Forgot Password?
Home arrow GreeniacsGuides arrow Garden arrow Indoor Plants Guide to Greening Your Plant Care
Written by Suzanne Heibel   
Share |
Tuesday, 17 March 2009

Indoor Plants: Guide to Greening Your Plant Care

BENEFITS to the Environment: High. A plant owner can replace all store bought inputs (food/fertilizer and water) with items that would be thrown away if not used this way, creating a zero-impact system.

BENEFITS to your wallet: High. As said above, with these methods you will be saving money in exchange for a bit of extra effort.

BENEFITS to your Health: High. Plants are scientifically proven to have positive psychological effects,1 plus plants filter air and consume some carbon dioxide, increasing the amount of fresh air in your home.2

Cost: Low

Time and Effort: Medium

Instructions:

1. Start off with seeds instead of full plants.

Depending on how green your thumb is, beginning your indoor garden with seeds instead of already grown plants is an inexpensive way to bring life to your apartment. While both can be purchased from local, organic farmers, seeds require less resources on the grower's part. The benefits to you:

A) You nurse your plants to life from the embryo-state. You are their mom and/or dad. If that's not psychologically rewarding, I don't know what is.

B) It is guaranteed to be organic and grown from recycled materials, meaning its growth impacts are nearly zero, while plants grown by a farmer were probably done so with ground water and fertilizer, which is far less environmentally cool.

C) You learn from the beginning what the plant needs to survive, enabling you to start developing your gardening skills beginning with stage 1, “growing a plant from a seed”. If the seeds don't grow very well or things die off quickly, you learn from your mistakes and get closer to becoming a indoor gardening jedi without costing you an arm and a leg for each failure and success (like a full grown plant would).

2. Buy plants that are drought resistant and low-maintenance.

This doesn't mean you need to limit your plant choice to a cactus garden—although those are nice, and a good solution—but simply choosing plants that require less water, lighting, or food means that you can save money and energy. Plus, if you go on vacation for a week the thing won't die on you and you won't need to hire a plant sitter. Here are some plants that are low maintenance and still beautiful:3

Flowers: Bromeliad, cattleyas, African violets
Plants: Pothos, spider plant, snake plant
Herbs: Dill, thyme, basil, sweet marjoram, parsley, fennel, chives, sage4
Fruits: Papaya, lemons, grapefruit6
Vegetables: Radishes, mini cabbage, spinach7

Fruits are the trickiest because they take the longest to grow, flower seasonally, need extra lighting, need to be trimmed down more, and some, like lemons, need to be kept as dwarf plants. They definitely require more maintenance and attention but if you love fruit it's worth it. Vegetables grown indoors will also not yield as much as outdoor gardens due to space. And hearty vegetables like radishes are easier because others like tomatoes take a lot of sunshine and warm temperatures to flourish.8

3. Use grey water

Grey water (used water) is okay to use for plants and it reduces water waste a ton. However, there are a few exceptions: Experts advise not to use grey water on seedlings, use once the plant is established and less sensitive. Also, avoid using it on root plants that are eaten raw, such as carrots.9 And, since used water often has a higher salinity than fresh water, use it every other day just to be on the safe side. And to keep up with the organic theme, grey water would be the most harmless to your flowers and herbs if it only contained biodegradable soaps! Put a bucket somewhere in the shower or simply scoop out your dishwashing water from the sink after you use it.

For more information on grey water, check out the Greeniacs Guide: Reuse Your Grey Water.

4. Compost, Compost, Compost

Compost is free food for your plants. Almost all food scraps can be put into a compost pile and turned into delicious (and free!) nutrition for you potted-babies. Depending on the size of your condo or apartment, you'll need some sort of container to keep the compost in. There are two great kinds of composters for small spaces:
1. Electric compost- these babies are like the magic carpets of apartment composting. You dump in food scraps (any food scraps) and in two weeks a little red light comes on, and you open a separate drawer and viola! Out comes amazing compost. Nature Mill (http://www.naturemill.com/index.html) is a very popular brand that many online users have suggested. They do run a bit expensive, starting around $300 so depending how serious you are about indoor composting, this very high tech option may or may not be the system for you. As the phrase goes, you get (amazing compost with no effort) what you pay for ($300).

