5 Houseplants for Your Home Office this Fall

Fall is officially here and it’s time for a change of scenery. Whether you just want to liven up your workspace with this season’s colors or change up the room’s scenery, these houseplants are just what you’re looking for.

Unlike many outdoor plants, houseplants aren’t always affected by the seasons. Fortunately for us, there are many plants that have the Fall color schemes that we’re looking for.

If you are like me, your office is likely someplace you spend a daunting amount of time in. So why not spruce it up the best way we know how? Here are a few of my top picks for houseplants that will make your office feel like Fall.

Croton

When someone asks me what houseplant has the best Fall colors I automatically think of the Croton. This plant will amaze you with all of its combinations of sizes and colors. Its colors range from red to green and everything in between.

When placing this plant keep in mind that they vary in size and can easily become too much for a desk or small shelf. Crotons love warmer sunny spots, but be careful that it does not become too dry. Mist this plant regularly and it will thank you with its mesmerizing colors.

Prayer Plant

If you are wanting something up on a shelf or in a hanging basket then a Prayer plant is perfect! They have variegated leaves that fold up at night like hands praying and reveal a beautiful solid color underneath. The Prayer plant brings in many deep purples, pinks, and reds making it rich in color and catches one’s eye with its candy cane like leaves. I know I can’t help but feel calmer when I stare at this plant.

While they don’t require full sun, they are quick to dry up. Avoid overly sunny spots to make sure this plant does not get burnt by the sun as well.

Oxalis Triangularis

Oxalis are a beautiful little plant that, like its name suggests are shaped like triangles. The leaves come in deep colors and have dainty pastel flowers that bloom in the spring and summer months. Their darker red and purple colors are the perfect addition to an office and will help your concentration with its soothing scent.

Sunny spots are perfect for these little guys and they prefer to be kept cool and watered regularly in a well-draining soil. Though this plant is considered an unruly weed among gardeners, they can be contained and enjoyed indoors.

Polka dot plant

Hypoestes is commonly known as the polka dot plant. These beautiful plants are a great addition to a room that is lacking in color. They come in many sizes and have different kinds of polka dot patterns and variations. This plant will double as a winter accent to the room if you find the red leaf variation. To really bring out its amazing colors, place in a spot that gets bright light.

This plant is much more tolerable of warmer temperatures and loves a good misting due to its native tropical climates. This is an easier houseplant to care for and you will be rewarded with amazing colors and beautiful petite flowers in the Summer.

Alocasia

Alocasia are also known as Elephant ear plants and are easily spotted due to their huge leaves. These plants vary in color but most have purple under their leaves. The veins on the leaves also vary in color and accentuate them.

Keep in mind when placing this plant that the plant can grow over twelve feet. Alocasia love sunlight and water so place them by a bright window with frequent waterings to keep the soil moist. Keep this out of reach of children and pets due to this plant being toxic if ingested.

I hope you have enjoyed this Top 5 and look into these plants for your workspace! I personally have each of these colorful cuties and love having them around me.

Until next time, stay safe!

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5 Great Plants in My Home Office

Hello everyone!

I have been spending a huge amount of time in my home office which also doubles as my art studio. Since this room has a west-facing window and really great indirect light throughout the day, I decided to place a few plants in this room.

It really boosts moral to look over and see a beautiful green plant rooting for me! (Pun intended)

But, back to the main reason for this post. I have been able to narrow my favorites down to five from my studio and wanted to share them with you all in case you’re looking for a great addition to your favorite space.

Spider Plant

I have two Spider Plants that are super adorable! They have very long leaves with variations of green lining them. This plant is super bushy and heavy when happy. They even have little shoot that branch in warmer months that you can actually propagate or re-plant for a new Spider Plants!

Nerve Plant

The Nerve Plant is such an attractive plant and it feels just like it looks, FUZZY. The leaves have a fuzzy texture that pretty much covers the whole plant including the stems. I could just stare at this plant all day and obsess over its leaves. The Nerve Plant can also have wild red veins that remind me of the green and red candy canes.

