Easy Care Houseplants: The Way to Add Life and Beauty to Your Home

Easy care houseplants are great for your indoor environment. The fresh green foliage and colorful flowers can make a room come alive like magic.

Plus, taking care of plants and having an interior green space in your home has unique health benefits. It lifts your spirits, and beats the winter blues, all while removing toxins and adding oxygen and humidity to the air you breathe.

Easy care houseplants can endure heat and dryness and they are great for gift-giving.  They are ideal as Mothers Day flowers because they will last long after that special occasion.

So, if you forget to water or the air is dry, they won't just wither up and die, but you must water them.

Then there are the sub-irrigation systems where you fill the reservoir and the plant is watered from the bottom. This can make watering African Violets and other hairy leaved houseplants that don't like to get wet a lot easier.

The Cast Iron Plant  AKA the Aspidistra-elatior is a tough, coarse-leaved easy care house plant that has dark green leaves and some are variegated with striped leaves. They can endure a considerable amount of heat and dryness, need no direct sunshine, and can stand a wide variety of growing conditions for an indoor plant.

The Snake Plant  and the Mother-In-Laws Tongue are  easy care houseplants for growing indoors. They  have tall fleshy, green foliage that can grow to 4 feet tall. They  will grow under almost any condition except when overwatered. A moisture meter will be ideal in determining your plant's water needs.

Maidenhair Fern is  one of  the most common indoor ferns with  its delicate, lacy light  green  fronds and slender black stalks. It  is  popular  as a  decorative  plant  to place in shady corners.

The Chinese Evergreen is a handsome foliage plant with large, dark green leaves growing out one from the other on a center stem. This plant can be grown in water as well as in soil.

The African Violet prefers humid air, so it is vital that you find ways to increase the humidity levels. You can get a room humidifier or place plants on a humidity grow tray.

The Rieger begonias is a flowering easy care houseplant that blooms year round. It thrives in bright indirect light and high humidity.

The Christmas Cactus is a traditional holiday plant that blooms in December. It has flat jointed leaves shaped like crab claws with bright red flowers and makes a great gift for the holidays. This plant like bright indirect light and humid air.

Pothos are low maintenance and make great accent plants to decorate the home, but they contain calcium oxalates which is toxic. Plant can cause irritation and vomiting if ingested, and the sap from the plant can cause dermatitis and allergic reaction in sensitive people. Keep out reach of children, cats and dogs.

Lucky Bamboo are low maintenance plants that can live in water or soil under a variety of light conditions. These plants are also toxic.

Flamingo Flower is a beautiful, exotic tropical  plant with smooth, waxy leaves that range in colors of white, pink, coral, and red.  They are also toxic.

Caladium are beautiful ornamental foliage plants with brilliantly colored, variegated leaves that are heart-shaped with veined patterns. They are toxic also.

How to Select Your Plants

Choose a plant with an open look rather than a thick bushy houseplant with leaves closely packed toward the center.

In this way the plant will get enough light and avoid leaf drop. Your plants should have bright colored foliage and show no signs of wilting.

You must always apply preventive measures to make sure your plants are free of pests before you bring them home. One infested plant can infest all the other plants so examine them carefully.

There are the hardy varieties of easy care houseplants which need little care. They are not fussy in their demands and can adapt to most conditions in the home.

How to Care for Your Plants

Most plants prefer an even daytime temperature around seventy degrees and about ten degrees cooler at night. Plants will not thrive in rooms that are overheated or too cool. Thermal drapes and dual-pane windows will be good to protect plants from heat and chills.

Plants must be fertilized to replace minerals and nutrients depleted through waterings; however, the season of the year should be your guide. Fertilize regularly during growing periods (March through September) with the dose at half of the recommended rate. Do not fertilize at all during the winter months.

The kind of plant pot and the size is key in good plant development. It should have enough room for the roots to grow but not be too large. Clay pots allow the plant to breathe through the sides of the pot. This protects the plant from overwatering which can lead root disease.

Once you become successful with your easy care houseplants, you may even want to increase your collection and display them on plant stands. This can be done through the propagation of seeds, stems, roots, leaf cuttings, and bulbs. Propagating houseplants make great gifts that are thoughtful as well as economical.