- 1). Position your houseplants close to a large west- or south-facing window that receives bright, indirect sunshine. While every plant species has different light requirements, bright light makes most houseplants grow faster. Rotate the pot every week to give all parts of the plant equal exposure to the light.
- 2). Keep your houseplants at a temperature from 65 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit during the day, and allow the temperature to drop up to 10 degrees at night. Never expose houseplants to quick changes of temperature, and keep them away from cold drafts and the flow of hot, dry air from heaters.
- 3). Water a houseplant when the surface of the plant's soil is dry to the touch. Provide enough water to moisten it thoroughly. Never allow the soil to dry out completely, and never leave the pot standing in a dish of water. Mist your plants with a water mister every day to raise local humidity levels and to keep the leaves clean.
- 4). Flush out each houseplant's soil with abundant water once every four to six months in order to leach away accumulated salts in the soil. The salts can build up due to fertilization and evaporation and are toxic to plant roots. Flush the soil if you see a white deposit or crust on the surface of a plant's soil.
- 5). Repot a houseplant if its roots emerge from the drainage hole in the bottom of its container. Use a pot slightly larger than the pot it outgrew, and use a compost made of equal parts of peat and sand or perlite and loam or garden soil. That mixture allows water to drain freely and provides nutrients.
Remove the top 1 inch of soil and replace it with fresh compost if you do not want to repot a houseplant. Doing so provides the plant with fresh nutrients from the new soil.
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