The strive for happy and healthy plants can throw up many curveballs. If you grow your own plants from seed, or purchase them from garden centers, there are many potential pitfalls. However, the good news is there are lots of products available that can help give you the edge and radically improve your chances of success.
Whether you are growing plants indoors or outdoors, making wise purchasing decisions will help your propagation prosper, your indoor plants thrive, and plants outside as part of your backyard ideas grow strong and healthy.
I spent many years working as a professional gardener and spoke to our fellow H&G garden experts to highlight some of the best products we recommend to improve indoor and outdoor growing plant success.
Take your plant care to the next level
There is a huge range of gardening products and gadgets to help you grow plants indoors and outdoors. We have scoured Amazon and identified 6 suited to growing indoors, whether in a greenhouse or inside the home, and 6 for plants outside in backyards that can help you have healthy and happy plants.
Whether you are growing houseplants, shrubs, flowers, vegetables, fruit, or herbs, there is something here to benefit any plants.
6 products for indoor plant success
Grow lights are ideal for indoor gardening and provide the light required to help indoor plants thrive. LED grow lights supplement the natural light levels and are essential for successfully raising seedlings during late winter and early spring. Grow lights also give houseplants extra light during the darker months to keep them thriving. Tenielle Jordison, news writer on the gardens team at H&G, says that overhead panel grow lights are ‘perfect for fitting multiple small pots underneath and supporting early growth of young seedlings’. She adds: ‘I leave it on for a few hours at a time, particularly on gloomy days - allowing me to successfully grow indoors year-round. I enjoy the timer and dimming function, I can adjust the brightness for plants at different stages of growth.’
Boost your chances of success when sowing seeds indoors with a propagator that provides extra heat and light. The bottom warmth supplied by the heat mat helps seeds germinate and the grow light gives a light boost so seedlings can develop healthily. A propagator with heat and light allows you to start your seed sowing earlier in the year, with no worrying about the natural levels in late winter and early spring. It prevents common seed-sowing mistakes, including leggy seedlings stretching towards the light and seeds not germinating as they sulk in cold compost. A heated propagator will improve your propagation success and I always gave seeds and seedlings extra heat and light when I grew plants for the gardens I worked in.
If you have a heated greenhouse, you can start sowing seeds early in the year. However, in an unheated greenhouse, a seedling heat mat can help you successfully sow earlier than you otherwise would. I have used heat mats in greenhouses before, but they can also be used indoors. The mats produce an even and consistent warmth of around 68-86℉ that can warm the soil, benefitting seed germination and root development. The mates are strong, waterproof, and easy to store for the rest of the year as they can be rolled up. Add a thermostat controller, also available at Amazon, and you can regulate the ideal temperatures for specific plants.
Watering indoor plants can be tricky to master and this is where an automatic drip irrigation kit can come in handy. Such a kit can be set up to water up to 15 indoor plants successfully. The drip irrigation systems deliver water to the plant’s root zone and can help to avoid overwatering and root rot. A programmable digital timer can be easily set up to automatically control when, how often, and how long your plants are irrigated. The indoor drip irrigation kit comes complete with an automatic timer, tubing, and all required connectors and can be set up quickly and simply. It can be an ideal solution to successfully water plants while on vacation.
Nutrients are essential for all indoor plants to grow strong and healthy. Fertilizers are commonly used to keep plants looking at their best and there is always the risk of overfertilizing indoor plants. As overfertilizing is a common indoor plant mistake, using specially formulated houseplant fertilizer spikes can alleviate that risk. And, as spikes are so simple to use, there is also no mess from liquid feeds overflowing pots or running off plants. Using pre-measured spikes and replacing them at the recommended time frame can give you easy success with all manner of indoor plants, including pothos, snake plants, spider plants, fiddle leaf figs, and many more.
Cold frames are great additions to any backyard and can be budget-friendly and space-saving ways to harden off seedlings and provide warmth for more tender heat-loving plants. All plants sown indoors will benefit from a few weeks of hardening off in a cold frame, by opening and closing the lid during the day they can get adjusted and will not suffer shock when they go to their final position. Cold frames also provide an ideal protected environment to help improve your success with plant cuttings. They are also great spaces to successfully overwinter plants indoors that are not fully hardy and want a warm and protected spot to see through the colder months.
