New forum idea - House plants (but I need your help)

We are so close to getting a new forum all about houseplants.   I've been gathering threads and the like for a few months now and we just need a little bit more to make this thing happen.  

I was wondering if anyone here wanted to help.

Houseplants can be a gateway to permaculture.  This is still trending big time and people are looking for ways to have houseplants without spending loads of money or bringing nasty chemicals into their home.  




What do we still need to make this happen?  (aka, the help I'm asking for)


We need about a dozen NEW threads about individual plant types growing indoors.
Examples include:
https://permies.com/t/209452/Growing-coffee-home
https://permies.com/t/108601/fiber-arts/Cotton-House-Plant
https://permies.com/t/205287/Budget-Saver-grow-lettuce-home

What do these plant threads have?
- a picture
- about a specific kind of plant
- specifically about indoor or potted growing
- a short story
- a call to action (either a question, or wanna grow with me, or something people can respond to in a positive way)
- the foundations of a perennial thread about the plant - not really sure what this looks like, but here's an example of a thread that has become a great resourse and earned loads of googlelove.  https://permies.com/t/46317/Fava-Beans-beans  
- and a title that has some googlelove to it (something people would search.  For example "grow coffee at home" is from google saying lots of people search for "how do I grow coffee at home").  But this can always be changed later.  


We need about 10 New pest-specific to potted plant threads.

examples:
https://permies.com/t/209228/Death-scale-bugs-brew-organic
https://permies.com/t/25083/spider-mites-die-Organic-solutions


What would these look like?
- are about one kind of pest
- specify a houseplant or potted plant
- must stress "organic or better"
- (this one is vital) avoid mentioning toxic ick.  The goal is to normalize organic or better solutions.
- A specific question like "Anyone got some organic or better homebrew recipes for killing scale so my citrus trees can overwinter in peace? "
- a personalized story is also very helpful to encourage participation and googlelove (hint, sometimes I exaggerate the problem for these threads because it gets more responses and builds a better perennial resource for future readers)
- A fun title that specifies the bug and would be akin to something we search for like how Paul's get rid of fleas article is titled Die Fleas! Die! Die! Die!


And then there are more general threads that make a great gateway for people who love hoseplants to learn about permaculture without knowing they are learning about permaculture.

Like the how to save money on plant pots thread could do with more photos of improvised pots looking amazing.  As well as more threads like this one that talk about the benefits of growing plants in the home (aka, give people an excuse to get addicted to growing things).  

We also could do with a thread about pushing the zone (like how I bring my citrus inside for winter) with houseplants.

And I'm not sure what this would look like, but it would be a positive thread dealing with a difficult problem.  The problem is how we are having to replace the ecosystem with human love when we bring a plant inside.  There are huge advantages to doing this, but I know for many people further along the eco-scale this runs counter to the goal of letting nature do the work for us.  But then so is keeping chickens, starting tomato seeds inside, and altering the landscape to encourage microclimates.  The house is just a different microclimate and if we can approach it that way, then it becomes easier to solve the problem of substituting the outside ecosystem with human love.

Little tricks like growing plants that like the same environment together.  Like companion planting but for house plants.  My citrus and coffee love growing next to each other and they seem to make a little humid mini-micro climate just for them.  Anyway, a thread about that would be awesome to have before the forum is made so I can link to it at the top of the new forum.  


If you do end up making new threads, please link to them here.  I've been putting them mostly in the plants forum for now.  That way it's easier to find them again.

I already have the 50 needed to make a new forum.
google trends suggests the forum name is "house plants" or "indoor plants".  Not sure which we will go with, or something else.  Any suggestions?

I  am a houseplant geek and would love to help, please notify me of first priority for me to work on!

not sure if this helps, because it's about pot type.
https://permies.com/t/210474/Moss-Pot-Maximize-House-Plant

allan pisula wrote:I  am a houseplant geek and would love to help, please notify me of first priority for me to work on!

I can't find a great thread dedicated to spider plant.  Want to try to start one for that?  Chlorophytum comosum.

allan pisula wrote:I  am a houseplant geek and would love to help, please notify me of first priority for me to work on!

Hi, Allan  Welcome to the forum!

One way you can help is to start a new topic about your favorite house plants or a new topic about how to care for house plants or something that you have an interest in.

You could even start a new topic with any questions you might have about houseplants.

