With the right care, houseplants can live for decades, but when the internet is awash with contradictory advice, whose guidance should you follow? Our gardening expert finds out
Banana skins and human hair, mayonnaise, distilled water and milk are just some of the unusual aids that social media ‘influencers’ promote as essential for healthy and happy houseplants. But like the homemade banana skin feed or mayonnaise leaf shine that you’ll find advocated on YouTube, TikTok and beyond, advice from the internet can be a toxic brew that does more harm than good, believes houseplant expert Tony Le-Britton. He’s on a mission to simplify plant care, working with the Royal Horticultural Society to spread good practice.
‘Going online for houseplant advice is like a minefield,’ he warns, adding that quirky ‘solutions’ are often promoted because they look good in videos. ‘They’re so far from the reality of good care, and generally make things worse. I base my advice on science and years of observation.’ The number one way to ensure your plants thrive is to give them the light they need, he says. Our northern European homes, built to retain heat more than let in light, give houseplants a fraction of the daily rays experienced in their natural settings, even on a tropical jungle floor. ‘If you see indirect sunlight on the plant label, you think you can put it anywhere away from a window – but that’s not true,’ says Tony. ‘It may need low-level outdoor light but that’s much more intense than inside our homes. So for most houseplants, position them one to two metres from a window with an uninterrupted view of the sky. Do this, and you pretty much can’t go wrong.’
The clues to what your houseplants need lie in nature, says houseplant addict, author and RHS exhibitor Sarah Gerrard-Jones – dubbed ‘The Plant Rescuer’ after years of obsessively saving neglected plants from DIY retailers. ‘A bit of time spent finding out about your plant and where it comes from in the wild can help keep it happy at home,’ she explains. ‘Try to mimic their natural environment when it comes to how much light they like, how much they need to be watered and choosing their potting medium.’
Many of the houseplants we grow hail from the tropics – Southeast Asia, the South American rainforests or the forest floors of Central America and West Africa – where year-round, dappled light and high humidity nurture the development of lush, vibrant foliage. These include Swiss cheese plants, leafy palms and ferns, peace lilies and aspidistra, fiddle-leaf figs, elephant’s ears and moth orchids, which all deliver the jungle in our homes. If you are happy actively caring
