[HN Gopher] Why is houseplant advice so bad?
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Why is houseplant advice so bad?
Author : richardatlarge
Score : 21 points
Date : 2021-10-29 21:14 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (dirtwise.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (dirtwise.substack.com)
| Dumblydorr wrote:
| Been diving deep into lawn care recently. There's a TON,
| literally hundreds, of products you can spread on your lawn.
| There's 250 days of the growing season to apply those hundreds of
| products on. And does it work? Well, this internet comment
| written by so and so says it does, and their lawn is beautiful,
| but which of the 15 things they're doing are most pivotal? Or is
| it multivariate and all the parameters matter and affect and
| interact with each other?
|
| Unfortunately, I believe it's the latter complex case. pH matters
| a lot, that affects fertilization uptake, but so does soil
| bacteria and organic matter, lack of bugs and diseases, proper
| moisture, and the physical act of cutting the grass is an art and
| skill, not a mere chore.
|
| Oof, plants need a lot of variables to be in the right ranges,
| and with soil and watering and weather, it's a lot of fluctuation
| on top of it all.
| colechristensen wrote:
| This is a problem all over, from health advice to cooking to
| skincare, lawn care, etc. etc. etc.
|
| A complex system with many variables and optimum points trying
| to be solved with anecdotes, magical cures, and "good for you"
| products.
| Larrikin wrote:
| Atleast with cooking I've collected a few sources that are
| consistently good. For new recipes I follow them exactly the
| first time and disregard any source that has had more than a
| couple not great recipes, specifically any recipe on all
| recipes that not a sponsored professional chef.
| nereye wrote:
| You might enjoy this Guardian article on the ever-increasing
| efforts spent on improving grass pitches used for football:
| https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/jun/15/silicon-
| val....
| omgwtfbyobbq wrote:
| In my experience lawn care is mostly getting the amount of
| water/sun right and not beating it up too much.
| Asparagirl wrote:
| I agree with the author that we need to see more examples of
| larger, older plants to get an idea of what our lil plant bbs
| could be someday. Fortunately there are some great Facebook
| groups for different genera, and of course there's
| https://www.reddit.com/r/matureplants/
| reydequeso wrote:
| Recently visited a local botanical garden and saw their mature
| Ficus lyrata (Fiddle lead fig) and was astounded to see mine at
| 6 feet tall was merely a juvenile branch on the entire tree.
|
| The author has also a good point in that maturing plants is a
| lot of work and as they become more of themselves they become
| more than, imo, what people would consider aesthetically
| appropriate.
|
| M.deiciosa is a hot plant right now and maybe in these 5+1
| apartments someone will live in one long enough to let it
| really start branching up and out and taking up a valuable
| amount of living real estate. It also has these, to my fiancee,
| 'penile' roots that are to her unsightly.
|
| They make me feel more alive seeing the plant thrive and do its
| thing.
| richardatlarge wrote:
| That's a good link: seeing what plants can become really
| encourages more interest in keeping them healthy
| kodah wrote:
| Caring for houseplants is quite hard. I have 8 and my friend
| recently gave up his job to grow Bonsai trees full time. The
| amount I learned from him was quite interesting, I almost felt
| dumb by the end. My plants do fine, but they could've been doing
| way better.
|
| For my Bonsais, I didn't know that they should be given filtered
| water. The Bay area has particularly nasty water, so immediately
| my plants were getting spots. Second, when you repot in the
| summers, the soil should be aligned to _where_ you 're growing.
| Third, East facing windows that cliff the sun at the hottest part
| of the day are imperative. I then asked him, "Wait, I can't leave
| them in the same spot all year?" and his immediate reply was,
| "Hell no, not unless you plan to layer shades in front of them,
| but I bet that's not why you put them where you did." For
| watering guidance, he said, "Stick your finger into the soil down
| to the knuckle, if it's dry, water them. If it's still wet, let
| it dry out."
|
| Keeping plants alive is relatively easy; helping them thrive is
| another matter entirely.
| richardatlarge wrote:
| I think that's true about surviving versus thriving. I have a
| bonsai nursery and 'bonsai' is one area where there is a lot of
| serious interest. Lots of disagreements but a much higher rate
| of expert knowledge. Sometimes we have to remind ourselves what
| we want from our plants and adapt accordingly. Sometimes simple
| is better even when the results are less spectacular
| omegaworks wrote:
| >The Bay area has particularly nasty water
|
| Isn't Hetch Hetchy water some of the cleanest?
| fargle wrote:
| I dunno, the advice I get from _my_ houseplants always seems spot
| on...
| EastOfTruth wrote:
| house plant care is not that hard to automate (water/feeding)
| millzlane wrote:
| In the cannabis world It's because of 'Broscience'.
| richardatlarge wrote:
| https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=broscience
| throwaway984393 wrote:
| Caring for a houseplant is like caring for a baby. There are
| things that work, and things that don't, but not necessarily for
| _your_ baby. You won 't really know what's going on unless you
| pay close attention to it. And if it seems unhappy, you won't
| really know how to make it happy until you try a few things out.
|
| Baby advice and houseplant advice isn't "bad", it's just
| subjective.
| monopoledance wrote:
| Tl;dr: Lot's of houseplants die. The end.
|
| Anyway, since you are here: You may kill your plants with tab
| water. Plants evolved to get demineralized rainwater. The salts
| of tab water will have salt build up in the soil, slowly
| poisoning the plant. Additionally the pot is also the plant's
| potty: It disposes excess minerals and waste through the roots,
| and expects the rain to flush it away.
|
| It's best to water your plants with demineralized water, but you
| can also use (old) boiled and cooled down water, which lost at
| least some CO2 and consequently fell out calcium. In any case, if
| you water your plant, do so thoroughly, until water comes out at
| the bottom. Let it collect for a few minutes and then dispose it.
| Do not let it reabsorb! This will help the plant getting rid of
| salts and also helps not getting the soil soaking wet.
|
| Btw. this is also why irrigation is a problem for food security.
| Using straight underground water for crops in hot regions will
| only work for a few years, until the soil is dead for good....
| dredmorbius wrote:
| And of course: in what other domains is this issue present?
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(page generated 2021-10-29 23:00 UTC)