Herself’s Houseplants

While adding used coffee grounds to your plants works as a mild fertilizer ( 4, 1, 3 ) I recently read some articles where gardeners had used coffee grounds in place of soil for houseplants.

No one had success germinating seeds in pure coffee grounds but several plants did very well planted in coffee grounds instead of soil. If you are lucky you can just take out the coffee in the filter and drop the whole thing into a pot. Usually the pots and coffee filters won’t be so conveniently sized.

Occasionally plants in coffee grounds will develop a phosphorus deficiency or manganese toxicity as seen in leaves turning purple. Adding a bit of phosphate and lime to the soil will correct this.

The coffee also acts as a neurotoxin against slugs and other unwelcome critters.

The grounds are acidic so are a great way to add some acid to your acid loving houseplants like gardenias and azaleas.

The best successes came with tree and shrub houseplants. They seemed to do much better indoors planted in coffee grounds than dirt. Also plants that tend toward preferring drier soil to wetter soil seem to do better in coffee grounds.

I’ve read that expresso grounds do not work as well as regular coffee grounds.

See forum thread Coffee Grounds as Planting Medium

The potting soil makes a huge difference in how indoor house plants grow. If you are having trouble with your houseplants it may not be you but your potting soil that is to blame.

1 ) Use potting soil, not compost. Compost works great outside as an additive to the soil but not in a pot as the medium for the plant.

2 ) Hyponex All Purpose Potting Soil and Green Charm both did terrible in tests by The Colorado Extension Office, Black Gold All Organic Potting Soil did not do terribly well either. Spend the extra money for a quality soil you are not buying a great deal of it.

3) I’m told ‘Sunshine Mix’ is an excellent choice.  It holds water a long time so you don’t have to water as often.

4) I’m also told that Miracle Grow soil often has hardwood bark mixed in with the soil.  The hardwoods develop a white fungus-mold on them as they age which will become hard not letting the soil absorb water and steal nutrients from your plants.

Sphagnum moss can be found in the plant section of most stores. If you paid more than $3 a bag you got snookered.

I use it for my orchids. Since I started planting my orchids in moss instead of bark I have not lost a single plant. They will need watering a lot less frequently and I don’t have the mildew problems that I sometimes had with bark.

I use this for my carnivorous plants as well. The bog plants love to grow in the sphagnum moss.

And most importantly I use it for rescue plants. When I have a plant in trouble I plant in in wet sphagnum moss and use a clear plastic bag to create a greenhouse over the plant. That along with a bit of fertilizer with rooting hormones will bring back just about any plant from death’s door.