2. Vermicompost-Also known as “worm composting” the basic idea is to mix earth worms or red worms with all your food scraps. (Earthworms and the like are a sign of healthy soil because their presence shows that there is little toxicity in the soil.) Vermicomposters are less expensive because they are totally DIY (do-it-yourself). To make one, buy a plastic bucket with a lid, preferably one that is nontransparent because worms live in the dirt, they don't like the sun. Drill holes in the top and sides so the buggers can breath. To get them nice and fat and happy before you start adding food scraps, put a layer of damp shredded newspaper or moist, broken down fallen autumn leaves (both of which have a high carbon content) on the bottom of the bin, followed by a good layer of finished compost.10 It is crucial to keep the bin contents very damp because worms need an environment with lots of moisture. It may get smelly after a while, however, so drilling holes in the bottom with a tray underneath will catch the excess water to minimize any bad smells. From there, add food scraps and let the worms do their magic. However, worms can only eat so much at one time so it is only necessary to give them a bit every day. Bury the food underneath the original soil so they can find it and only use eggshells and fruits and veggie scraps.11 Meat and dairy are definite no-nos. This type of compost can take up to a few months so be patient and let the worms do their work! For more assistance with and ideas for composting at home, check out: Make Your Own Compost, and How to Build a Composting Toilet
As already discussed, almost anything can be put in a compost pile but unless you have a fancy electric compost system it's wise to steer clear of meats, bones, and dairy products because they often take too take too long to compost, attract too many bugs and smell pretty terrible during the break down process. Fruit, vegetables, even leaves are the most common ingredients since one plant's waste is another plant's food. However, here are some power foods that make compost extra amazing for plant growth:

Power Compost Ingredients:
1. If you are a coffee drinker or tea drinker, count your blessings. Coffee grinds and tea leaves are very acidic and have a high nitrogen content, an essential element in healthy soils.12 Plant owners swear by coffee grounds, testifying that they make their roses bigger and brighter and their lemons juicer. Plus, you can even throw in tea bags and often filters because they're thin and decompose quickly.

2. Eggshells are a prime source of potassium and calcium.13 Give them a good crushing before you put them into your compost so they can breakdown faster.

3. Milk. Okay, I know I said no dairy, but there's always an exception to every rule. It makes sense that milk would make the list, considering all mammals practically live solely off this life-giving food for the first few months or years of their life. But using good milk is kind of wasteful, considering you could use it for cereal of whatever else you buy it for.14 But if your milk goes bad before you can consume it—after all, how much milk can a person drink in a week?!—using the soured milk is just as good and you don't have to toss the elixir of life down the drain. Since it is a liquid, instead mix it with water (1 part milk, 4 parts water) and use it directly to water the plants as a nutritional and hydrating source.
5. Lighting Depending on where you live, lighting may or may not be available. Like architectural passive solar design, south facing windows are the best place for plants to live because that side of the building will get the most sunlight all day long. If you live on the northern corner, no need to fret. Artificial light can suffice. Florescent tubes are the most popular because they keep plants short and bushy. You can place them literally on top of the plant without burning them, so plants will get maximum light and won't reach outward to find light, keeping them growing in a concentrated area.15 But since these bulbs only give off the blue light, and plants need the full spectrum, it is best to make sure they get as much natural light as possible and the other bulbs for when there's a lack of light. Spot grow lamps, which can use LEDs, are good for herb gardens and flowers.16 Overall, plants should be exposed to light for around 15 hours a day, whether that be natural or with light bulbs. Either way, it is crucial to not leave the lights on for 24 hours, all species need times of sleep and plants are not omitted from this rule.17
Browse all Greeniacs Guides Browse all Greeniacs Guides        Browse all Greeniacs Articles
_______________________________________________________________________________

1 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090226134813.htm.
2 http://www.helpfulgardener.com/container/2003/indoor.html.
3 http://www.helpfulgardener.com/container/2003/indoor.html.
4 http://gardenline.usask.ca/yards/herbs.html.
5 http://www.marthastewart.com/article/indoor-fruit-plants.
6 http://www.bbg.org/gar2/topics/indoor/handbooks/landscaping/orangerie.html.
7 Id.
8 Id.
9 http://aces.nmsu.edu/pubs/_m/m-106.html.
10 http://www.organicconsumers.org/organic/compost.cfm.
11 http://www.coopamerica.org/pubs/realmoney/articles/worms.cfm.
12 http://www.sustainableenterprises.com/Business/coffeefert.htm.
13 http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/51810/homemade_fertilizer_for_outdoor_plants.html.
14 Id.
15 http://www.diynetwork.com/diy/ic_lighting/article/0,,diy_13964_2270372,00.html.
16 http://www.homeharvest.com/spotgrowlightbulbs.htm.
17 http://www.homeharvest.com/whichgrowlightisrightforme.htm.




