I’m a gardening expert – three easy ways to keep your houseplants alive and how to know when it’s dead for good

DO you struggle to keep houseplants alive?

If so, you aren’t alone – as many people end up forgetting about the plants until they look like they’re at death’s door.

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There are three steps to follow to keep your houseplants alive[/caption]

But, according to Patch’s plant expert Richard Cheshire, there are three things you need to have in place to keep your plants alive.

“Houseplants are often a lot hardier than we give them credit for,” he told Stylist.co.uk.

“Most houseplants will need three things to survive and thrive: 1. some healthy leaves attached to 2. a healthy stem, which should be connected to 3. some healthy roots.

“The leaves are important to provide the plant with energy by absorbing light in the process of photosynthesis as well as allowing the plant to breathe, and the roots transport key nutrients from the soil, up the stem and into the leaves.

“If any of these three are completely missing it is unlikely that most houseplants will make a comeback.”

But if your plant is leafless, it’s not necessarily a cause for concern – as some varieties “emerge from ‘bulbs’ or ‘rhizomes’ rather than a root system” and could therefore “bounce back from no leaves at all”.

“Ferns, for example,” he said.

“These plants can come back from virtually nothing; as long as you treat the root cause of the problem, new shoots can emerge from the soil in moist conditions.” 

And if your plant is on the verge of giving up altogether, you might be able to keep it alive by propagating it – “creating a new plant by taking a part of an already established one”.

“There are many ways to propagate a plant, such as dividing roots or by taking a leaf cutting, but different plants will prefer different methods,” he said.

“The easiest method of propagation that works for most houseplants is by water.”