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Reference Books

Tropical Foliage Plants
The Manual of Interior Plantscaping
Smartee Plants
Marschner's Mineral Nutrition of Higher Plants

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Fix/Prevent vs Trim/Grow - You're often led to bel

Fix/Prevent vs Trim/Grow
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You're often led to believe that if your humidity is good enough or if you "don't overwater" then you will never get leaf blemishes. But this fix/prevent mentality will inevitably lead to disappointment because leaves have a limited lifespan - they don't stay perfect forever with "proper care."
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A better long term houseplant care strategy is trim/grow: I'm not bothered by inevitable leaf loss because my plant has grown plenty of newer leaves. I can trim off any blemished leaves if they detract from the overall look of the plant since the plant still has lots of nice leaves left.
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Accepting leaf turnover and ensuring good growing conditions is how I've been super happy with this plant for over 6 years. Good growing conditions starts by knowing your light levels followed by good watering/fertilizing practices.
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Plant: Ctenanthe burle-marxii
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#houseplantjournal #ctenanthe #ctenantheburlemarxii #plantcare #plantwisdom
#houseplants

Ficus lyrata leaf initiation and development - I w $Ficus lyrata leaf initiation and development - I was surprised to see two develop at the same time when I first did this time lapse. - Too often people buy a fiddle leaf fig and are disappointed when half its leaves die off in a few weeks. The reality is the inside of your house is just a fraction of the light available at a nursery. Now, it doesn't mean it's impossible to keep a FLF indoors, you just need to adjust your expectations about how densely foliated the plant will be. There will be an iniditial period where the plant seems to lose more leaves than it gains, but over time, the plant will hold on to the number of leaves it deems fit for its light situation. - Link in profile @houseplantjournal - your interior light situation is more complicated than determining if it qualifies as bright indirect light, medium light, or low light - these designations actually make no sense when you start measuring light in the way I describe along with my table of light requirements by plant type. Don't just look at the table, read the instructions on how to measure! - #houseplantjournal #fiddleleaffig #ficuslyrata #hpjtimelapse #planttimelapse #newleaf$

My methods for treating spider mites, in order of

If it seems like pests keep coming back it's becau

In my previous post, you saw a method of approxima

In my previous post, you saw a method of approximating total light received in an indoor natural light context based on two parameters (duration of direct sun and range of indirect light)
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For a grow light lighting context, the parameters are easier to define because they are controlled by you:
- Strength of light at the leaf
- Duration
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So in order to fully describe the light situation for my plants under this grow light, I just need to measure the strength at the leaf (for each plant) and tell you the duration the grow light is on per day. Now you'll have sufficient detail to set your plants in a similar light situation.
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People get confused because they just see a number, like 200 FC, but the context isn't specified (indoor natural light vs grow light) and, in the case of grow lights, the duration isn't given.
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In the next post, I'll show you how this relates to DLI since a people seem to think "foot-candles doesn't measure the light that plants actually use" - which is a misconception that was based on old technology and different growing goals...
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#houseplantjournal #LTHMeter #measuringlight #growlight

In order to understand indoor lighting, we need to

In order to understand indoor lighting, we need to distinguish between *brightness* and *total light received*
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In an ideal world, we would all be able to measure the Daily Light Integral (DLI), which is the quantification of total light recieved, but it's not entirely practical given how natural light varies based on weather patterns.
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Instead, we can approximate the total light received based on some broad parameters - in an indoor natural light context as the sun moves across the sky, a plant in a given window *may* be exposed to some duration of direct sun and when the sun moves away, the patch of sky provides indirect light
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If we want to describe the light situation (indoor natural light context) in more detail than just "bright indirect light", these two parameters make up a good approximation for the total light received:
1) Duration of direct sun (0, 1, 2, 3, 4+ hours - a rough estimate based on your observation will suffice)
2) Strength of indirect light - measure frequently to find the applicable range:
➟ less than 100 FC
➟ 100-200 FC
➟ 200-400 FC
➟ 400-800 FC

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