The Potted Garden – 9 Tricks For Beautiful Flowers
For those in love with gardening, the limits of an apartment should not be an obstacle at all, but rather a context which challenges you to come up with smart solutions. The potted garden on your window sill or your balcony can be easily taken care of if you mind the trucks below here. Enjoy your little corner of natural energy, colors and scents!
If you water a plant in a pot and feel the soil dries out too quickly after watering, try this simple trick for keeping the moist longer. When repotting, place a damp sponge into the bottom of the pot before filling with soil again. It will act as a water reservoir and may help prevent a gusher if you accidentally overwater.
If you have acid-loving houseplants, such as fern or gardenias, pour some brewed tea in their containers instead of water once in a while or put some wet tea leaves into the soil to give the plants a lush, luxurious look.
If you don’t know if your plants get enough natural light, use the newspaper trick: sit by the plants and see if you can read the newspaper. If you can, then you’ll know the plants get the minimum amount of light in order to grow healthy. Moreover, the carbon dioxide in your breath may energize their gas exchange cycles.
If you leave on a long holiday, arrange the flower pots, without saucers, on a dampened plush towel in your tub; make sure the drain holes are in contact with the towel. Turn on the cold tap until water drips slowly onto the towel and the moisture in the fabric, which will act like a reservoir, will be drawn up by the roots.
If you feel the leaves of your plants look dull, then wipe each leaf with a soft cloth dipped in a half-and-half mixture of warm water and milk. You’ll get a nice shine, but there won’t be enough residue left behind to clog the leaf pores. Another trick is rubbing a tiny amount of mayonnaise on the leaves with a paper towel. In this way, they will stay bright and shiny for weeks and even months at a time.
Finally, after boiling eggs, let the liquid cool and then pour it in the pots. The nutrient-filled water will surely invigorate your potted plants.
It may seem incredible to you, but specialists say that if you spray flowers with hairspray, their fresh look will be preserved for longer.
Last, but not least, keep your flowers away from fruit and other plants in your home. Other flora can give off the gas, ethylene, which can cause flowers to wilt prematurely.
Finally, add a teaspoon each of vodka and sugar to water to keep freshly cut flowers looking great. The vodka kills the bacteria that would otherwise grow in the water, and the sugar provides nutrients the flowers need to thrive.
