Dear LPG

I have decided to write this down for everyone who does not have a gift for keeping plants alive. The thought of green nail varnish might be for a much younger set of fingers than mine, the colour never suited me. When it comes to green and growing things, I am more likely to get my son to handle any attention that my garden might need, and now that I can use my bad knees as an excuse, he is accommodating in that way.

I have always limited my plant-growing habits to house plants, and my success rate is pretty poor there, too. I don’t have many, and the most important qualities I look for in any plant I buy around finding ones needing the absolute minimum of attention. I nearly always forget to water them until they are well and truly at their droopiest.

Though I am not good to them, I like having a few around the house, and I have read many accounts which say that they are suitable for giving a positive vibe to any internal space because they calm the ambience, which can only be appropriate for the stress levels of those who live with them. I have tried talking to them on odd occasions, mainly when dusting underneath the pots, but I am a genuinely forgetful waterer. I either nearly always forget them or get them so wet that they suffer from my over-attentiveness.    

The problem is much like many things we do routinely. After a day or so, I can’t remember how long ago I last attacked them with the watering can, and I am no good at judging when I am overdoing it by checking the soil unless they are in a pot of muddy compost by which time it is usually too late. Please tell me that I am not the only neglectful indoor gardener. 

But thanks to some information on the internet that I read not so long ago, I can venture to say that my house plants are doing a little better these days. I am sure many people know about these methods of keeping your plants watered successfully, but I have just learnt about what can be done to promote automatic plant water systems. I found quite a few methods outlined on the internet where the use of many things, from a bottle and a few bits of string to what I have now learned is called the ‘Olla irrigation’ method, can improve your relationship with plants. 

They are designed for when you go on holiday, but I have found that checking when the water level in a bottle or pot feeding my plants is getting low is much easier to spot than remembering when I last did it myself.   

So, for the love of all pot plants and a bit more self-assurance for those LPG readers who, like me, number themselves among the more remiss houseplant horticulturists, I have decided to pass on what I have learned… 

OG, Dartford 

OG offers the online solutions she has found…

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