Naomi – Author at Plaster & Disaster

I just walked around my house and counted, and I have 33 houseplants. It is one of the first things that people usually notice and comment on about my home, and one of my favorite features, as well. I grew up in a house positively crammed with plants (my mother probably has over 80) so to me it is a big part of what makes a home feel complete.

It is always a little confusing to me when people say that they can’t keep plants alive. Most of my plants I’ve had for years, and my oldest has been with me for eight years, or since I got my first apartment. Sure, some new plants “don’t make it” pretty early in their stay with me (RIP) but I’ve usually found that if I can get a plant adjusted to its new spot it will last a long time.

Keeping plants isn’t time consuming and it isn’t hard – at least, not my way of doing it. (I spend maybe 10 minutes a week on my plants, plus another 2 hours a year for a bit of repotting.) So I thought I’d share a few tips about how I care for my plants. Now, these tips aren’t necessarily the right way to care for plants. In fact, most expert advice will probably disagree with me. But this is what works for me, and what I think makes it incredibly easy to keep plants alive.

Easy houseplant tips:

Essentially, it comes down to picking plants that like you, rather than picking plants that you like.

Water on a set schedule (and buy plants that like your schedule)

The most common complaint I hear from people is that it is hard to remember to water your plants. I’m there – during the week I am a crazy person who can hardly respond to text messages (sorry, Mom) so there is no way I am remembering to check whether my plants’ soil is the right degree of moist. Instead, I water my plants once a week, every Sunday. If it is time for bed on Sunday and I haven’t watered my plants, I either can’t go to bed yet or I need to try to make Brad do it.

Not every plant will be happy with a once per week watering schedule – so I only buy plants that are. If a label says that the plant needs to stay evenly moist, I know it isn’t for me no matter how much I like it. I look for plants that are hardy or drought-resistant. Plants that you often see in office buildings are also a safe bet!

Within this schedule, you can also customize a little. I often skip a week when watering my cacti so they can dry out completely every now and then, and some plants I totally drench each time because I know they’d really prefer to be watered more frequently.

Just leave them alone (and buy plants that like where you’ve left them)

I often read about moving a plant around to find a space in the house that it likes. I never do that. I only move my plants for two reasons: 1) because they’ve grown too much and can’t physically fit in their spot any more, and 2) very temporarily, to stage photos for this blog.

Plants get accustomed to their environment and will be shocked if the light changes too much. They can even get sunburned if they’re not used to direct light and you put them right into the window! In my experience, once acclimated, plants like to stay where they are much more than they like to be in a space that fits their supposed needs. I once moved a shade loving plant – which had been thriving on my sunny windowsil for over a year – to a shady spot on someone’s well-meaning advice, and it turned to mush within a month.

I don’t have a lot of south-facing windows in my house and most of my window spaces are petty packed, so I don’t buy light-loving plants any more. This is a pretty common theme here: buy the plants that will like the environment you can easily give them, rather than try to shape your world to what your favorite plants want. ~~Real, adult responsbilities~~ that 5th episode of Transparent will always trump houseplant care.

Feed them (but not all the time)

Plants like food. It helps them grow and makes them look awesome. I buy food that is easy to give them – i.e., a general purpose liquid food with a little dropper, because I know that I’ll always be too lazy to mix the powdered kind or give different types of food to different plants. If you’re interested, this is the kind I use (it is an affiliate link, so read our policies to learn more).

However, plants don’t need food all the time. They should only get it in the spring and summer when it is bright and they are growing. Also, they shouldn’t get it too often or they’ll grow too much and become leggy. I am sure there are real rules out there for how often you should really do it, but I tend to feed them about four times whenever I remember between April and August, and that seems to be working fine.

Have a repotting day once a year

Because I am lazy, I really only get my act together to re-pot my plants about once a year. At this point, I gather up all of the ones that have outgrown their current homes and do it in one big session. (This is also super convenient because I can move smaller plants into the pots that larger ones are leaving behind, thus saving me a lot of money on buying extra pots.) I probably do about a third of my plants each year.

I haven’t seen any problems from having plants wait for their new home. When I do it, I am sure to move them into pots with plenty of room to grow – repotting is VERY tramatic for plants, so you don’t want to overdo it!

