Depending on where you live, tending indoor plants may be the only gardening you can do. While not the same thing as shoveling in the dirt, caring for houseplants can fill the void of the human yearning to nurture. It's a little time to be with the green, touch some soil, facilitate healthy growth, and connect to the earth.

This may be all well and good for you, but for the plant, your house is just not the same thing as living where it belongs (that being someplace tropical). It’s almost like the plant was brought indoors kicking and screaming in fear of the moisture-deprived air and insufficient light. The poor thing is trapped in soil that has dwindled in vitality.

Misting plants, locating them away from heat and drafts, and providing supplemental light go a long way in improving the environment, but the soil health needs to be addressed. You can apply some Nature's Humic Acid and make the soil healthy again. Organic material in any soil or planting mix will decompose over time, causing the organic acids necessary for good fertility to disappear. It's hard to replace it in a pot. Adding some Nature's Humic Acid is like adding soil conditioner, without using the roto-tiller, and your indoor plants will have a much more favorable soil environment in which to grow. The next best thing you could do for your plant is to relocate it to Maui. Other winter treats for your plants include EM-1 Microbial Inoculant (formerly Pro-Biotica), Nitron Formula A-35 Organic Soil Conditioner, and Bioform 4-2-2 Fish and Seaweed Fertilizer.

If you are having pest problems with your indoor plants, consider using BioNeem, an extract of Neem Oil which is excellent for eliminating aphids, whitefly, mealybugs and other pests who may have made themselves at home on your plants in the last few months. Fungus gnats are also a common houseplant issue this time of year. They are tiny, hovering around the soil or up against a lamp or around your face and are just plain annoying. How can something from outside get indoors this time of year? Because they didn't, they're living in with your houseplants. They seemingly come from no where. You may have discovered this part already and tried to kill them with contact sprays, only to have them magically reappear within days. It's not that they didn't die, but that you have breeding populations in the soil around your plants, and more emerging from the soil.

The fungus gnat lifecycle can be completed in the small confines of your basic indoor potted plant. They arise when the soil remains wet for longer periods of time. The soil remains wet for longer because of the generally cooler temperatures indoors. Often water applications also increase because the home environment is so dry in the winter, exacerbating the situation. This combines to create conditions where the plant cannot out compete the fungi currently present in the soil for water. The fungi win the battle and start growing prolifically which is when the gnats arrive—lots of fungi to consume!

The first thing I would recommend is an application of Beneficial Nematodes (to kill the bugs). These nematodes are not the kind that damage plants, they are predacious on soil dwelling insects. Didn't think you could have battles for good and evil in a flower pot, did you? The name of the critter in your court is Heterorhabditis. Kind of a mouthful, but something that works as well as they do in controlling the fungus gnat problem deserves some distinction. Simply put some on the soil, water in and you're done. The adult population will dwindle and that will be it. Let the battle begin.

This is only a short term solution however. The best solution would also involve making your plants healthier (so they take up water most efficiently thus preventing the problem). Many organic fertilizers (above) will help by making your plants healthier. These should be accompanied by an application of beneficial fungi that will actually help the plant take up water, as opposed to the fungi currently present which are competing with the plant. These are called endo- and ecto- mycorrhizal fungi. We carry a product called Root Maximizer Beneficial Fungi which contains spores of these beneficial fungi. The final measure would be to prevent any new unwanted bugs in the future from invading your plants. Small sticky traps are excellent for this. We carry a product called Gnat Stix which are perfectly sized for using in houseplants.