Can you grow ivy indoors

For a smaller, easier to control plant, check out one of these varieties. Glacier ivy is a variety of English ivy, but it was cultivated specifically for use indoors, making it much tamer than the standard English ivy.

It enjoys bright, indirect light and is sensitive to overwatering. Bettina ivy, another indoor English ivy variety, stays quite small, making it a popular desk plant. As with most English ivies, provide it with several hours of bright, indirect light a day, and be sure the soil goes dry between waterings. In addition to these true ivies, you can achieve a similar aesthetic with less aggressive ivy look-alikes. Pothos in particular is popular for its extreme tolerance, as this plant is notably hard to kill.

Basic ivy care depends largely on the type of ivy you have. English ivy, as noted above, prefers bright, indirect light and well-draining soil. However, other types of ivy differ depending on the climate they originate from. Keeping your ivy happy and healthy indoors is important. When trying to keep a vining plant small, this is especially important.

Persian ivy and Irish ivy have similar requirements to English ivy, in that they are hardy, enjoy bright, indirect light, but are shade tolerant, and prefer well-draining soil. Some varieties of Persian ivy can be kept indoors, but Irish ivy is even more aggressive than English ivy. Algerian ivy has similar lighting requirements, although it is less shade tolerant. While it prefers well-draining soil, it also likes to be consistently moist. Algerian ivy is less aggressive than English ivy, but is adept at climbing even without a trellis.

Himalayan ivy prefers less sun, ranging from full shade to partial sun. All-purpose or potting mix for indoor plants is adequate to get an ivy planting started. When your ivy gets too long, you can clip off sections of the stem to keep it shaped. To propagate more plants, you can also take clippings and root them in water to start new ivy plantings. If you like ivy but are worried about it taking off and taking over your yard, growing it indoors is a good way to keep it in check.

Learn more about ivy here. By Southern Living May 18, Save FB Tweet More. What's your favorite easy-care houseplant? I love layering. If you happen upon a section that formed its own little cluster of roots, go ahead and snip it away from the parent plant and plant it.

Mission accomplished! To layer indoors, place a small container filled with potting mix next to your existing ivy, and pull a stem over the new pot. Outdoors, just pull the stem onto the ground next to the parent plant. If you really want to make things easy on yourself, use the pot you intend to grow your new start in, and layer the outdoor plant onto that.

Bury a section of the ivy stem about a quarter-inch deep. You may need to strip away some leaves and hold the stem down with a stake or rock. Then, keep the soil moist but not wet, and wait for roots to form. Snip away the stem on the side closest to the mother plant. Now you have a transplant! Pot it up and watch it grow. If you went the really easy route, all you need to do is snip the new plant free before potting.

The easiest method, and the best one to help ensure that your plant will survive indoors, is to buy a seedling or small plant at a nursery. Gently remove your new friend from its container and brush away the existing soil.

Plant into a pot that is at least one size larger, seated at the same level that it was growing in its original home. Fill in around the root ball with fresh potting soil.

Water when the top of the soil dries out. After a few hours, the soil should feel like a well-wrung-out sponge. Let the top inch dry out a bit before adding more water. Place your ivy in a spot where it will receive lots of indirect light, or weak direct light.

A location near a north or east-facing window is perfect, though this is one houseplant that is happy to grow in the light of a fluorescent bulb too. If you truly want your ivy to thrive, place it outdoors in the shade for as much of the spring and fall as possible. Your plant will look and be so much healthier than it might if kept indoors year-round.

Wait until the last predicted frost date has passed, keep an eye on the weather forecast, and bring your ivy outdoors for an hour on the first day. In the fall, bring your plant inside before the first freeze arrives. Mist your plants once a day, if possible, or place them on a pebble tray or in a group with other houseplants to raise the humidity level. This is particularly important during the dry winter months.

You should also wash your plants once a month. I know this might sound strange, but it will go a long way towards making your ivy happy. This process removes dirt or dust that might clog the pores in the leaves, and it knocks loose any pests that are trying to gain a foothold.

You can dunk the foliage in a bucket or sink filled with water, or spray it using a spray faucet. Fertilize with a slow-release houseplant fertilizer in the spring and again in the summer. Aquatic Arts makes a balanced houseplant fertilizer that is released gradually over time. Aquatic Arts Indoor Plant Food. It comes in eight-ounce bags that are available from Amazon. Keep an eye on the condition of the soil.

To do so, lightly water the soil and let it sit for an hour. Then remove the ivy and knock away as much of the old soil as possible.

Use a pencil or chopstick to loosen up the root ball. Replant in a container one size up, and fill in around the roots with fresh potting soil. Water well. Most English ivy cultivars produce juvenile leaves with five lobes, but these leaves take on the familiar heart shape of their adult form as they age.

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