AC really effects humidity in the house. I've had the hardest time with house plants because of AC. I got a cheap humidity sensor off Amazon. My humidity is 45% and that's terrible for a lot of house plants. While outside humidity is usually much higher. In all my 70s house plant books they always spoke of using pebble trays with water in them for the plants to sit on and misting the plants a couple times a day.
The most fool proof house plant is a Snake Plant (Sansevieria). There are many types, my favorite is the dwarf ones, they're super cute. They barely ever need watering, almost any level of light. Another good one for indoors that doesn't care about drafts or humidity or super high light is a ZZ plant or Zanzibar Gem (Zamioculcas). Let dry between watering, I barely ever water mine.
Plants I have trouble with inside I usually just stick on my patio and if they do well then so be it. I then try to look for plants that don't care too much about humidity/ drafts and so on. This is my favorite book on houseplants. It explains a ton, very easy read too.
Absolutely! Check out r/SavageGarden, as well as The Savage Garden by Peter D’Amato of California Carnivores (which is also an excellent resource for purchasing carnivorous plants).
If you’re looking for outdoor carnivores, Venus flytraps are excellent beginner plants! As are many Sarracenia (the North American pitcher plants), particularly Sarracenia purpurea. They all need dormancy, and you can keep them outdoors year round in most of the U.S.
As for windowsill plants, some of the Mexican Pinguicula or the tropical sundews (Drosera)—particularly Drosera capensis—are very easy keepers! The Pinguicula are very cool because they’re succulents during their winter dormancy, which is triggered by drier substrate, and sundews don’t require any dormancy at all.
This and a grow light maybe? I really love this guy's ideas. Salads made purely of microgreens. Can you imagine the nutrients?
How Not To Kill Your Houseplant: Survival Tips for the Horticulturally Challenged is a great starter book, very simple and easy to read :)
Love the illustrations in your book though!
The best book I have red for growing is
There is not much info about autos but it is full of good info. I met one of the guys who helped write it and he was a really cool guy.
Aww I’m pretty hit or miss but when I first joined this group someone gifted me this book how not to kill your house plant and it helped me a lot.
I follow several accounts on Instagram that focus on what I think you’re looking for.
One is @houseplantjournal He has a book, which when searched on amazon gave plenty of recommendations on other books.
Also, the Instagram accounts @thejungalow is great and I believe they also have a book, and @thesill if you’re in nyc or LA offer courses.
How Not to Kill Your Houseplant - lots of great photos and info!https://www.amazon.com/How-Kill-Your-Houseplant-Horticulturally/dp/1465463305/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?adgrpid=131385441822&gclid=Cj0KCQiAsdKbBhDHARIsANJ6-jfKAMu2dLEg_U-mxX7K9W6Jkl6_XFW6C2ChJ2sBQlCvuyCw9xngoA4aAi2REALw_wcB&hvadid=585854530962&hv...
I’m growing soil sprouts this winter. Super easy, no grow lights required. Ready to eat 7-10 days after you plant the seeds
https://www.amazon.com/Year-Round-Indoor-Salad-Gardening-Nutrient-Dense/dp/1603586156
then perhaps consider lions mane :) although LM might not be for the ‘absolute’ beginner, for example if you’re not comfortable with sterilization steps in the process.
however, if it helps, i can recommend this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Essential-Guide-Cultivating-Mushrooms-Techniques/dp/1612121462
Possibly related to https://www.amazon.com/-/es/Peter-DAmato/dp/1607744104/ref=sr_1_1?__mk_es_US=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&crid=1HP3LGH0PNCWG&keywords=the+savage+garden&qid=1651412737&sprefix=the+savage+garden%2Caps%2C149&sr=8-1 , a well known book about carnivorous plants in the hobby.
> I have to learn how to grow them now! That sounds like a fun project
Read Year-round indoor salad gardening.
Yes, LOTS of benefits and very easy.
I’d recommend Houseplant Journal. He has a ton of good info and even has a book fittingly called The New Plant Parent.
I bought this book to help me not kill as many plants:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1419732390/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I haven't bought plants since buying it just yet, but I'm hoping it helps. I also downloaded Planta to help with this.
I bought a Bellroy tech pouch that I ended up not loving as much as my previous low-frills solution, but it's definitely nice for people who have really big bags or use totes as their main work/laptop bag.
Bought a lot of sweats at Roots on a trip to Canada, and I must say that as someone who's not usually into sweats, I'm really impressed with how good these feel. We'll see if they can last.
Comics: I bought the entire Paper Girls book last month, but haven't started reading it just yet. I'm really excited for Saga to continue again next month, so I'll also have to re-read those. This is easily the book I've read the most, since I've re-read the whole thing in it's entirety each time a new book has come out.
Mr.Grow It this book is really great for beginners and doesn’t complicate too much. Everything in the book you can find online, but this is a nice resource.
How Not to Kill Your Houseplant: Survival Tips for the Horticulturally Challenged is a good book for beginners.
I like The House Plant Expert by Dr. D.G. Hessayon. It’s out of print but you can find a nice used copy on eBay or Amazon. Each page contains full color photos with tons of advice.
Then I often do a search on this sub using the name of the plant and find a good thread (like this one).
