Be vigilant. Check your plants for pests. Two of the most common pests of indoor plants are mealybugs and scale.
Mealybugs look like bits of white lint hiding in the crevices of your plant. Use a small paintbrush to dab them with full-strength rubbing alcohol. For preventive maintenance, make a solution of one part rubbing alcohol, two parts water, and a drop or two of dish soap. Spritz your plants, including the undersides of the leaves, once a week. The alcohol solution evaporates quickly, leaving no harmful residue to affect you or your family or pets.
The foliage of your plant will not be harmed.
The first sign of a scale infestation is stickiness on the foliage. Look closely, if you see immobile brown bumps or, less commonly, white fluff attached to the leaves or stems, your plant has scale.
The sticky substance is their waste (yuck). Young scale insects, known as crawlers, move about the plant. Adult males are tiny winged creatures. The females and their eggs are protected by a hard waxy coating affixed to the plant’s stem or leaves (not a bad survival strategy; encase yourself in a shell and sit tight).
Rubbing alcohol spritzers will help with the soft-bodied crawlers and the males but the armored females are unaffected. Gently scrape them off with the back of a knife (or your fingernail). Or simply remove the affected foliage (a flaw in the survival strategy). Scale or mealybug infestations can be challenging but diligence usually pays off. Do not overwater. While scale and mealybugs may keep your houseplants from looking their best, nothing kills them faster than overwatering. This is true for all houseplants, not just succulents. Most of our houseplants are not swamp-dwellers in their natural habitats, so having soggy feet does not make sense when growing them in the house. Water your plants well enough for water to drain into the saucer. Discard any standing water after an hour or so. Truly, less is more. Set plants–in saucers–on cork plant coasters to protect your window sills and furniture; nobody likes water stains.
When potting up, don’t overdo it. One size up is usually plenty when transplanting.
This helps keep them a manageable size and flowering plants often bloom better if they are a bit potbound. Give them a lot of room to grow and they thank you with a flush of new leaves, not flowers (this is especially true of citrus). Plus it just looks nicer when the pot and the plants are in proper proportion.
Cover drainage holes with coffee filter paper. This allows water to drain while keeping the soil in the pot.
Apply topdressing. This is beneficial (albeit unnecessary) because it makes the plants look nicer. If they look nicer, you are going to be more inclined to take care of them. There are many options.
Crushed granite, in the form of “Starter Grit” for chicks (buy it at the feed store); aquarium gravel is easy to find and comes in a rainbow of colors; buckwheat hulls are a lovely rich brown and natural looking but, irritatingly, float when you water; polished river stones are good for largish plants; crushed black lava is very handsome. You can buy Turface, a “high-fired” clay product that looks a bit like terra cotta kitty litter. Despite that, it provides a nice finishing touch, especially for succulents.
Label your plants. Labels can be plastic, wood, or metal. But all should have the plant name and the date and place of acquisition.
When you look at that label a year or more down the road, you will be glad you took the time. At the very least, it helps you determine if your plant should be repotted (repotting dates should also be on the label); you may be surprised to realize how old your plant is, and how long ago the outing was when you purchased it. If your label notes that a gardening friend gave you the cutting or division you will call them to mind, perhaps also recalling the bit of horticultural advice they gave you along with the plant—a little trip down memory lane, courtesy of a plant label.
Dorothy gardens in Belmont where she lives with her husband, Steve, and their two dogs, Rosie and Jasper. She has six grandchildren — all perfect by definition — and has enjoyed introducing them to gardening. She has an abiding interest in nature and is always amazed by the wonders to be found in her own backyard.
