Transcription
Here are the five must-have house plants for your home.
Hello guys and welcome back to the cozy jungle. Now, I want to go through the five key house plants that I believe will be the best for your homes. Now, the reason I say that they're the best for your homes is because they're easily maintainable, easy to care for, they can grow to huge heights, they can grow to the small sizes. It really depends on how you choose to have your house plant, but they are perfect, versatile, very hardy, long-lasting, easy to care for, and is everything that you need to have an aesthetically pleasing home with house plants. They can go in any room, in any environment, and they'll still do particularly well.
Now, we're going to start off with probably the hardest one to look after, and that's going to be the Birds of Paradise. Now, the Birds of Paradise, you can get them pretty much anywhere now. They used to be quite rare, and they used to be very expensive. Now, they're pretty affordable, and you can get them in places like being cute. They're really, really straightforward, and within reason, they are very direct in what they need.
Now, to go through the list of the main things that's needed for a Bird of Paradise. First, you need to identify how big you want the plant to actually be. It's a slow process. Now, within a couple of years, you can expect the plant to mature if you get a plant that's roughly about 30 cm in height. For it to mature, it comes close towards this. This is the second year of it growing now, so this is going to get to a point where it won't be on a stand at all. It'll be at the floor, and it'll be a similar height to me.
Now, again, that all depends on the size of the pot. That will make a big difference as to how much it's going to grow, but something to note with the Birds of Paradise is that you don't actually need a very deep pot or a big pot. They don't have a big amount of root systems. So, it's important that if you do decide to get a Bird of Paradise, it doesn't need to be in a very large pot, which works extremely well if you decide to place it in a position of a room like a living room, you don't have to have this gigantic pot sitting somewhere in that room. So, when it comes to looking at your Bird of Paradise, you pick a palm pot that doesn't have a very long pot size. It isn't deep in any way. And the width doesn't need to be particularly big, either.
So, once you have that, you make sure you have a good aerated amount of soil within that. Once you've done that, that's like putting bark in or any kind of um beads or clay that can soak most of the water, but it can also be drained through very, very well. Now, as much as we want to water our plants very consistently, the last thing we want is to have water being stuck within the pot and then it creating root rot. Considering that this doesn't have a big root system, we don't want to damage it.
Now, once we have that soil and we have the right size pot, we can then decide to put it in indirect to direct sunlight. It absolutely thrives on getting sunshine. If you're putting this in a dark spot, the likelihood is is it's not going to survive. So, we've got to make sure that you put this plant in a nice area where it has a lovely view of the of the window. You can see a perfect amount of sunshine coming through and it's got quite a good amount of sunlight happening throughout the day. So, great getting a grow light for something like this would also be useful during the winter season.
>> [snorts] >> So, this does grow fairly quickly. I've already got another leaf coming through, which is going to reach a higher height to what these plants are. Now, something really cool about this plant as well is that when it's ready to sprout a new leaf, one will die. And one will die at the very bottom portion, and it will continue to grow bigger and bigger. So, a great way of knowing that your plant is ready to start to grow is some of the bottom leaves will start to turn yellow and brown and eventually they'll fall off because a new system's going to come into place. If you're not seeing a new leaf, but the the leaves are dying, that shows that you're not looking after it correctly, and you need to identify what it is that you're doing that's not giving it the right nutrients or water or sunlight to keep it going.
Humidity will play a big part in this as well. It needs a lot of humidity. You can wipe the leaves if they're collecting a little bit of dust. You can spray. You can get a humidifier and keep it at the right position to get all of that spray out. The temperature sits in quite well with most house plants as well. So, between 20 to 26° for it to do particularly well.
Now, I would say for a plant like this, especially if you're planning on growing it a little bit bigger, I would probably put this in a living room. It's a big statement piece. So, when you walk in, you can see this beautiful, large leafed and tall plant. It is very beautiful. And if you get it in the right conditions, it will flower, and that's something even more spectacular. So, definitely worthwhile having as a house plant.
So, that's the first recommendation. The second one is the one that's also behind me, which is the Monstera. Now, the Monstera I've been growing for a good while now, and the leaves are absolutely huge. Now, when I started this, it was only again within about a 30 cm pot, and it and it had multiple. So, it wasn't just the one Monstera, it was three of them that were starting to sprout through. Now, at the time of when I first started all of this and looking after house plants, I didn't realize that that was the case. I thought it was just one plant. But, it turns out it was multiple. So, I split them up into three different sections. I grew one, one died doing an experiment. The other one did particularly well, and this one has been the best one overall.