You want a beginners book right not some Encyclopedia and other shit you won’t understand without a few month of research before hand check out 7 Steps To Grow Cannabis: A Complete Beginner's Guide To Growing Cannabis Indoors
By Mr grow it he is also on YouTube
It’s on Amazon great for newbies
https://www.amazon.ca/Steps-Grow-Cannabis-Complete-Beginners-ebook/dp/B08G2PL8KX
Hey OP,
I've been there, and I've been you. And I know how sad it is to be told to try one of those "easy" plants after having done your best with the ones you actually like. There was one book that really changed the game for me, and it was The New Plant Parent by Darryl Cheng (not sponsored, lol). It definitely isn't a walk in the park to get into indoor gardening. It's easy to get overwhelmed, especially knowing that you bought from great places and got the best tools money could possibly buy. Just keep at it. All the plants you listed above have interesting care tips in that book, too.
I felt really miserable when the first few plants I propagated ended up dying. But then I realized that dying plants and gardening overall kinda taught me a couple things about patience, for myself and for those finicky green creatures. It also taught me to keep trying, just like how plants will fight to live in even the most unsuitable conditions.
Do you know the difference between a master gardener and a beginner? The master gardener has killed a thousand more plants. Even if you decide not to read it I'll leave you with this: plant parenting and gardening is a life-long learning experience. We're all cheering for you.
My cactus looked very much like yours earlier this year. The leaves were reddish on the ends. But this book that I got called How Not to Kill Your Houseplant told me that if it is red that it might be getting too much direct sunlight. It was in a windowsill so I moved it over so it gets bright indirect sunlight and since then it has a much more green color and it has tripled in size! Just something to think about!
There are a lot of variables here and it depends on how much you want to invest. I would recommend buying a book on growing (Marijuana Horticulture: The Indoor/Outdoor Medical Grower's Bible) by Jorge Cervantes is a great cheap one on Amazon. You will get higher quality info from there than on Reddit and it served me very well and led me to a successful first grow. Personally, I use 400-watt HPS bulbs and that works great and I don't use autoflower seeds because the automatic hormone change makes cloning difficult. I hope that helps but there is far too much info that you need than what can be covered in a comment due to how many variables there are.
I would recommend:
This one https://www.amazon.ca/New-Plant-Parent-Develop-House-Plant/dp/1419732390
And this one https://www.amazon.ca/How-Kill-Your-Houseplant-Horticulturally/dp/1465463305
I am using mostly information from this book to get started, I definitely recommend it! But I've found it more helpful to have the bullet points all in one place in a way I can sort by sun preferences or whatnot 😊😊
Check out this method of growing "soil sprouts" indoors for salad. It's fun and so tasty. I've been doing sunflower, buckwheat and pea shoots. Link to Amazon book.
The Houseplant Expert by D.G. Hessayon is a great start. It's older (the one I have is published in 1991) but is an excellent reference to have on hand. It covers general care (understanding the different types of light in your home) and has an A-to-Z guide for different types of houseplants with care advice. It might be hard to find a new copy, but cheap, used copies are relatively easy to find (I bought mine on Amazon here).
I’ve kicked the micro greens around since last summer when my wife showed me some at the farmer’s market. I spoke with the guy for a while and learned that there are starter kits online. I did find this book on Amazon, too:
Year-Round Indoor Salad Gardening: How to Grow Nutrient-Dense, Soil-Sprouted Greens in Less Than 10 days https://www.amazon.com/dp/1603586156/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_AfqDEbFWD6Y3D
I’ve been kicking around a vertical hydroponic garden, that’s what led me to testing the UV lamp in the first place.
I recommend you get Jorge Cervantes' <em>Marijuana Horticulture</em>. It will take you from what it takes to get started with your first grow all the way up to how to grow top shelf bud. And it will allow you to troubleshoot problems when they occur so you know how to fix them. Cervantes is a subculture legend, and he's been revising and updating this book for 35 years. The ebook is $10; put it on your phone and you'll have the reference for life.
r/microgrowery
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r/spacebuckets is the idea of building a small grow bucket using primarily goods that can be obtained from a hardware store.
Read the book and replace your negative connotation with a positive one.
We tend to change things too quickly for plants to be able to adjust.
Calathea and Maranta like to be evenly damp. They cannot be sitting in water.
A very common scenario is you take a plant home (which causes stress, with environmental change) you do fine with keeping up watering until it starts to look a little sad and then water it a whole bunch and now the plant that was stressed by the under watering is now drowning. Changing all these things at once just puts it that much more under stress, making the plant more susceptible to pest, disease and so on.
A lot of plants need special conditions too. Most house plants won’t put up with a huge draft or a fan on them constantly, they need humidity. They will dry out too quickly. If you partially cover a plant with plastic after getting it you can slowly introduce it into another environment and with time many plants can adjust to less than ideal conditions, however many are less forgiving.
It’s hard to keep up with plants with our busy lives, best rule of thumb is to check the soil before watering, use a wooden/bamboo skewer or a decent water meter or even your finger, stick it into the soil, the top of the soil is not a good representation of the over all soil conditions.
Use Reverse Osmosis, Spring, Rain or Distilled water for house plants as they collect/buildup a lot of minerals and what not in their pots.
Here’s my favorite book on House plants, seriously indispensable information in this book. The House Plant Expert.
Even as a horticulturist I’ve killed many plants (probably far more than the average person lol), the important thing is learning each time.