By David Domoney
Houseplants for beginners
A great way to dip your toe into growing and caring for plants is to start with a few houseplants. Some low-maintenance options include:
Then, you could try branching out to slightly more reliant houseplants which need more care from you to thrive.
Next, you could move onto a Swiss cheese plant (Monstera deliciosa). This is generally easily cared for in warm, bright room out of direct sunlight. They love humidity and will eventually benefit from the support of moss poles to help them climb.
Many houseplants will ultimately need to have their containers upgraded to a larger size. This will help you to develop more gardening skills. Making sure you choose the right containers and soil types for your plants and move them carefully will give you more gardening confidence.
If you become quite comfortable with caring for your houseplants, and find they are all thriving, next you could attempt propagating some of your favourites from cuttings / offsets. Spider plants are one of the easiest to start with. They grow runners of plantlets, which already have roots. These can be added to water or a pot of compost.
You can also propagate succulent plants with leaf cuttings. Simply position some cut leaves into gritty, well-draining houseplant compost. The roots will develop with little water.
Windowsill gardening
If you want to start growing productive plants, windowsill gardening is an easy place to start. Especially if you don’t have a garden space you can use. The absolute basic items you need are:
One of the best vegetables to get started with is cress. Plain cress (Lepidium sativum) is so easy to grow, that you don’t even need compost. All you need is an egg cup, some wet tissue or cotton wool, and cress seeds. Pop them on a warm and sunny windowsill, and harvest using scissors once they’re at least 3 cm tall.
Moving onto something slightly more advanced, you could try your hand at growing some delicious herbs. Sage (Salvia officinalis) is evergreen, so you can consistently harvest it throughout the year. It will produce more leaves if you do. It doesn't like overly wet soil. Basil (Ocimum) is also perfect, as it benefits from being constantly harvested too. It's so tasty when prepped for a zesty pesto.
Next, try some more vegetables. You could grow baby beetroot in pots about 15cm deep, which are perfect for windowsills. Sow a few seeds onto the compost and cover them with 3cm of compost. You’ll need to thin them out once they have grown to 3cm, so they grow larger beetroot plants. Once the plant has grown to 5cm, you can start harvesting.
Container gardening for beginners
Growing plants in containers is great if garden space is at a premium, or if your outdoor space is a balcony area. Choosing some lovely flowering plants to get started with can help advance your gardening knowledge.
1. Choosing your container
Start by choosing your container. There is a great assortment to select from, depending on your needs and space available. For example, you could choose a decorative pot to position on a patio or decked area, or go for window boxes. Which plants you can choose may be dependent on the container space available. Consider this when choosing your pot.
2. Planting your container
First, make sure the drainage hole in the bottom isn’t too large. If it has a diameter larger than an inch (2.5cm), slightly fill the gap with stones or broken pottery. This stops too much compost from falling straight through.
Next, fill your container with compost up to where the rootballs of your plants will sit. Firm the compost down.
Remove your chosen plants from their pots. Move them into place in the container. Think about their different heights plus where your container will be positioned. Is it going in a corner? Will only one side of the container be visible? Will the container be moved to show other angles?
Once you have placed all your plants in the container, fill any gaps between the plants with more compost. Water the container well.
3. Caring for container plants
When caring for container plants, you are the ‘custodian’ of them. They need watering more regularly than bedded plants, as they have a limited amount of soil to source water from.
Depending on your chosen plants, there may be some aftercare requirements. Perennial plants, for example, will come back again the next year after fading, given the right conditions. Annuals will die back and need to be replaced with fresh plants.
Make sure you understand what plants you have and what specific care they may need, how hardy they are and if they need feeding.
There are a few easy ways to dip your toe in with gardening, without making too much commitment if it doesn’t suit you. Starting with just a simple container, cultivating some cress, or nurturing an easy houseplant is a great way to get started, and grow from there.
Celebrity TV gardener and Chartered Horticulturist David Domoney is Thrive's first gardening ambassador.
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