5 helpful hints for healthy houseplants

Indoor houseplants not only add colour and beauty to your home, they also provide much needed oxygen and moisture to the air. These helpful hints will keep your plants happily growing and blooming for many years to come.

When potting plants in flowerpots, put a small coffee filter in the bottom of the pot first, then add drainage material and soil. This way, excess water will leak out of the drainage hole while the soil stays put.

Wearing an old cloth glove lets you clean houseplant leaves in half the time. Just run each leaf through your gloved fingers from bottom to top, and presto! You've dusted both sides.

Smooth-leaved houseplants can be cleaned by wiping with a damp paper towel, but fuzzy or corrugated leaves require special care.

• Brush dust away. An effective way to clean African violets, bertolonias and other fuzzy-leaved houseplants is with a soft-bristled toothbrush, a paintbrush, or a pipe cleaner. Brush gently from the base of each leaf toward the tip.
• Blow dust away. Dust plants with corrugated leaves, like peperomias, with a hairdryer. Set the appliance on cool or low and blow air on every leaf.

To prevent houseplants from becoming rootbound (and dying quickly), replant them in a container larger than the one they originally come in. Add extra dirt, and your plants will grow faster and live twice as long.

Every time you eat an avocado, save the pit and grow a houseplant. Just scrub the pit clean and insert three sturdy toothpicks into it just above the base. Fill a drinking glass with water and set the toothpicked pit on the rim. Change the water often and top it off as necessary.

After several weeks, the pit will sprout a shoot and roots, at which point you can pot your fledgling houseplant. Keep the pot in a sunny window and pinch off appropriate new shoots to make the plant bushier. Pinching off the shoot of the central stem after the stem grows about 15 centimetres (6 inches) tall will result in an even fuller plant.

These helpful hints for healthy houseplants will turn your brown thumb green in no time at all!