Mythbusting office plant care tips

The benefits of office plants have been well documented. Having living plants and living floral in an office can improve the overall environment, benefiting employees and clients and improving the quality of the air. However, there are a number of myths about caring for these indoor plants.

Ambius is the industry-leading expert in office plants and office plant care. One thing about caring for office plants is that if you try to do it yourself, it will be a lot of work for you. With more plants comes greater benefits, but also a downside. Caring for this large number of plants can be a challenge for a busy office. Luckily, Ambius can help take the work off of your plate.

In this article, we take a look at some of the popular office plant myths and what you should really be doing to care for office plants.

If the work involved in installing greenery and living floral in your office, or caring for the plants you already have, seems like too much for you to do, contact your local Ambius office to discuss how we can help.

Here are five popular indoor plant care myths:

Small plants must be re-potted

Many times people who decide to put office plants into their workspace start out small. They head to a flower shop or garden center to find a number of “fun-looking,” colorful indoor plants to put around the place. However, if they have any experience in buying and caring for indoor plants, they may have heard you have to re-pot the smaller plants in order to give them room to grow.

The fact is most plants do well if their roots are a little bit confined. In fact, most indoor plants tend to grow faster and will produce leaves or flowers faster if you leave them in smaller pots. Bringing a new living plant into your office and immediately re-potting it can generate too much water buildup, drowning the plant. Additionally, when plants grow roots to try and fill out the new pot, they don’t grow leaves or flowers as fast.

Knowing when to re-pot a plant is an important part of keeping plants healthy, but it can be tricky. Doing it too soon can harm the plant. Doing it too late can also harm the plant. It takes skill and experience to know when re-potting is warranted.

Yellow leaves mean the plant is dying

When a plant’s leaves turn yellow, it’s not uncommon for inexperienced plant owners to think the plant is dying. There are a lot of rumors and myths about yellow leaves on plants. Some say the plants are not getting enough water, others too much. The fact is, it could be over and under-watering. It could be a lack of sunlight or too much sunlight. There are a wide variety of plant ills and problems that can cause a plant to start to yellow.

For some, the sight of the yellowing leaves means the plant is doomed. Many toss out plants when they can actually be saved. Knowing why the plant is turning yellow is key. Making adjustments to the lighting situation, watering schedule or amount watered can bring a plant back and reverse the yellowing.

There is skill involved in knowing what a plant needs to stay healthy or to recover if they appear sick.

Sick plants need plant food or fertilizer

When a living thing is sick, you feed it. Just like bringing chicken soup to a friend or relative who has a cold or the flu, if a plant appears to be ill, you just need to add fertilizer or plant food, right? This is not true. This myth comes from a misconception about the purpose of fertilizer and plant food when it comes to living plants.

Plant food and fertilizer help healthy plants grow stronger and bigger. If the leaves are turning yellow or brown and falling off, the plant is likely sick. Sick plants do not benefit from adding fertilizer or plant food in any appreciable way. The solution likely has to do with light, watering, or some other aspect of the environment.

Taking care of a plant is tricky and knowing what they need when they yellow or the leaves drop off is a skill usually honed through years of experience. However, adding a lot of food and fertilizer to an office plant may do nothing and may even further harm a plant showing signs of illness.

Plant watering myths

One of the most common things people do with their indoor or office plants is either over-water or under-water them. Most people do not read the instructions that usually come with all of the plants they purchase or look for watering instructions. They either think the plant isn’t getting enough water or is getting too much. Both conditions can create problems for living plants. Even professionals are guilty of over and under-watering sometimes.

It takes quite a bit of skill to know just how much water a plant needs. Test the soil with your finger to discover if the plant is too dry or too wet. However, you really need to know if the plant in question generally needs more or less water. For example, succulents tend to require less water and less light. Other plants may need more water and more light.

Flowering plants are too difficult to grow indoors

In fact, it all depends on the species of flowering plant. However, to really make sure the plant you have installed in your office is going to thrive, you need to pay special attention to the lighting conditions within your office. You should also know your humidity levels and other environmental factors inside the building to know how the flowering indoor plant will endure. Placement is also key, depending on the species.

Knowing the right conditions for each plant species is difficult and can be tricky. Putting a plant in the wrong kind of environment just because it looks pretty can be a big mistake. If the plant doesn’t thrive in the environment where you’ve placed it, you end up spending more money on replacement plants.

If you think your office needs a little livening up and could do with some living floral and office plants, but you don’t want to be the one taking care of them, contact your local Ambius office. Ambius is the expert in interior landscaping. We can find you the right living floral and greenery solutions to enhance the appearance of your workspace. You’ve got enough to do. Let us install and maintain the plants so you don’t have to worry.