I started on today:

Houseplants and patience

I love my plants!  It takes me 2 weeks of a couple of hours a day to haul them out of the basement to my deck in spring then the reverse in fall.

Yes this would be great to have a houseplant forum. Always the same problem with the citrus trees. Scale. I use EM in the summer months. That gives all my plants such a boost. Heals many issues. Fruit trees that have never fruited like my green gage plums with black knot are given a new lease on life and are fruiting every year. So I thought why stop with the outdoor plants Just continue spraying my house plants too.  

Just to clarify EM I found on the permits forum from Yuri his product is called Baikal. There is a whole discussion on it. It has really given our farm a big growth boost!  

Mary-Ellen Zands wrote:Yes this would be great to have a houseplant forum. Always the same problem with the citrus trees. Scale. I use EM in the summer months. That gives all my plants such a boost. Heals many issues. Fruit trees that have never fruited like my green gage plums with black knot are given a new lease on life and are fruiting every year. So I thought why stop with the outdoor plants Just continue spraying my house plants too.  

Just to clarify EM I found on the permits forum from Yuri his product is called Baikal. There is a whole discussion on it. It has really given our farm a big growth boost!  

That would be a wonderful topic for a thread.  I never thought of trying that.   Sounds just like the organic or better solutions we need.

The priority right now is to make more threads so when we make the forum it can win a lot of Googlelove.  

Here's a description of our beloved citrus trees! https://permies.com/t/210549/Citrus-Trees-Indoors-Seasonally  I will try to get a photo on there today!

There is a thread about 'growing avocados in colder climates', that includes growing them indoors, as house plants.
I might start a new thread that's all about growing avocado plants as house plants.
And then all other house plant ideas or questions I can think of (if there isn't already a thread about it)

Rachel Lindsay wrote:Here's a description of our beloved citrus trees! https://permies.com/t/210549/Citrus-Trees-Indoors-Seasonally  I will try to get a photo on there today!

I added my minimal experience and a picture of my plants to your thread.

This may not be what you're looking for... Sometimes with me, honesty is the best policy...

https://permies.com/t/210566/Houseplants-People-grow-houseplants

I started one.  Trying to grow a pineapple as a houseplant.  Pineapple houseplant

My photo of my avocado house plant show one of my Aloe vera house plants too. So I thought of a thread on Aloe vera (as house plants) ... But then first I need to make more photos

Another new houseplant topic:

https://permies.com/t/210571/don-house-houseplant

These threads are fantastic.   Keep em coming.

One more.  Alternative edible trees as houseplants?

Looking for Dragon Fruit seeds.  Seed request

I have just started again with carnivorous plants . They fascinate me and I hope will help reduce the summer flies we get here. I bought both plants and seeds . I am in France so it took some research but in the states you have plenty of options. The book the savage garden is well worth reading . Sorry I can’t work out how to post a picture , the joys of being an old technophobe lol

Gary Moase wrote:I have just started again with carnivorous plants

I have a friend who moved her Pitcher plants indoor for the winter, but they don't seem to be dealing with the fruit flies, unfortunately!

Is this the book you are referring to? The Savage Garden, Revised: Cultivating Carnivorous Plants  by Peter D'Amato
https://www.amazon.ca/Savage-Garden-Revised-Cultivating-Carnivorous/dp/1607744104/ref=asc_df_1607744104/

My library has it. If I ever get a greenhouse built, I wonder if they'd be helpful for natural pest control?

Thanks for bringing this up - I wouldn't have thought to ask about houseplants here, but of course why not? Here's a link to my post.

https://permies.com/t/210747/Houseplants-tolerate-don-direct-sun

It's here!
https://permies.com/f/497/houseplants

I'm still working on adding threads.

I would love some suggestions for the description (that's the words at the top).  One or two sentences sharing what this forum is about.



Also, do you have a favourite house plant thread?  I'm gathering goodies for the daily-ish going out in a few days.

okay, I think I have all the threads moved over.

I'm sure there are many I missed.  If you see any that would be a good fit, please list them here.

And it would be totally awesome to help the forum get established (both here on permies and to gain SEO love) if there could be lots of activity in that forum for the next few weeks.  That way google bots will see a new thing that people love and it will help infect more brains with permaculture.

New threads, posts, or even just handing out thumbs up all help.