I LOVE caring for my houseplants…that “love” is really a prerequisite if you want to be a good plant parent. It’s really not that different from being a parent of anything (human, dog, pet, etc.). It starts with a desire, followed by unconditional love, and then dedication to see things through, ensuring “them” a happy life. Don’t be rolling your eyes at me…I know they’re just plants. In my book of life, if something can die, it can live, so when I decide to care for something that can live, I do with it with love and passion. Where did all that come from? Oh, yeah–I am here to share with you how I clean my plants.
In order to grow healthy, thriving plants, we need to take care of them. Each plant comes with a list of requirements–light, water, fertilizer, and so forth–but today, I wanted to share a maintenance tip: how I clean the leaves of a plant. I know that there are a LOT of ways to go about this, but after testing many different methods, I have found that the following technique has led to strong, thriving plants that are pest-free (except for the occasional freeloader that hitched a ride on a new plant).
This method came to me one day when I doing routine cleaning of a plant that I just brought home from the store. You can read more on that (here). In a nutshell, every plant that comes into my fold starts off with a refreshing shower, following by a heavy dousing of my neem oil solution. The refreshing shower removes any plant pests that are hanging around on the leaves. The neem oil solution works as a natural pesticide that helps to kill off any mealybugs, spider mites, etc. that may be tucked in hard-to-reach places. Neem oil is a plant staple for me, so I got the idea to use it as part of my plant pest maintenance routine.
Not only does the following method clean the leaves, but it also fights against plant pests. Trust me, it doesn’t take long for dust to accumulate on plants. A layer of dust on the leaves of houseplants will block sunlight and reduce the plant’s ability to photosynthesize, which is how the plant feeds itself.
Plants breathe through their leaves through little pores called stomata, and many leaf shine products end up clogging these stomata with either oil or wax. It’s just like your skin – you get blemishes when you have too much residue blocking your pores. The difference is that plants don’t get pimples; their clogged pores mean suffocation and maybe even death.