Plants Get Used to the Care You Give

Your care is the best care. Source: clipartmax.com

Are you a bit slow to water your houseplants? You forget to fertilize them? It’s a bit shadier where you grow them than it should be?

Don’t worry too much about it: plants get used to the care you give. Or perhaps I should say those that are capable of surviving the conditions you offer will adapt to them. (Those that can’t died ages ago!)

What few plants can adapt to though is irregular, inconsistent care. If you water like a demon for two months, then fail to water at all for a few weeks, many will die.

The same happens in the outdoor garden. Many gardeners will have noticed that a dry spring leads to plants well adapted to drought right through the summer, because they adjusted to a less than ideal source of moisture that year, producing long roots seeking moisture deep in the soil. But if a wet, rainy spring is followed by a sudden drought, even a short one, most plants will suffer quite noticeably and many will die. That’s because they had produced shorter roots than usual (unneeded when soil moisture was abundant) and just can’t find the moisture they need when drought does occur.

Fortunately for plants, human beings tend to be more consistent than irregular in their plant care. Or if they are irregular, they are so in a fairly consistent way. If you chronically underwater, those plants that can adapt to it will. If you can’t pass by a plant without watering it, again, most plants will adapt (as long as the surplus water can drain away).

When You’re Away

So, you’re off for a few weeks of fun and sun and you get your neighbor, locally renowned for her green thumb, to water while you’re away? Great! But expect at least some of the plants to go downhill while you’re gone. Two people rarely care for plants in just the same way and not all plants will adapt well to the change.

So, don’t blame the plant sitter when you get back from vacation and find a few plants have gone on to plant heaven. The carer probably gave the best care they knew how to give, but their care wasn’t your care.

Look at it this way. Your plants love you and only you. Isn’t that somehow reassuring?