The Complete Guide to the Latest Techniques and Methods for Growing Flowers at Home

With their brilliant splendor, flowers decorate nature with extraordinary beauty and bring people the enjoyment of beauty. Growing flowers can enrich and adjust people's cultural life, add pleasure, cultivate character, and improve health; it can also increase scientific knowledge and raise cultural and artistic literacy, and it has many important economic values as well. Now let us take a look together at the complete guide to growing flowers at home!

The “Three Suitables” of Growing Flowers at Home

1. It is suitable to grow flowers with a strong ability to absorb toxic substances: certain flowers can absorb a certain concentration of toxic gases in the air, such as sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, hydrogen fluoride, formaldehyde, hydrogen chloride, and so on. Wintersweet can absorb mercury vapor, pomegranate plants can absorb lead vapor in the air, and snapdragon, canna, morning glory, gladiolus, and dianthus can, through their leaves, convert highly toxic sulfur dioxide into non-toxic or low-toxicity sulfate compounds through oxidation. Narcissus, four-o'clock, chrysanthemum, and strawberry geranium can convert nitrogen oxides into proteins in plant cells, while spider plant, aloe, and snake plant can absorb large amounts of indoor pollutants such as formaldehyde.

2. It is suitable to grow flowers that can secrete bactericidal substances: the bactericidal substances secreted by flowers such as jasmine, lilac, honeysuckle, and morning glory can kill certain bacteria in the air, inhibit the occurrence of diphtheria, tuberculosis, and dysentery pathogens and typhoid bacteria, and keep indoor air clean and hygienic.

3. It is suitable to grow flowers with “complementary” functions: most flowers mainly carry out photosynthesis during the day, absorbing carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen, and carry out respiration at night, absorbing oxygen and releasing carbon dioxide. Cacti are just the opposite, releasing carbon dioxide during the day and absorbing carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen at night. Growing flowers with “complementary” functions in the same room can not only benefit both mutually, but also balance the indoor oxygen and carbon dioxide levels and keep indoor air fresh.

The “Three Don'ts” of Growing Flowers at Home

1. Do not grow too many flowers that give off strong fragrance and pungent odors: flowers such as orchid, rose, Chinese rose, lily, and night-blooming jasmine can all give off rich aromas. One pot in a room fills it with fragrance, but if too many fragrant flowers are placed indoors and the scent is too strong, it will excite people's nerves; especially if people smell it for a long time in the bedroom, it can cause insomnia. The gas given off by poinsettia and evergreen is not good for people, and the particles given off by tulip and hydrangea can cause skin allergies and itching after long contact.

2. Do not place too many: at night most flowers release carbon dioxide and absorb oxygen, “competing for air” with people, and at night most rooms are closed, with insufficient air circulation with the outside. If too many flowers are placed indoors, the indoor oxygen concentration at night will be reduced, affecting the quality of sleep at night, such as chest tightness and frequent nightmares.

3. Do not place toxic flowers indoors: for example, oleander is toxic in its stems, leaves, and even flowers during spring, summer, and autumn, and the milky white sap it secretes contains an oleandrin; accidental ingestion will cause poisoning. The bulb of narcissus contains lycorine toxin; if a child eats it by mistake, it will cause symptoms such as vomiting; the sap of the leaves and flowers causes skin redness and swelling, and if the sap gets into the eyes by mistake, it will harm the eyes. Too much contact with mimosa can easily cause sparse eyebrows and yellowing hair, and in severe cases cause hair loss and so on.

The “Six Don'ts” of Growing Flowers at Home

1. Being careless: flowers, like people, are living beings and need careful care. Many flower growers lack the due carefulness and diligence toward these beautiful lives. First, they are lazy in mind, not loving to study flower-growing knowledge, content to remain laymen for a long time, and managing things incorrectly. Second, they are lazy in hand, unwilling to spend too much time and energy on flowers. After flowers enter the home, they are left aside and neglected, enduring hunger and thirst for a long time and suffering from pests and diseases; in this way, even the best flowers will gradually wither, so lazy people cannot grow flowers well.

2. Loving them too much: contrary to the above situation, some flower growers love flowers too much, and their hands itch if they do not fiddle with them for a moment. Some water and fertilize without any pattern, watering whenever they think of it, causing flowers to die from excessive water and fertilizer. Some casually move flower pots around, moving them to several places a day, making the flowers have to constantly adapt to the environment and disrupting normal growth patterns; over time, it would be strange if the flowers were not worn out to death.

3. Chasing fame and profit: some flower lovers believe that growing flowers means growing famous flowers, because famous flowers have high ornamental value and great market profit. Under the control of this mentality, they spare no expense and seek famous flowers and famous trees everywhere, but the result is often that, due to the lack of good maintenance conditions and management techniques, the flowers die soon after being bought, both mistreating precious flowers and wasting money. This is a misconception. The correct approach should be to start with ordinary, lower-grade varieties, gradually explore the rules and techniques of growing flowers, and after reaching a certain technical level, gradually buy more precious varieties; only then is success more assured.

4. Failing to distinguish good from bad: some flower growers crave big and complete collections, bringing home whatever variety they see. This not only makes management more difficult, but also brings into the home some flowers that are unsuitable for growing, polluting the environment and harming health. For example, flowers with toxic sap can easily cause poisoning when people come into contact with them. The smell of some flowers affects people's nervous systems, easily causing breathing difficulty and even allergic reactions. In short, growing flowers at home should not be about craving big and complete collections without distinguishing good from bad; one should choose varieties with smaller plant shapes, attractive appearances, and no harm to the human body.

5. Being fickle: some flower growers are restless and have no theme in growing flowers, and the flowers at home are changed as quickly as a revolving lantern; this is a great taboo in growing flowers. First, changing varieties too quickly and growing them for too short a time is not conducive to cultivating flowers with graceful shapes and high ornamental value. Second, tasting each kind only superficially is not conducive to improving one's flower-growing level, and in the end one is still a flower novice. Therefore, only by choosing one or two kinds of flowers and focusing on studying and cultivating them can a flower grower gain something in heart.

6. Lacking new ideas: today new knowledge and new technologies in the flower-growing industry emerge endlessly, yet most flower growers still rigidly adhere to traditional maintenance methods and are not good at using new technologies and new equipment in the use of flower containers, water and fertilizer management, and seedling cultivation, such as soilless cultivation, odorless flower fertilizer, and various flower containers. As a result, home flower growing becomes unhygienic, unattractive, and not novel, with relatively large side effects.