Clear dead leaves and don’t keep sad plants

Finally, I give myself a break. Plants are supposed to make you feel good, not guilty. Even healthy plants will have dead leaves or stems now and then. I clear these off pretty quickly (or, rather, whenever fancy company is coming) so that plants look as healthy as they are.

I also don’t feel bad if a new plant isn’t working out. As soon as it is clear that it isn’t a fit, I get rid of it. No use in prolonging the inevitable! Besides – since I only buy plants that are going to be a fit for my lifestyle and my house – this rarely happens.

What do you think – do you have trouble keeping houseplants alive? What tips do you have? Favorite houseplants that seem to live through anything?

My worst decorating habit is letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. I always want to hold out for just the right piece or for the inspiration to strike, rather than make a change that will get me 80% of the way there.

In some ways this is good, because I really do enjoy the process of visioning and hunting. If I took the quick way all of the time I don’t think I would have as much fun with it! However, this tendency also leads me to leave some spaces unfinished for literally years, and us living with layout or storage options that are less than ideal. So I’m trying to fight against this natural instinct now and then, and so far have been pretty happy with my half-assed results!

So in that spirit, here is the quick story of a little change I recently made in our “entryway.” “Entryway” is in quotes, because you enter our house right into the kitchen/dining area so we don’t have an actual hallway or great storage. I constructed a makeshift system by putting down a little rug and calling it shoe storage.

Behold our “entryway.”

Meanwhile, our storage cabinet across the room is piled and crammed with random stuff (that is where we keep pens, tools, lists, bills, etc.) and the dining room table was virtually always piled with mail.

You better believe I cleaned off a lot of junk to take this photo.

I’ve been looking for the perfect piece to put in the “entry area” right next to the door. I was thinking something like an old child’s desk: small enough to fit in the space, and with a gap underneath where we could still keep shoes. (The Advisory Council a.k.a. Brad doesn’t like the idea of opening some kind of shoe cabinet to put away his shoes…) However, I hadn’t found just the right piece even after a couple years of “keeping my eye out” while at thrift stores or antique fairs.

Meanwhile, I’ve also had this piece for a couple of years.

I got it off of craigslist for about $40. I thought it was adorable (Sage or anyone who has gone thrifting with me will tell you, I have a thing for cabinets) and for a great price. I had a hope that I would find a complementary cabinet with a similar look and dimensions so that we could use them as bedside tables. However, the right thing didn’t materialize, and eventually I went another route to get that project done.

It was basically dead weight, hanging out in my basement-of-hoarder-doom until that flooded, and then sitting around our unfinished three-season room… until now! While it isn’t absolutely perfect, it does work pretty well for the “entryway” in terms of size and storage.

First, I had to spruce it up a bit. I got this inspiration while home alone for the day and it was too heavy to carry on my own, so I rigged up a complicted system in which I could drag it around the house on a fleese blanket. (Don’t tell Brad that I used his blanket for this alternate purpose.)

While it is made of nice wood and is a solid, well-constructed piece, the finish wasn’t in great shape.

I used our old favorites – Howard’s Restore-A-Finish and Feed-N-Wax (affiliate links – read our policies) – to fix it up.

I’ve touted this stuff before, and they are still my go-to for fixing up old furniture. It really brings life back to the wood, and is really fun to use. Wiping it on is like erasing knicks and scratches!

I’m really happy to have this piece I love in our main living area now! I think it goes well (if not perfectly in the spot) and looks pretty good.

It is great to have the extra storage, too. While this may not look like the beautiful, organized drawers that you usually see on DIY blogs, trust me when I say it is a big improvement over out old system. It will be great to have these frequently-used tools in a spot where they are easy to grab.

This will also be a spot where we can pile mail. Mail piles anywhere aren’t ideal… but they are more ideal here than on the kitchen table! And that is real life. I think I’ll pick out a pretty tray to keep it in so it seems organized.

Maybe it is age (hello, 30) or maybe it is how busy I have been lately, but I’m really embracing these 80% there improvements to give me a space I want to live in and enjoy NOW, rather than later. What do you think? Do you spring to action for the quick fix, or wait for the perfect plan?