Acupuncture Gives Houseplants New Life

If your houseplants are looking sickly because they are starving for oxygen, give them an acupuncture treatment to bring the back to life.

Ordinary watering of houseplants compacts the soil and reduces the spaces between the soil particles and the planting pot, which drives out the oxygen from the soil and literally suffocates the houseplants.

This happens to houseplants that have been in the same planting pot for years or with houseplants that were planted in poorly draining soil. When you water houseplants that are planted in poorly draining soil, the water fills up the air holes in the soil and will drown the houseplants.

Perform some acupuncture on the houseplants soil to give it a fresh breath of air and new life.

To perform acupuncture on a houseplant, take a long nail and gently work it down into the soil. The number of holes you will need to make in the soil will depend upon the size of the planting pot. A small houseplant in a small planting pot only needs a few acupuncture hole, while a large houseplant and pot will need a more intense acupuncture treatment.

The acupuncture holes in the soil aerates the soil and allows much needed oxygen to get down to the roots of the houseplants.

This acupuncture treatment does not solve the underlying problem with your houseplants as far as the poorly draining soil or compacted soil is concerned, but it will give you and your plants some breathing room until your can re-pot the houseplants properly.