Passive Family Income » houseplants

Save Money Through Plant Propagation

John S. — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 11:26:17 +0000

This is the 2nd article in a series of 10 posts on frugal tips for landscaping and growing indoor houseplants. Check out the other posts in this series -
1 – Frugal Decorating with Tropical House Plants

photo credit: eraineIn the first post of this series, I discussed frugal ways to decorate your home using indoor houseplants. There can be many costs when purchasing an indoor plant, such as – pots & planters, potting soil, fertilizer, saucers & stands, and the actual plants themselves. In some cases, the total costs of adding an indoor plant to your home can run well over $50. Today, I would like to discuss one of my favorite frugal tips on landscaping and growing indoor houseplants. That tip is propagation. There are many forms of plant propagation that can be used. They include – planting seeds, taking cuttings, grafting, and much more. The most important part of propagation is that the cost is free!

photo credit: Erik MallinsonIf you do some research on propagation, it can be very confusing and overwhelming. I like to keep things simple when it comes to propagating plants. I am not going to go out and spend a bunch of money on plant hormones just to try and get plants to grow. If I can’t do it for free, then I am not going to bother. I currently have propagated 3 different types of plants in our home. Each plant that I have propagated has been very easy, required less than 15 minutes of my time, and cost no money! The following list highlights my results -

Golden Pothos – Also referred to as Devils Ivy, it is probably the easy indoor plant to grow. As long as you water the plant every once in a while, it will be happy! It is also very simple to propagate and will take you less than 5 minutes time. You simply take a cutting from a healthy plant, stick it in a vase or glass of water (stem down) and within a week you should see roots starting to grow! After a couple of weeks, you stick it in a pot and add some potting soil and you are done.
Christmas Cactus – Not quite as simple as the Golden Pothos, the Christmas Cactus is fairly easy to propagate. You take a cutting of 3 nodes from a healthy plant and dry them out for 24 hours. Once they are dried, you stick them in a pot with potting soil and within a week or so, you will see new growth starting. I have had a 75% survival rate with my cuttings, so I would suggest doing several at once.
Rubber Plant – The hardest of the 3 plants I have propagated, you can cut one leaf off a healthy plant and let the milky sap drain out for a day. Once the sap has drained out, simply put it in a pot with potting soil and you are done! Propagating the Rubber Plant is a longer process than the other ones mentioned as it takes longer to become established and grow.

If you search the Internet, you will find many different ideas and ways to propagate the 3 plants I mentioned above, along with hundreds of other plants. The point of this article is not to show you how to propagate these plants, but to point out that it can be a very cheap and easy way to decorate your home. Of course, you will probably still have to buy a pot and potting soil for the plants, so it may cost you a little money.

You could also begin to propagate indoor houseplants and use them as frugal gift ideas! Try propagating a Golden Pothos and letting your kids decorate a clay pot with the plant to give to their mom for Mother’s day! Or you can propagate a Christmas Cactus to give out as a present during the Holiday season. There are so many options and ideas out there that will save you money!

Tip #2 – Research different houseplants that are easy to propagate by searching on the Internet. Once you find the types of plants you want to grow, ask family, friends, and co-worker’s if you can take clippings from their plants. The only other thing you need is patience & time!

This is the 2nd article in a series of posts on tips for frugal landscaping and frugal tips on decorating inside with houseplants.

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Frugal Decorating with Tropical House Plants

John S. — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 11:53:59 +0000

This is the 1st in a series of 10 posts on frugal tips for landscaping and growing indoor houseplants.

One of the biggest struggles I have around frugal living is reducing our landscaping and plant budget. Basically, there is no category for these expenses in our monthly family budget. Any dollars we spend on indoor and outdoor plants come directly out of our grocery and entertainment budget. This means that our family relies on purchasing plants and materials at greatly reduced prices or getting them for free! Since I have a passion for all things landscaping (as well as raising indoor houseplants) and take pride in having great curb appeal, this can be difficult for me.

As new homeowner’s, my wife and I have been looking for frugal decorating ideas for several months. One type of decoration that we enjoy using in our home is adding tropical houseplants for color and a natural effect. Using certain houseplants for decoration can even improve the quality of the air in your home! Our oldest son has severe allergies and asthma, so any chance we can get to improve our air quality in our home is a plus.

While the majority of indoor houseplants do not cost a lot of money, there are still several additional costs involved which can push up the expense. There are many factors that one must consider before purchasing a houseplant from the store. Some of the costs for indoor plants include -

Pots and Planters – Nice looking pots or planters can cost well over $30.
Planting Soil – I always forget to include this cost, but topsoil or planting soil can cost you several extra dollars.
Fertilizer – You can spread this cost around several plants, but you need to factor in fertilizers if you want to have healthy and strong houseplants.
Saucers & Stands – If you want to raise the height of a smaller plant, then you will need to purchase or make a stand that will cost a few extra dollars. In addition, it is a very good idea to use a saucer under the pot to trap any excess water that drains down. This will prevent damage to your flooring or stand. Saucers at the store usually run a few dollars.
Plants – Depending on the size and type, houseplants can range from a few dollars to over one hundred dollars.

As you can tell from the items above, there are several expenses involved when purchasing an indoor houseplant. That is why it is very important to reduce your costs on each product in order to keep the overall expenses low. Today I would like to focus on the purchase of the houseplant.

The other day I was at the local home improvement store looking for some items for our house. As a ritual, I decided to go and check out their stock of indoor houseplants, as well as their selection of outdoor perennials and annuals. Most of the time I do this just to window shop to see all the neat plants that I would love to own. However, every once in a while, you can come across an excellent deal. For example, the store that I went to had a huge supply of majestic palm plants that had been selling for $10. When I recently visited, these plants had been marked down to $3 in order to make room for their fall and winter stock of plants. That is a 70% decrease! I had been eying these plants for some time as I thought they would go well with our decor. After I saw they had been marked down to $3, I snatched one up. When I got to the register, the lady told me these plants had not been selling and that they were actually being marked down again from $3 to $1.50! Wow, an 85% discount. This example brings me to my first tip (see below) on frugal tips for landscaping and growing indoor houseplants.

Tip #1 – Be patient when purchasing houseplants. Many times you can find excellent bargains if you wait for the store(s) to mark them down to move their inventory.

This is the first of a series of posts on tips for frugal landscaping and frugal tips on decorating inside with houseplants.

What type of deals have you gotten on indoor houseplants?

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