6 products for outdoor plant success
Garden cloches aid success in multiple ways. They are a way to warm up soil quicker in spring, meaning you can plant vegetables or sow seeds outdoors earlier in the year and also protect plants from frost at the start or end of the growing season. ‘The main reason I like using cloches in my garden is because they are portable, and such a simple way to provide a wide range of crops with that extra bit of protection and warmth - be that from the weather or from hungry pests,’ says Rachel Bull, head of gardens at H&G. A cloche will help to control slugs and prevent them from nibbling your seedlings when they appear or are transplanted into the garden.
Row covers can protect outdoor plants from damage courtesy of cold or pests. They are lightweight covers made of polyester or polypropylene that come in different weights and, depending on the type, often protect down to 4°F and transmit about 85% of the light. Row covers allow light and water to get down to the plants, but protect them from cold snaps and winds while raising the daytime temperatures to get young plants off to a great start. Row covers may not look massively appealing for long-term use in backyards, but they offer benefits to help you get plants off to a great start each year. They can also extend the season for growing crops further into fall.
There are lots of pests that can hamper ambitions of successfully growing vegetables in a backyard kitchen garden. That is especially the case with brassica plants, including cabbages, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, and Brussels sprouts. These plants are susceptible to caterpillars, the larval stage of pests like cabbage loppers. The best way to keep caterpillars out of a vegetable garden, and help boost your chances of a successful harvest, is to cover plants in fine netting. The tiny holes in the nets allow sun, air, and water through, but most importantly keep the insects out. Secure the netting at the bottom with landscape staples, also available at Amazon, and leave no gaps for sneaky pests to find their way in.
Watering plants is a given, an essential part of gardening year after year. A soaker hose offers a simple and proven way to water plants deeply and efficiently and they are a product I have used often over the years. If a soaker hose is new to you, it is made of porous material and covered in tiny holes. The water slowly seeps along the full length of the hose and soaks deep into the soil, conserving water and getting it down to the roots of the plants. Deep watering plants helps them grow strong and healthy. Watering plants from above with a traditional hose or sprinkler can be a garden watering mistake that increases the susceptibility to fungal diseases, such as powdery mildew, when foliage is left to sit wet overnight.
Install a timer on your faucet to control how you water plants in flower beds and borders or how long you water a lawn with a sprinkler. There is now no risk of forgetting to switch off hoses or sprinklers, no more overwatering plants or turning lawns into a soggy mess. A timer can control the frequency and duration of the watering, from every few hours to once a week and anywhere between watering for a minute to several hours. You can also delay any pre-programmed routine with the touch of a bottom if there is a lot of rain forecast. Installing timers will reduce water waste and be an efficient method of watering in hot weather, as you can irrigate early in the day to make the most of the water you apply.
You can boost the chance of success when planting any trees, shrubs, or perennials with the addition of mycorrhizal fungi. Adding beneficial fungi to the planting hole helps plants establish and prosper in their new home. ‘Mycorrhizal fungi can help your plants increase nutrient uptake in the soil, resulting in your plants getting far more of what they need from the surrounding soil, thereby producing plenty of new growth, fruits and flowers,’ says Thom Rutter, content editor for H&G. ‘What's more, this application is a one-off, and so with one scoop, you can improve the quality of your borders for many, many years.’
FAQs
How do you help a struggling plant?
The key to aiding a struggling or dying plant is identifying the factors causing issues and making quick corrections. Check for signs of overwatering, underwatering, pests, or disease issues to get to the potential root of the problem. Struggling plants may need additional nutrients, more warmth or light, or re-potting to perk them back up. Remove any dead leaves or stems from the plant, relocate or feed if required, and fix an overwatered plant by stopping watering and re-potting it.
The other essentials you need for gardening success are quality garden tools. See our expert guide to gardening essentials on Amazon to discover some of the best pieces of kit to help make your backyard look better than ever.