Sansevieria

Sansevieria is also known as the Snake Plant. This guy is such a versatile plant and can grow happily in direct or low-light. The snake plant has an arsenal of different types of leaves, colors and shapes. My personal favorite is the Trifasciata which commonly have deep green leaves that have a lighter green pattern on them.

Monstera

Monstera deliciosa is an amazing plant that demands the attention of the room. You can keep it tamed and trimmed or let it grow along a moss pole to loom over any room. This plant is native to the tropical forests of Mexico and is known to grow more that sixty feet in their natural habitat and up to eight feet in your home. The leaves on my big guys are wider than my hand already!

ZZ Plant

The first time I saw the name Zamioculcas Zamiifolia I think I stared at it for a good five minutes trying to get the name out correctly. While it’s name is a mouthful, this plant is better known simply as the ZZ plant. I love the way its leaves are arranged along the stem and the fact that it has an upward growth and fills out nicely when taken care of.

There are so many other wonderful plants that weren’t included in this post. If you have an awesome plant in your favorite space, I’d love to know! Leave a comment down below and share your favorites.

Until next time!

How I Killed My First Succulent

Since starting my plant journey I have stuck to buying primarily green leafy plants and skipping over succulents. I have nothing against them, you just tend to see a lot of them in Arizona.

I decided to try my hand at growing after seeing a few beautiful succulents which I didn’t even know existed. Now if you remember in my first plant post, Finding the Light, I did buy two snake plants, but I thought I would try my hand at smaller succulents.

Burro’s Tail was a plant that I had seen in a local store’s outdoor garden area. It is ADORABLE! I just love how it looks and the name made me smile the whole way to the register.

These cuties are known for being a low maintenance plant and great for novice plant enthusiasts like yours truly. With this information I was pretty confident with buying them along with a bag of succulent and cactus soil mix.

Now, I’m known for jumping the gun and getting ahead of myself when I start a new project. With that said, succulents were no exception. I should have realized that if the little ones were doing fine in the soil mix they were in, then I could have left them in it. This is the first mistake I made.

Once I got home I immediately went out back and re-potted them. Just writing this and remembering what I did has me wincing. I decided to mix regular soil with the succulent mix I purchased. My calculations were off though, while you want well draining soil, this mix just had water flowing right through it.

The next mistake I made was just assuming that since it is a succulent that it would want to be put in the sunniest happiest spot in the house. That was also wrong. Just like store bought fish, plants need to be slowly introduced to their new environment when coming straight from the nursery.

Unfortunately, the little guys just couldn’t handle the shock from my mistakes and started losing its leaves, browning, and then ultimately dying.

Rushing head-first into a new project is something I do all to much and this was a learning experience I had to have. I’ve slowed down and read a lot more before taking on any plant project. While I know now the mistakes I made, I’m still a bit timid to buy another succulent.

Maybe this weekend I’ll be brave and pick up another pair. With hard work and patience, I know I can make this work!

Here Come the Waterworks

I have learned a lot and my last post on being conscious of light placement was just the start. This hasn’t been easy, but I’m confident that I can help these plants thrive. To quote Natsu Dragneel, “Don’t give up, the beginning is always the hardest, so let’s keep on going till the very end.”

It has been a real test of patience and confidence. There have been times when I thought that buying the plants was a waste and that I ruined their chances at having a ‘good’ owner. I have had to push through the self doubt and regret in order to see that this is a learning experience and that I am ready to learn from it.

Something that I have had a troublesome time adjusting to is the watering schedule for our green friends. You would think that plants would just need to be watered about every other day, right? WRONG.

I have learned the hard way that each plant has a sweet-spot with individual water needs. The books I purchased in my last post, Finding the Light, gave a lot of information on watering. However, I found that it was more of a generalization or a guideline. Very few of the books I have found address my exact situation.

Every plant is different and there are a lot of deciding factors when setting up a watering schedule. House temperature, light exposure, and humidity levels are my key variables. Since I can not meet all of these conditions, I found that I do not rely on the book’s ‘recommended watering schedule’.

