Dreary winter months are ahead. And here's an idea for bringing a little healthful cheer indoors plants. Oh great you say but. I have trouble keeping them alive well our next guest is a professional horticulturalist and garden expert at Costa farms Justin. Hancock joins us with tips for making. Indoor plants thrive during cold dry weather welcome. Justin so great to have you here. It's great to be here first off. Remind us of all the wonderful benefits. Houseplants give us so. The best benefit is that plants clean the air. They're remarkably efficient at removing harmful. VOCs NASA did some research and then just the summer the state university of new york compounded on that and showed how amazingly effective they are pulling these things right from the air and super quickly. That's so great now. Is there any research that also shows that they help reduce stress or actually make us feel a little better absolutely. There are decades of research that show all of these really wonderful psychological benefits. Plants might be able to help reduce our blood pressure. They can help us feel more relaxed and calm they can help us with cognition and memory attention span just all fabulous things and I we all love the idea but I have to confess. I have the opposite of a green thumb. I've never been able to keep houseplants alive. Please tell me what. I've been doing wrong especially going into the cold dry months of winter. What do we need to keep in mind all right. The number one rule for having success with plants is having the right plant in the right spot. You know the plant that everybody calls super easy will actually be really hard. If it's not in a good spot so taking stock of how much light you have and what kind of water you are. That really makes a difference. So what kind of light do we need. Erect light no well it depends on the plant. Okay so you can really tailor your plants to your space. I'm a really good general. Rule of thumb is for low light. That's enough light that you can read a book or magazine without having to turn on a lamp right of the day and so how often do we well again.

It depends on the plant but as a rule of thumb. How often do you need to water your well once a week. The the best way to do is to probe the soil with your fingertip when it's dry about an inch down then give it some more water now. We know that plants love humidity. So is there something extra you have to do. During the dry months of winter. Not necessarily lot of plants do really well in kitchens and bathrooms where it's a little more humid and if your place is quite dry then having some of the the hardy ER tougher plants that don't mind dry. Air can thrive there for you great. So you brought some of these so-called superhero plants. Yeah with you and I love this. So the idea is these plants are harder to kill why are they have a much wider range of tolerances and so you grow them just about anywhere wonderful. So what's the first one. You have a spider plant. This is a snake cut snake plant okay and this is a tried-and-true house plant it's been loved by generations of gardeners and you know that if it's been grown for generations it has to be good and tolerant. It does low light it does medium light it does highlight. You can water this one every two maybe even three weeks. It's so usually for young picky and low maintenance absolutely perfect girlfriend or boyfriend yeah exactly. And it's really structural beautiful so it looks good in modern decor classic decor fantastic good to know now. How often do you need to water it once every two or three weeks or three weeks okay. I like that I might have to pick up a snake plant. And what is this beautiful red leaf red tipped plant you so this is called a red Eglin Emma and it's kind of a mouthful of a name. We call it red egg for short at the farm but this is just we found it so remarkably tolerant like the snake plant low light medium high light low humidity high humidity. You know you can water it once a week.

You can water it once every two weeks once every three weeks and it still forgives and and does really well for you fantastic and are there some others maybe that perhaps you did not bring with you that we should keep in mind sure at Costa farms we have a series we call the plant of steel that we've done a lot of research in and these are the most tolerant the hardy is the toughest plants. I love it that's what I need. I need one of these. I might be willing to give it another try with one of these Justin. Thank you so much for coming thank you.