Green in the Life – I Killed a Houseplant {Green in 365}

This is Day 262  of the Green in 365 series!

So, I’ve talked before about how great houseplants are to have in your home to help clean and purify the air. And I also claimed that they were easy to take care of, and relatively hard to kill. Honestly, I’m a pretty lazy houseplant caretaker – all I do is water my plants on a semi-regular basis, and I’ve managed kept them alive for several years.

Well. My track record is broken, because I recently killed my first houseplant.

After completely clearing off my kitchen counters, I decided maybe they were a little too bare. I didn’t want to put any of the appliances or kitchen stuff back on the counters, and I wanted to add something pretty to look at, so I asked my hubs to pick me up a flowering houseplant at the store.

Because he’s awesome, he came home with a small Gerbera Daisy plant, which is one of my favorite kinds of flowers. But little did I know that those suckers are HARD to take care of! 

There were a few blooms on it that were already opened and one or two more small ones that needed to grow and open up. I thought it would be a great chance to try my hand at growing an indoor flowering plant.

The flowers stayed nice for about a week,  but the immature blooms didn’t really grow at all, and some of the leaves started to get a little wilty. After the open blooms faded, I cut them back, hoping to revive the plant, but within another week, it looked like the above picture and I had to declare defeat. Bummer!

I’d still love to try again, because I’d really like to figure out how to grow indoor flowering plants, but I really have NO idea how I am supposed to care for them, keeping them flowering and growing, and keep them from dying.

I am happy to report however, that my non-flowering houseplants are still going strong. They got a little neglected this summer – during a busy season I forgot to water them for a few too many weeks. But, after looking pretty sad and wilty, they are bouncing back with more regular watering. One of them needs to be re-potted, so we’ll see how that goes, but I’m still a firm believe that anyone can grow non-flowering houseplants!

Now I need your help and advice! Have you successfully grown indoor flowering plants and can give me some tips?

 

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