What To Do When You Bring a Houseplant Home

5 things to do when you bring a houseplant home from a garden centre

You’ve found a wonderful new plant to bring home to your collection! Whether it’s your very first houseplant, or a new one to add to your already full jungle it is just as exciting. If you purchased a plant from a nursery, a big box store, or even online, here are 5 tips to start off on the right foot when you bring a new houseplant home.

1. Isolate your new plant from your other houseplants

Even if you inspected your plant thoroughly at the greenhouse, when you bring a houseplant home, it’s always important to isolate your new plant. This is especially important if you have a larger collection. Your new plant may seem fine now, but sneaky pests can still be hiding in your soil or under the leaves. Pests hide as eggs or small larva, which can be nearly impossible to detect. If you are planning to keep your new plant away from your other houseplants permanently, then you can certainly settle your houseplant into their full-time residence. If you have a big collection, it’s a good idea to have a designated quarantine space to bring new plants. You don’t want to risk a pest infestation to infect your entire collection. Anywhere from 2 weeks up to a month of isolation is recommended.

2. Check Your Plant’s Soil

If you haven’t done so already, check the soil conditions of your new houseplant. If it is soaking wet, you will want to refrain from watering it right away. Most people think the best thing to do when you get a new houseplant is to give it a big drink! But most greenhouses do an excellent job of watering their stock so be sure to check if watering is even necessary. Most of the time, you won’t need to water your new houseplant for at least a week once you bring it home.

If the soil is in fact soaking wet, packed down, or remains drenched for several days, you can take a fork, chopstick or a similar utensil to work up the soil to allow some air into the media. A lot of plants are unhappy sitting in wet soil constantly.

Of course, if the soil happens to be bone dry, you may want to water your new plant sooner rather than later. You want to avoid any additional shock or unhappiness in your new houseplant.

3. Hold off on repotting unless it is immediately necessary

When you first bring a houseplant home, you may be tempted to immediately repot it. You might be itching to move your plant from the generic nursery pot into that brand new ceramic pot. This is generally not recommended, particularly with delicate houseplants.

The only exception would be if your plant is in need of immediate rescue from their current pot. These reasons could include pests, root bound, inadequate soil, overwatering, no drainage, etc. It’s good practice to leave the plant in its nursery pot during the adjustment period to avoid unnecessary shock while it acclimates to a new environment.

4. Keep an eye out for pests, disease, and general unhappiness

Moving a houseplant into a new environment undeniably causes a fair amount of stress, even if it is not noticeable to us.  Stressed out plants are more easily susceptible to pests and disease, so while you are admiring your new plant, be sure to regularly inspect the leaves, stems and soil for any signs of pests emerging, before they get the chance to escalate into an infestation. Look out for:

• Leaves dropping
• Leaves curling for several days at a time
• Yellowing, browning or crisping
• Mushy stems at the base of your plant

For more tips on troubleshooting unhappy plants, check out this blog

5. Expect your plant to need some time to acclimate to a new environment

Depending on the type of houseplant you’ve brought home, you could be doing everything right, but still notice your new houseplant drop a leaf or two. As much as we can go through all the efforts to give a plant its light, water, and humidity needs, a common household setup is still a drastically different environment from a tropical greenhouse setting. Your plant will need a little bit of time to bounce back. As long as you are giving your new plant everything it needs, it should rebound nicely in very little time!

Last but not least…

Love, marvel, and enjoy your new houseplant! This is the fun part!

Be sure to follow my plant journey on Instagram @plantyquirkyblogger