So, again, it all depends on how big you want the plant to be, how much of the fenestrations you want to have showing, and the style in which you want the plant to be. If you want a slightly bushier Monstera, you buy you keep the multiple in that same pot. Just allow it to grow, and just try to have a good maintenance to make sure that they don't get big enough that they start dropping. Equally, you can get a moss pole, which is like what I've got at the moment, to help it climb up something, which is what I've done here, which is why all the leaves are facing a certain position, which is towards the window.
Now, again, going back to making sure we get a good amount of sunlight, is we want to make sure that this is facing towards a window. Monstera, plus a few other types of plants, especially ones that have aerial roots or nodes, is an indicator that they have a back to them. And that's something that most people don't know about when they get into looking after house plants, is that some plants have a back to them. So, it's important that you understand that if you see an aerial root coming out, which you can kind of briefly see in the background here, it means that it's ready to latch on to something, which means the leaf should be facing in the opposite direction. So, when you have a look at your house plants, somethings like a a Devil's Ivy or a Pothos, the Monstera that we've got behind me here, they'll have nodes or they have some kind of aerial roots which latch on to something to climb up, but then face the outside towards the sunlight. So, bear that in mind when it comes to looking after the Monstera or any other plant that has those things.
Now, the Monstera is another beautiful showpiece that you can have in the living room, you can have in your bedroom, you can have it in the conservatory, it really doesn't matter. You can even have it in your bathroom, they can be beautiful in the bathroom as well. But, it is a beautiful plant. It's one probably one of the cheapest and most affordable plants you could ever get. You can get them absolutely everywhere. They sell them everywhere. So, definitely worthwhile you getting that type of a plant. They can grow to a massive size, there's even bigger than the ones that I've got here with the leaves. They can go to huge huge positions. They'll have fenestrations and holes within each section here. The fenestrations get even bigger and larger. They are beautiful.
Now, you can get a variety of these, and just recently they've become a little bit more affordable. So, I've got a Thai Constellation, which is just next to us here. Now, I'll show you in the video. Now, this Thai Constellation you can get, again, pretty much anywhere now. It's a lot more affordable than what it was a few years ago. Another option is the Monstera Albo, and then you move into others like the mint and everything else. It can get quite expensive if you choose it to, but they are really good options for you to have if you wanted a little bit more color other than green. And they can be pretty beautiful. So, again, it's another big showpiece, another big statement that you can have in your living room, or they can fit well in any part of the house as long as it gets indirect sunlight.
The soil is very much the same as well. It also needs something very similar to what we have with the Birds of Paradise. So, it needs to make sure there's a good amount of drainage, and we're not getting any moisture sitting at the bottom. There's a lot more of a root system in a Monstera, so you can expect it to grow to quite huge size, and it might need a slightly larger pot than what the Birds of Paradise will do. So, bear that in mind as well with a depending on where you're planning on placing your plant.
Now, the next step, the third option, is a Peace Lily. Peace Lilies are beautiful. They can continue to grow to however height you want. They can become even bushy. They have beautiful flowers that come through depending on the positioning of where you put your house plant. It is beautiful. Now, I've had some troubles in the past with growing one. Uh mostly from trying to bring one back to life, but I've had success with the one that I've currently got the minute, and it has continued to grow. The leaves have gotten bigger. The flowers have become even more larger, and it's become even more bushier. It likes to grow and expand. It's beautiful.
When I started bringing this back to life, it was in a smaller smaller position, and I've left it to do its thing. I had it in the bathroom for a little while because it I knew it was doing really well in there, and then I moved it into the bedroom, and it's continued to do well, and that's where some of the the flowers have started to come out. So, I've got it in the right conditions. Now, they can be quite dramatic of a plant. So, they'll let you know if it needs a water, if it needs a change in the soil, if you need to put it in a slightly more direct sunlight, it will tell you. It's a really big indicator. So, you've got to make sure that you pay attention to the plant. Don't move it too frequently, cuz if you do, again, that causes stress and trauma to the plant, and it can die because of it. So, you've got to make sure that when you place it somewhere, it's got to be within somewhere of indirect sunlight, and indirect sunlight throughout the majority of the day.
Now, in terms of watering this this Peace Lily, the main thing is you basically leave it to almost completely dry out, and then you drench the whole thing. You make sure it's completely soaked through, you leave it to do its thing again. If you keep watering it, it does create a lot of root rot very very quickly, which is one of the main mistakes that I made when I first started doing this. So, you've got to make sure you basically leave it to do its thing, chuck a lot of water in, completely drown it through, and then leave it to do its thing. It will continue to grow and do extremely well.
