How to Care for Indoor Tropical Plants

Hi this is Yolanda Vanveen and in this segment I am going to talk about how to care for indoor tropical plants. Now a tropical plant is any plant that is in the tropics and the tropics is any area that is close to the equator so any area that does not have a Winter cooling time so the plants that are from the tropics cannot get cold at all so we use them as house plants. So the first rule of thumb with your indoor plants is don't let them go below 60 degrees because even if they don't go to 50 or 40 it can still do damage because tropical plants really like it warm and they like humidity so if you have a brand new house that has really no air, open a window here and there or put it in your kitchen or your bathroom where there is a lot of moisture because tropical plants do need some moisture. So even if you buy a little mister and mist them here and there that helps a lot and then you need to remember never let your indoor plants just sit in water because the roots will rot, the thing that's the number one killer. So make sure that your containers are not covered up and that they have air so either sit them on a plate or on a tray but never let them sit in water where they are just soaking and they never dry out. So the trick with indoor plants is treat them like they would be in nature. They get rained on just really really hard and then they dry out then they get rained on again so you want to make sure and dry them out and another easy trick to water them and taking care of them is in the shower. So just by throwing all of your tropical plants in your bathtub once a month or once every couple months and just putting your shower head on fine mist, not too hard of a mist and just kind of mist them all and get them really wet and then let them dry naturally and even if it's a couple of hours then shake them off and then put them back on the trays or into the areas that they were originally and I have found that by giving your tropical plants a shower they will thrive and by adding a little bit of compost or potting soil periodically to give them a little more nutrition you shouldn't need to fertilizer them much because I have found they don't need a lot of fertilizer if they have good soil. So if they get root bound you can put them into a bigger pot but they do like to be on the small size as far as the pots go. The like to be crowded. So remember that when you are planting your house plants or your tropical plants, not to give them too big a pot either because they kind of like to be on the root bound side and if you follow those simple rules you will have a lot of plants in your house that will just thrive because you are taking care of them.