Houseplant care
13 guides in 4 sections
Watering, light, pots and feeding for plants that live indoors. Most houseplant trouble comes from one of those four, so these guides start with how to read the plant and the compost before you change anything. New arrivals, gifts and cuttings are here too.
Watering
Holiday watering: what actually keeps plants alive while you are awayWhich plants cope with two weeks unwatered, which need a wick or a sitter, and why grouping plants together buys more time than any gadget.
How to tell if a plant needs waterThe finger, the weight, the leaf and the pot. Four ways to read a plant's thirst, and what overwatering actually is.
Rescuing an overwatered plantHow to tell overwatering from underwatering, how much root damage is recoverable, and the exact rescue steps once compost has stayed wet too long.
Light and the seasons
Light levels explained room by roomBright indirect, medium and low, in a house you can walk around. How to measure light without a meter, and which way your windows face.
Moving plants between seasonsHow to move a houseplant outdoors without scorching it, when to bring it back, and what to check before it crosses the threshold.
Pots, soil and feeding
Choosing a pot: size, drainage and material in one placeWhy a drainage hole is not optional, how much bigger a new pot should be, and which material actually suits which plant.
Feeding: what the numbers on the bottle mean, and when to stopWhat N, P and K actually do, how much and how often to feed, the signs of overfeeding, and why most houseplants need none at all in winter.
Repotting without killing the plantWhen a plant really needs a bigger pot, why one size up is the rule, what compost to use, and the three weeks afterwards.
New plants and cuttings
Choosing a plant as a giftMatching a gift plant to the room and the person who will actually be keeping it alive, rather than to whatever looks best in the shop.
Plants for the festive seasonChristmas cactus, amaryllis and cyclamen through the winter holidays, and why the same plant means a different month depending which hemisphere it is grown in.
Propagating from cuttings: the three methods that actually workWater cuttings, leaf cuttings and division: which method suits which plant, how long rooting really takes, and when to pot a cutting on.
Six southern African plants you probably own without knowing itBird of paradise, jade, string of pearls, string of hearts, clivia and agapanthus all come from southern Africa, and knowing that tells you exactly how to grow them.
Your plant just arrivedA real week-by-week timeline for a plant that came by post: what transit stress actually looks like, and why the instinct to fix it straight away is usually wrong.