means that leaves need to fall off
in order for new ones to grow.
And that's perfectly natural.
And I think that's a kind of more healthy way
to look at plant care.
You take care of your environmental conditions,
your lighting, your watering.
You try your best with the care,
and then let nature take its course.
So there's your five tips on plant care.
I hope you've enjoyed them.
If you wanna learn more about the fundamental of plant care,
check out my book, The New Plant Parent.
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