Since I am new to the plant life, I decided to play it safe and follow the book as best I could. I should have listened to my instincts and watched for the queues that my plants were showing. Unfortunately, I will need to just apply what I have learned into caring for my other plants.

Things that I didn’t know were real problems when having house plants were disease, infestation, root rot, and fungus. I know they sound horrible, but trust me, to a first time plant mom like myself I was terrified. I was afraid to touch or even water them and ultimately ended up doing more harm than good.

While not all plants developed a problem, just having a few with at least one issue was enough to send me straight to good ‘ol Google for guidance. My main issue ended up being the amount and consistency of my watering schedule.

Once I was able to pinpoint the issue and researched the individual problems, I was ready to act!

My English Ivy developed a bad case of spider mites. Spider mites are super tiny insects that attack plants that are too warm and dry. This was a real issue for me because of the limitations I have with the thermostat in my home. We tend to keep it at a steady seventy-nine degrees fahrenheit throughout the end of spring and most of summer making it a tad too warm for this plant.

I tried as many online remedies as I could get my hands on, but in the end I just didn’t catch the infestation early enough. In my attempt to rid the plant of the invaders I tried misting it with soap infused water, rubbing alcohol diluted in water, and things like repotting and cleaning the leaves. There are methods I did not try, like insecticides and sprays that may have worked. I’m a bit worried to get another Ivy in the future, but I definitely know to keep it misted often and kept in a cooler location.

Root rot and waterlogged plants were another unfortunate issue that I ran into. If we think back to the original post for this series, Going Green, you’ll remember that I purchased a few pots along with the plants. Well, I made a beginner’s error and I didn’t think of the plant needing to have a way to drain out residual water.

One of the Golden Pathos was waterlogged and developed beginning signs of fungus. This was found when I was spritzing away at the plants one day and happened to check the soil moisture with my finger. There were little yellow-ish crumbs on the surface and the soil was too damp.

So, of course I was in a panic and ran out to my back patio to try and do some damage control. When I removed the plastic container from the ceramic pot, I saw my mistake.

There was about an inch and a half of water at the bottom and I could see that the roots had just been sitting in it this whole time. I felt so bad. Quickly I grabbed our spare bag of soil and started to slowly detangle the roots from the dirt.

Once that was finished I re-potted the plant and set it closer to the top shelf of the plant stand in the studio. It was a close call and I feel so bad that I over looked that detail when I was potting the plants. To make sure it wouldn’t happen again I bought terracotta pots with draining dishes from my local hardware store.

These issues happened within a week of each other and really got me down. I had a hard time even wanting to touch our plants in fear of ruining them so I got a handy little soil tester to help me out between waterings. A soil tester is a great little tool that is able to give a readout for ph levels, adequate sunlight, and moisture level when placed in the plants soil. It’s like a smartphone for your Monsteras!

This tool is so useful and has really helped me confidently monitor our plants. Once we were able to memorize the watering amounts and duration between waterings I was able to sleep easy.

It took a combination of instruction from the books, gaining appropriate tools, and whole lot of trial and error to reach this point. Some plants just can’t thrive in our home’s environment, and that’s ok. I have what I need now to ensure that I provide the best for my plants with conditions I have.

Remember, you need eight glasses of water a day, but your plants probably don’t!

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Finding the Light

Having house plants has been a great upgrade from our previously drab interior. Everything is so lively and the air feels lighter!

Now, I may have bitten off a little more than I can chew by buying so many plants. Finding the right light for each plant was such a process that it felt like a research project. I had bought two books on Amazon to familiarize myself with the new additions.

The first book I bought was Houseplants by Lisa Eldred Steinkopf. This book was a bit pricey at 20.00 dollars, but you always have the option on buying used. There was so much useful information in this book! It goes over things like watering, light, illnesses, plant toxicity, and a bunch of other topics that were really fun to learn about.

