Care Guides
Mounted Plants
Some of our favorite houseplants are epiphytes, meaning that they grow in their natural habitat attached to other plants, usually trees. These epiphytic plants take up their necessary moisture and nutrients from the air, rain, and water that happens to accumulate around it.
Since I like to mimic my plant’s natural environment as much as possible in my home, I’ve come to enjoy mounting some of my epiphytic plants on wood slabs. It’s not only some of the coolest wall decor, but it makes for happy plants if maintained properly!
Care tips:
Temperature and Light:
Most epiphytes grow in warm, tropical areas in their wild habitat, so they’ll enjoy living in a warm spot of your house. Also, most need bright, indirect light whether that is natural sunlight or artificial grow lights.
Watering:
Mounted plants will typically dry out quicker than your potted plants, since most of their medium is spaghnum moss. You’ll want to keep a close eye on them while getting use to your particular plant’s routine. How often you need to
I’ve found that the best way to water your mounted plants is to soak the whole mount in clean, room temperature water for 10-30 minutes depending on the size of your mount as well as how much it dried out. I like to do this in the bathtub, with all my mounted plants and air plants, in order to give them a good soak. You’ll know you need to water your plant when the spagnum moss around the roots is dry to the touch and the mount is noticeably lighter.
Fertiliziing:
Fertilizing your mounted plant will be important to see sufficient growth, especially since their medium of moss doesn’t hold many nutrients. In order to fertilizer, you can either put your favorite liquid fertilizer (please measure according to your specific fertilizer’s directions) into the water that you soak your plant in. Or, what I like to do is spray their leaves with a foliar fertilizer in order to feed them the nutrients they need.
Terrarium
Terrariums are one of my favorite plant creations to showcase some of my more humidity sensitive plants. Sometimes its fun to just have one as a piece of living art! Or maybe you just love the outdoors like me and want one just to observe and appreciate the small little ecosystem thats living, breathing and growing with you in your home.
Bioactive terrarium:
For my closed terrariums, I like to create them to be bioactive terrariums. Bioactive terrariums are specially made to be a self-sustaining environment that shouldn’t need too much maintenance. What I do that makes it bioactive is adding springtails, or what I like to call the “tiny but mighty clean up crew”. Nerdy, I know, but these little guys are seriously not to be underestimated at how well they can maintain a healthy ecosystem cycle.
If you’re unfamiliar with springtails, they are tiny beneficial insects that feed on decaying organic material in the soil. This means that they take care of any mold or fungus that may occur in your terrarium. As their name suggests, springtails can jump using their tail, so this is why I only use them in enclosed terrariums. As squeamish as the sound of a jumping bug may make some people, they are nothing to be afraid of since they are 1/16th to 1/8th of an inch and cannot sting or bite you. In fact, they like to just hang out in the damp soil and munch away ay decaying material. They really are the best addition to your terrarium! Since they’ll do most the maintenance, the only thing you’ll need to do is keep up on watering and cutting back plants if you feel like giving it a touch up. And voila, you have your own little world to add to your home!
Lighting and Watering:
Your terrarium will do well in indirect light, but depending on what you have growing inside, some will enjoy bright indirect light especially. Closed terrariums can use a watering every month to two months depending on the growth rate, warmth, and season. I like to make sure the false bottom (layer of leca or volcanic rock on the bottom that serves as a water reservoir) at least has some water reserved down below. Just like most plants, it will take some time with your terrarium to get a good feel for your unique terrarium’s routine.
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