All my plants die after they start growing and I don’t know why. I’ve tried controlling every factor that I can although without a thermometer, higrometer, pH measuring etc. I even have a shitty microscope that I try to analyse the sick parts, but I can’t find any reliable resources on how to actually interpret what I’m seeing. I want to know how to use this kind of data so that I can raise my plants right.
Where can I learn about this? I mean diagnosing problems, monitoring variables, finding solutions to each situation etc. google obviously sucks and gives nothing of substance
I will say that I recently got a new substrate, maybe the old one was the problem. But then there’s my mother-in-law, who raises beautiful lavenders and all that using the exact same soil I’m getting shitty results with. I’m literally not doing anything different to her, so maybe it’s the water? I really don’t know.
Edit: in fact, the lush lavender 🪻 she is currently flexing is a piece of the one my partner bought. Same plant, same soil.
Edit 2: also, the roots always look alright when I dig their cadavers to analyze. No parasites, insects, obvious fungi etc in any part of any plant so far.
You’re growing these outdoor plants from seed indoors??
What good conditions found outdoors in the asphalt will not match your indoor location.
All the plants you’ve mentioned, lavender cosmos, siratro, etc all require high ligh conditions. Not easy to replicate inside even with grow lights (the sun is really bright)
If you are growing indoors you’ll need to find some houseplants well suited for your location. Houseplants are actually suited for lower light conditions that are found indoors. But the plants you listed are no so much houseplants as they are (outdoor) garden plants, so they will struggle indoors unless you have excellent lighting conditions.
But if you have an outdoor space then it’s a different story.
Makes absolute sense. Funny enough, the rattlepods are the ones doing better so far.
The growlight I’ve got says it’s PPF: 175 umol/s and photon efficiency of 2.7, I couldn’t find helpful stuff on Google on how good this is. It’s also very close to the plants. There’s a fan in there to control temperature, which is doing a good job if my hand is a good thermometer
Edit: oh, and the lavender was from my “outdoors era”. I actually bought a growlight and all the other stuff precisely because everything was dying on the balcony, and I thought it was due to way too much sun, heat (it’s scorching in here) or wind. The siratros really flourished in the balcony and started spreading on my protection net, but that made them susceptible to birds and that was it. The rattlepods all died in the balcony too, like the others.
I had a big message typed but it got deleted.
I may return to this later. But my main point was
a.) Gardening is wu-wei. Find the conditions you have, find the plants for your conditions, and let 90% of the work be done for you already. If you put too much effort you may kill your plants with kindness or micromanaging. That leads to
b.) The most common way to kill your plant is overwating. You only need to water maybe once a week or two indoors, but different plants are different. Use your finger (or a watermeter) to check the soil. Find a video about. Just stick your finger in the soil up to your first or second knuckle. If it’s moist then don’t water. Check again in a few days. If it’s dry, water. Outdoor plants need more water because of higher temps, funnier location, etc.
Water until water runs out the drainage holes. Always use pots with drainage holes. Make sure your have a good houseplant soil mix with perlite. Usually the soil that plants in greenhouses have is too compact and retains too much water, so its usually a good idea to replace it if you suspect tet.
c.) Get some easy to care for plants like a Z plant, snake plant, pathos, etc. Learn to take care of it indoors without tools and gizmos. The boomer in me is showing lol. Just use your finger and your gut. Learn to watch the plant and notice how it changes as it needs more water, or light, etc. If you watch, you will learn to read your plants. They are living things and you can read their signs sometimes.
You can still try for the plants you have, but I’d still suggest the above beginner plants so you can get a feel and intuition for it.
It’s easier than you’re making it out to be. No need for gizmos. I’m shaking my old man fists at your clouds. My grandma did this during the depression for Pete’s sake, with nothing but well water and a tin can - you go this!
And I know what you mean about Google being useless. I have some cool gardening books from the 70s and they had neat diagrams for diagnosing plant problems.
Pests like bugs you can deal with. It comes with the territory. A virus… well not so much. Better to just chunk a houseplant if it has a virus, as far as I know.
Thanks a lot for the help and advice, it’s very appreciated.
Might be my neurodivergence showing, but I’m always trying to turn hobbies into a science or set process. You’re right, I should be developing my feeling and intuition first and foremost, and the other more complex stuff only as support tools later.
What is that book called? It’s actually the kind of stuff I was looking for as a beginner 😸 pretty pictures, explanations and clear directions
(Btw, mine look like #s 1, 2, 5 and 8. Gonna work on that now)
Oh also, the book is Foliage House Plants from some year in the 70s
And to be honest, sometimes the pictures for diagnosing problems are not as helpful as I wish. But just context clues can fill you in sometimes. Like a plant you know you haven’t watered in a month in a dry room isn’t going to be overwatered regardless of what any picture you see may suggest (unless it’s literally sitting in water, oops), or a plant in a dark corner won’t be suffering from sun scorch, etc.
Unfortunately some of this just comes from experience and sometimes you may have to kill a few plants to learn.
Thanks a lot again, I really liked talking about this with you 😸
In my original message that I lost I actually went in to how I get your approach on some level because I have a STEM background and like to measure things. And that’s why I like (less intense) indoor gardening because it lets me practice something differently than most of my other hobbies.
It’s a hobby that is easy to make “zen”, or whatever other word you think fits here, and so that’s my approach. It’s sorta meditative in its own ways.
But, I also wanted to mention that I appreciate that gardening is not like politics where different philosophies can feel personal, so if this style doesn’t vibe with you then it’s no sweat.
If I knew how to collect data on my plants I would have done it ;) and I’ve definitely mapped out the light intensity for each square foot across my room before and taken data on when I water. But I never regularly kept it up.
Regardless of the style, learning the basics with a snake plant is the easiest way to get started imo. Then once you can reliably have a control you can get all cybernetic with it. If you do please share because I do think it’d be cool to see!