Add your comment
RSS comments

Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register.

Click here to Register.  Click here to login.
Last Updated ( Wednesday, 10 August 2011 )

SEARCH GREENIACS.COM

Green Facts

  • A laptop consumes five times less electricity than a desktop computer.

  • Americans throw away enough aluminum to rebuild our entire commercial fleet of airplanes every 3 months

  • Refrigerators built in 1975 used 4 times more energy than current models.

  • Bamboo absorbs 35% more carbon dioxide than equivalent stands of trees.

  • You will save 300 pounds of carbon dioxide for every 10,000 miles you drive if you always keep your car’s tires fully inflated.

  • Turning off the tap when brushing your teeth can save as much as 10 gallons a day per person.

  • Recycling aluminum saves 95% of the energy used to make the material from scratch.

  • A steel mill using recycled scrap reduces related water pollution, air pollution, and mining wastes by about 70%.

  • 82 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. come from burning fossil fuels.

  • Recycling for one year at Stanford University saved the equivalent of 33,913 trees and the need for 636 tons of iron ore, coal, and limestone.

  • Recycling 100 million cell phones can save enough energy to power 18,500 homes in the U.S. for a year.

  • The World Health Organization estimates that 2 million people die prematurely worldwide every year due to air pollution.

  • If every U.S. household turned the thermostat down by 10 degrees for seven hours each night during the cold months, and seven hours each weekday, it would prevent nearly gas emissions.

  • Nudge your thermostat up two degrees in the summer and down two degrees in the winter to prevent 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere.

  • Plastic bags and other plastic garbage thrown into the ocean kill as many as 1,000,000 sea creatures every year.

  • It takes 6,000,000 trees to make 1 year's worth of tissues for the world.

  • Americans use 100 million tin and steel cans every day.

  • You’ll save two pounds of carbon for every 20 glass bottles that you recycle.

  • Americans throw away more than 120 million cell phones each year, which contribute 60,000 tons of waste to landfills annually.

  • In California homes, about 10% of energy usage is related to TVs, DVRs, cable and satellite boxes, and DVD players.

  • Washing your clothes in cold or warm instead of hot water saves 500 pounds of carbon dioxide a year, and drying your clothes on a clothesline six months out of the year would save another 700 pounds.

  • Less than 1% of electricity in the United States is generated from solar power.

  • An aluminum can that is thrown away instead of recycled will still be a can 500 years from now!

  • American workers spend an average of 47 hours per year commuting through rush hour traffic. This adds up to 23 billion gallons of gas wasted in traffic each year.

  • A tree that provides a home with shade from the sun can reduce the energy required to run the air conditioner and save an additional 200 to 2,000 pounds of carbon over its lifetime.

  • In the United States, automobiles produce over 20 percent of total carbon emissions. Walk or bike and you'll save one pound of carbon for every mile you travel.

  • Every week about 20 species of plants and animals become extinct.

  • For every 38,000 bills consumers pay online instead of by mail, 5,058 pounds of greenhouse gases are avoided and two tons of trees are preserved.

  • States with bottle deposit laws have 35-40% less litter by volume.

  • A single quart of motor oil, if disposed of improperly, can contaminate up to 2,000,000 gallons of fresh water.

  • Rainforests are being cut down at the rate of 100 acres per minute.

  • Glass can be recycled over and over again without ever wearing down.

  • You will save 100 pounds of carbon for each incandescent bulb that you replace with a compact fluorescent bulb (CFL), over the life of the bulb.

  • Due to tiger poaching, habitat destruction, and other human-tiger conflicts, tigers now number around 3,200—a decrease in population by about 70% from 100 years ago.

  • Shaving 10 miles off of your weekly driving pattern can eliminate about 500 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions a year.

  • Current sea ice levels are at least 47% lower than they were in 1979.

  • Recycling 1 million laptop computers can save the amount of energy used by 3,657 homes in the U.S. over the course of a year.

  • 77% of people who commute to work by car drive alone.

  • One recycled aluminum can will save enough energy to run a 100-watt bulb for 20 hours, a computer for 3 hours, or a TV for 2 hours.