Now, when it comes to the flowers themselves, it will also tell you if it needs more sunlight or not. So, when it comes through, if you're finding that the leaves are turning green, or the the flowers, sorry, specifically are turning green, it needs more sunlight. So, you can bring it a little bit closer towards the window, and then it will start to turn white. So, that's another big indicator that you can use to help make the flowers come through even more beautiful. They're not going to last forever. Some of them die off, and you'll get some new ones sprouting through throughout the whole seasons.
Now, following on from that, we've got a Pothos. A Pothos I would definitely recommend. I've got a Devil's Ivy, which is a variegation of that, and they do unbelievably well. They can last in any position. You can probably not even water it for 2 months on end, and it will still keep going. It still keeps growing, and it still keeps thriving. It's unbelievably hardy those plants. If you kill them, you've done a great job of doing it. They can survive in any condition. Some of them survive without any sunlight whatsoever. I've had some which have been tucked in the corner that have done really well. I've had some by the window, they've done great as well. Probably one thing I would note is if you have it too close to the window, the sun will burn the leaves. They burn the variegation. So, you don't actually get that beautiful variegation coming through the leaves themselves.
Now, they can also grow to quite big leaves as well. So, some of them I've had can grow to the size of the palm of my hand. And some of them, if you get them mature enough, they have fenestrations. It takes a long while and a good amount of care, but they can grow. Now, you can have them as a trailing plant, a climbing plant. You can have them doing anything you want. You can propagate them really easily. They're so versatile. They're definitely an easy one that you can place in somewhere like a kitchen or a bedroom if you wanted to trail it around the bedroom. Bathroom is probably my best recommendation cuz they do very, very well in there. They love the moisture. They love to grow in that condition. And it does look really good in that position. So, I would probably say with the Devil's Ivy or any kind of Pothos, in that it thrives really well on a lot of moisture and humidity. It doesn't need a lot of sunlight for it to survive. And you can basically place it anywhere as a lovely trailing plant. Sometimes it's nice to have it climbing, but I would probably say trailing is probably is the best option. It does bring a lot more life into woods the room.
Now, the soil in that is very straightforward. It's a standard house plant potting mix. You don't need to get anything extravagant. Just make sure it has a good amount of drainage in the pot itself. You'll be absolutely fine. They do really, really well. The likelihood of getting root rot in those is very slim. I've never had an issue with those since doing it. So, I would probably say it will be absolutely fine in a standard house plant mix, and then you're good to go from there.
Now, the final one which I can be classed as a tree as well is a Dracaena. Now a Dracaena is a beautiful plant in itself. It's very very hardy. You can put it in any condition again and it will thrive. It can be in darkness and it can climb. It can get as a large as you want it to. They can turn into beautiful plants. They're very very affordable especially when they're in a smaller pot and they grow to massive heights if you choose to. You can design the plant itself as well by pulling out some of the bottom leaves to shape it in a way that makes it look like a tree, a lollipop. So there are various ways that you can look after this plant and get it to go from what would be a small plant into an actual tree itself. They are beautiful.
The Dracaena that I've got I've actually had since I first started doing all of this and I haven't really looked after it that well until recently and it's still perfectly healthy. The leaves are still just as good as they were when I first bought it. I've even started plucking some of the leaves now so I can get it to turn into a tree. It's been in the same pot since I bought it. It's unbelievably good. They are very very hardy and they will continue to last an absolute lifetime. They're such a good plant to look after.
Now hopefully that gives you an idea of the five key house plants that I would recommend for your home and where you can kind of place them, the types of soils that you want to look after, the size of the pots, what they can look like if you decide to let them grow as well and get them as large as what would be the Bird of Paradise here and the Monstera, the Dracaena and things like that. So it gives you a good idea as to something really affordable at the very start and you can turn them into quite big showpieces if you choose them to.
Looking after house plants doesn't need to be an expensive thing. It needs to be something that is easily manageable that you can maintain and turns into a beautiful piece towards your home. It makes it feel like a home and that's the key thing when we look at a lot of these plants that we've got here. We want it to be a part of your home, something that you can enjoy when you go to. It's not a chore. Something that provides a sense of connectivity towards the earth and everything else. It's very cliché, but it works really well.
So, thank you very much for watching. I hope it helps. Please like, share, and subscribe. Let's get the cozy jungle into as many homes as we can.