11 Tips for Keeping Your Bathroom Houseplants Thriving

Parenting a plant is easy when you know what to look out for. A dog whimpers when it is in pain. A baby cries when it needs your attention. But plants keep mum at all times, even when they are dying.

While it cannot summon your attention like a baby, a plant in pain will show you more than enough signs through its leaves, branches, and stem. It is left to you to discern.

Here, you will learn the steps you need to take to keep your plant healthy, and I'll do you one better: I will teach you how to detect a plant defect and the solutions to get it thriving.

Position Your Plant Where it Can Get Adequate Humidity

Watering and humidifying a plant are two different processes involving dihydrogen monoxide (H2O). Humidity refers to the quantity of water vapor, or gaseous water, in the air.

The primary beneficiary of watering is the plant root, while the leaves, flowers, and stems benefit from humidity. Humidity prevents the leaves from drying, enhances photosynthesis, makes flowering plants blossom, and inhibits pest infestation. Low or zero humidity signs include brown leaf tips and wilting plant branches.

You can help your plant get more water vapor by:

• Place a pebble tray or saucer filled with water and pebbles beneath or beside the plant pot. When water evaporates from the saucer, it humidifies the air surrounding the plant.
• Grouping the plants so that the gaseous H2O released by one plant during a biochemical process called transpiration can be used by another plant.

Don't Block Your Plant From Sunlight

Plants, unlike pets, do not require you to feed them. They can synthesize their glucose using sunlight. Sunlight is an essential recipe for glucose metabolism, known as photosynthesis. Without sunlight, a plant cannot produce its food, and it will starve.

Ensure your bathroom plant is placed beside a bright window. However, like water and fertilizer, too much sunlight can cause chronic plant problems. Plants that do not receive enough sunlight have yellow leaves, fewer leaves, and stunted growth. Change the position of the plant so it can get adequate sunlight.

Alternatively, plants with too much sunlight have crisp leaves, discolored leaves, stunted growth, and wilting branches.

Water With Caution

How often should bathroom plants be watered? Weekly? Daily? Monthly?

The correct answer depends on factors such as the plant species, weather conditions, exposure to sunlight, surrounding human activities, temperature, and ventilation. According to Lisa Eldred Steinkopf, author of Houseplants for Beginners, “the key to adequate watering is to assess the plant to see if water is needed.”

To correctly evaluate your plant's water needs, ask yourself: Is the soil damp or dry? Damp soil means the plant does not need water yet.

To judge the plant's dampness, dip your hand inside its soil to check if it's wet. You can get a moisture meter if you do not want to get your hands dirty. Dip the moisture meter into the soil and measure the reading. Follow the manufacturer's instructions to judge whether the soil is wet.

Wipe Dust Off the Leaves of Your Bathroom Plant

Every living thing, including plants, needs a good shower. Dust is inevitable. Whether you shut your bathroom windows or open them, dust will find its way into the bathroom. The only solution is to clean your plant with a gentle weekly shower. You can also wipe the surfaces with a clean piece of cloth.

Dust can prevent your plant's leaves from soaking in enough sunlight for photosynthesis, and cleaning your plant makes it look good.

Treat Overwatered or Underwatered Plants as Soon as Possible

Underwatering or overwatering a plant can damage it, but it is better to underwater than to overwater a plant.

The solution for deficient soil water is simple — add more water. On the other hand, the way forward after overwatering is to repot the plant and remove the yellow leaves. Yellow leaves can be a good indicator that your plant has been overwatered. However, if the yellow leaf appears at the bottom of the plant, you don't have to worry about overwatering.

Signs of underwatering include crisp leaves and wilted plants.

Fertilize With Precision

Adding too much or too little fertilizer can harm your plant by causing it to need more water.

Every fertilizer product, whether liquid or granular, comes with the manufacturer's instructions. Follow the manufacturer's guidelines when applying the fertilizer.

Signs of under-fertilization include pale leaves, stunted growth, scanty flowers in flowering plants, changes in leaf color, and leaf shedding. Inversely, signs of overfertilization include yellowing leaves, stunted growth, and burned leaf tips.

Watch Out for Bug Infestation

Plants attract insects and bugs. No child of nature exists in isolation, plant or animal. The trophic pyramid or food chain connects all living things. Humans house millions of microbes in their system. Hence, you should not panic when you detect bugs in your plant.

Treat the plant with insecticidal soaps and isolate the infested plant before removing the bug. Signs of bug infestation include sticky residue, leaf damage, bug presence, and cotton wool fluff.

Prune and Pinch Your Plant Diligently

Don't let diseased branches ruin your plant's aesthetics and health. Prune and pinch the unwanted parts to remove them.

Pruning involves selectively removing specific plant parts, such as branches, roots, buds, and leaves, to keep the plant in good shape and boost new growth.

Pinching, on the other hand, means cutting stem tips with pruners or bare hands. Fast-growing plants might need a little pinching to keep them compact and presentable.

Repot Overgrown Bathroom Plants

A well-fed plant cannot escape growth. Plant growth shows that you are taking proper care of your plant. However, growth comes at a cost.

When a plant outgrows its pot, you are left with two options:

• Repot the plant into a larger planter
• Or cut off some of its roots with a knife and plant it in the same pot using a new soil

Take Out Dying Leaves and Deadhead Flowers

The best way to prevent microbial disease from spreading is to remove diseased plant parts. In addition to removing contaminated parts, remove defective leaves.

A good precaution to observe while removing diseased plant parts is to disinfect the blade with rubbing alcohol, aka isopropyl alcohol, before using it on other plant parts. It prevents the diseases from contaminating other parts of the plant while pruning.

Propagate Your Bathroom Plants When Necessary

Plants give birth using propagation, which can be sexual (via seeds) or asexual (via existing plant cells). The type of propagation we're referring to is asexual propagation, which involves cutting a plant part, such as a stem, leaf, or root, and planting it so that it can develop roots.

There are several other methods of asexual propagation, like grafting, division, and layering. Do you want to get new plants from your existing plants? You don't have to spend a dime. Asexual propagation is your best bet. Propagation also helps the mother plant grow new parts.