For the plants that weren’t covered, I decided to get a book that would go into more species of each generic name of plant. I was able to find The House Plant Expert written by D.G. Hessayon. THIS book! This book is a whole Plant Encyclopedia. I was able to narrow my searches down to the exact species of plant and find what it’s recommended light and water needs are.

Once I found enough information on each plant purchased, which keep in mind I bought a lot, I was ready to start placing them. I wanted to make sure I was setting the little guys up for success in the optimal home environment possible.

The light aspect was a bit tricky and I had to compromise on some of the placements. I was limited to placing plants in the living and dining rooms with east-facing windows, en suite with a south-facing window, and my art studio with a west-facing window.

It was a real challenge getting each plant in what I believed was the best position. I ended up buying the cutest plant stand to put in my studio. I love how sturdy this item is and I was able to place a lot of plants over by the one and only window in the room.

Now, I really wish I would have payed more attention to the humidity needs of each plant. I end up trying to at least mist them twice a day since I also have a full time job. Something that I am grateful for is dehydration warning wilt that plants have to let us know they are not getting enough water. It is easy to see this warning and make sure they get a thorough watering.

Unfortunately, I have gotten some of the placements for the plants incorrect and have had to relocate a few of them. As a result, my dining room table has turned into a small plant nursery. Thankfully my boyfriend is a great sport and hasn’t asked me to re-relocate them.

I also found that I have a great little nook in my living room that has two windows in the same corner for double the exposure! We ended up putting an older plant stand we had in the corner and it works perfectly!

Now, to address the placements. In the dining area we have Monsteras on the kitchen table along with our ZZ plant and a Pathos, The Chinese Evergreen is in the magical living room nook and a Golden Pathos is on the living room table. Snake plants have been put on the top rack of the plant stand in the studio with the most light along with our Burros tail and String of Hearts. On the lower shelf we have a Fittonia Albivenis (Nerve plant) and the last Pathos. Also in this room is the English Ivy and Money tree.

Now that the plants have their respective homes we will cross our fingers and hope that they thrive. Wish me luck!

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Going Green

I had been living with my boyfriend for about a year and wanted to make some kind of a change in our home. He had been living alone in the house for about five years. The color scheme and placement of furniture were already determined and lacking inspiration. Living in a home filled with just brown and white was a real change coming from my parents very bold, tasteful and colored home.

So, in trying to add a bit of color and personality to the house I decided to look into houseplants. I had really taken an interest with indoor plants and was excited to bring their varying shades and colors into our lackluster home. I absolutely love the idea of coming home to a house filled to the brim with big, beautiful, green plants. However, that idea and the reality were very eye-opening.

In my haste to fill my home with plants I headed over to my local home improvement store. I had done at least some research before I bought just any old house plant.

I was on a mission to obtain relatively ‘easy’ plants for beginners. Unfortunately, when I arrived at the garden department the list I had prepared was shoved deep into the void of my purse. I quickly favored plucking plants from the first shelf that I could reach instead.

Now, I know it sounds bad but I did look at the plant tags to see whether or not they would be a good fit for my home. Sadly, I decided it was a good idea to stick with low-light plants considering I live in Arizona. Which lets be honest, it isn’t easy on the wallet to have light streaming through the windows all day. Another thing I had to pay close attention to was the chance that these plants could be poisonous to my pups back at home. For some reason this wasn’t displayed on the actual plant tag and I had to google the plants I was unsure of to make sure I was not bringing a death trap into my home.

In the end I definitely ended up with a plethora of plants. I snagged Monsteras, an English Ivy, Snake plants, a Chinese Evergreen, a ZZ plant, a Prayer plant, a few Ferns, a Money tree, and a few potted Pothos. Next, I was on to the pots and containers for my chosen plants. Once I had pretty much filled up my cart I was out of there, eager to get home and spread the plants throughout my home.

So, $85.00 and 15 minutes later, I was wrestling plants inside my house and finally ready to set everything up. An additional hour and a half later and I was finished. The plants looked happy, the house was smelling great, and I was happily exhausted.

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