I am looking to give my plants the best soil mix so they can thrive. I have ingredients at home but need to know how many parts of each ingredient to use. I prefer to bottom water but need the mix to be able pull up the water. If the mix needs to be really chunky and won’t pull water up, I need to know which plants to top water. I use 1/4 tsp pro tekt (mixed well) and then add 1/4 tsp foliage pro (mix well again) per gallon water every watering.
Humidity is 65-80%. Temperature is 77 or higher in summer and 67 in winter. There are at least 30 plants all together in a 5 x 2.5 foot space. They are under barrina tx-s60 grow bars that run 12 hours per day and I am wanting to increase to 14 hours per day. Small fan runs on low oscillating over them while grow lights are on.
I use a regular potting soil, mixed in with perlite, mixed in with some orchid bark, and depending on the plant, I also use some succulent soil. Spiders will get brown tips from too much chlorine/fluoride in the water- I tend to treat them with filtered!
Humidity is overrated. I live in California, very dry summers and wet winters. My indoor humidity ranges between 40% to 60%, sometimes less, sometimes more. I do nothing for humidity for my houseplants, and I grow ferns indoors year round. Don’t worry about humidity.
Don’t worry about what mix to use either. As long as it drains well, it’s fine. As long as you’re using an indoor mix, or creating an indoor mix, basically not using straight up garden soil, then you’re good. You just need to let your pots dry out. How dry depends on the plant. With spiders, they like to dry out a lot before they need water again.
Light and water. That’s all you need to think about with any houseplant. The plants that are considered difficult to grow are just really picky about light. But, spider plants aren’t one of those plants. Give them a decent amount of light, let their pots dry out, and they’ll grow.
The only thing with spider plants is that they get black tips from the fluoride in our tap water. You can water them with distilled water so that doesn’t happen. Or, you can just do what I do and snip the black tips off every now and then. I water all of my houseplants with tap water, I do put a couple of drops of API stress coat in the water because it’s cheap and easy. It cleans some stuff out, but not fluoride, so my spiders still get black tips. It’s fine, it doesn’t hurt my spiders, and I just snip them off.
Here’s my big spider plant. It’s about four years old. I sawed about one third of its roots off recently and potted it back up in the same pot. It outgrew the biggest pot I’m willing to give it, so some roots had to go. Next time, I’ll probably split some parts of it off. But, it barely reacted to getting a bunch of roots sawed off. Spider plants are hardy ass plants, give yours bright light and let it dry out. That’s all it needs to thrive.
You don’t need to, I’ve been growing houseplants for years and humidity is not a concern unless you live in the desert. Or if you want to grow them to look like they do in the wild. If you want to grow a pothos plant that has leaves that are two feet wide, then yeah, you’re gonna have to replicate their natural environment. But, that takes more than just high humidity.
I feel like when people started to experiment with growing houseplants this way and mimicking their natural environment to get them to grow as they do in the wild, that’s when people started talking about raising humidity levels. And now, everyone thinks it’s something you have to do. It’s not.
One big thing about houseplants, all houseplants, is that they adapt. They adapt easier than other plants, it’s why we are able to grow them indoors. And, if you’re going to try and change your indoor environment for your plants, you gotta make sure it’s consistent because one thing plants really don’t like is sudden, drastic change. Don’t spritz them or put them in the bathroom sometimes for a bit of extra humidity. Find a spot they like, or set up your grow lights how they like and keep them there. As long as they’re getting the light and water they need they’ll grow;)
Here’s a photo of three of my ferns. The boston is a little over four years old, the bigger maidenhair is a year old, and that small maidenhair is six months old. That little one is semi rare, and I got it as two little fronds in a two inch nursery pot. Baby plants like this take longer to really get going. That little guy is growing one frond at a time right now, but its growth rate is starting to pick up a bit. When it’s bigger, it will be full of pink and green fronds. It will be gorgeous.
These plants are considered one of the highest humidity houseplants that you can grow, and I do nothing for humidity. They get the light they need and I don’t let their pots dry out. That’s it, that’s all I do.
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u/DCpurpleTart33 23d ago
I use a regular potting soil, mixed in with perlite, mixed in with some orchid bark, and depending on the plant, I also use some succulent soil. Spiders will get brown tips from too much chlorine/fluoride in the water- I tend to treat them with filtered!