What Is Prayer Plant? The Best Care Tips for Prayer Plant
Prayer plants are a type of small indoor plant that is often used as a houseplant in smaller spaces or even as an office plant. Because of their spotted leaves and inspiration from the prayer vine, these plants have become known as prayer plants. Their common names include prayer vine, monk’s hood, and leprosy vine. Read on for more about this unique plant and how to care for your own. Even though they look like vines, prayer plants are actually climbing herbs. They grow using tendrils that look like vines near the top of the plant. These tendrils also help them climb up other surfaces such as walls or other plants in the home. Prayer plants have oval-shaped leaves with spots or stripes in varying shades of green, yellow, red, orange, and purple, depending on the variety you choose to grow.
How to Care for a Prayer Plant
There are a few things you need to keep in mind when caring for a prayer plant. Prayer plants like bright, but not direct sunlight. A few hours each day in direct sunlight is fine, but direct sunlight for several hours each day is not a good idea. Prayer plants also require indoor temperatures between 60 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit. They prefer a slightly humid environment with about 40 to 60 percent humidity. Humidity can be increased by placing the plant near a pebble or gravel-filled tray of water or on top of a water-filled dish. Prayer plants are tropical plants, so they need to be kept in pots with loose, rich soil that drains well. While prayer plants will grow in regular potting soil, they prefer a more rich soil that drains quickly.
Be sure to water your prayer plant when the soil dries out. Prayer plants need to be watered frequently and should not be allowed to dry out. Let the soil dry out about one-third of the way down before watering again. Prayer plants are climbers, and they can easily grow up things like walls and windowsills. They can also be grown on a trellis or with a backdrop to give them support as they climb upward.
Light Requirements for Prayer Plant
The light requirements for prayer plants depend on the type of prayer plant you have. The easiest prayer plant to care for is the indoor variety of prayer plant, also known as prayer vine. This type of prayer plant can grow under fluorescent lights and thrives in shaded areas like a windowsill. The other type of prayer plant is known as a jungle prayer plant, which is a tropical plant that likes full to partial sunlight. If you have a jungle prayer plant, you may need to move it to an area with more sunlight during the winter.
Watering Requirements for Prayer Plant
Prayer plants prefer a soil that is about 40 percent humidity, and so conditions that resemble a tropical rainforest. To achieve this, you must water your prayer plants heavily and regularly. Water your prayer plant until the soil is soggy and don’t let the soil dry out between waterings. Additionally, use water that is about room temperature, so as not to shock the roots. If you have hard water, you can use a bit of baking soda in the water to counteract the acids in the water. Pray plants are tropical plants, so water them more than other plants. Like other houseplants, they need plenty of water to thrive. Prayer plants are excellent choices for beginners because they are easy to care for once you understand their water requirements.
The Best Soil for a Prayer Plant
Like we mentioned above, prayer plants like rich soil that is high in organic material. Prayer plants are climbers, so you’ll need to provide them with a trellis or other support as they grow. A small wooden stake or a piece of wood would work nicely. Prayer plants use their tendrils to climb, so be sure to place them on something they can easily climb up. The best soil for prayer plants is a loose and rich soil that drains well. You can create your own soil mixture by combining equal parts peat, bark, and sand or perlite. You can also purchase potting soil for tropical or greenhouse plants.
Watch Out for These Pests
Prayer plants are not very susceptible to pests, but they can occasionally be attacked by mealybugs and aphids. You can identify these pests by their fluffy appearance and the fact that they secrete a lot of wax. To get rid of these pests, you can place your plant in a bag and put it in the freezer for a few hours. This will kill the pests without harming the plant. Another common pest is the spider mite. You can tell if your plant has spider mites by signs like webbing on the leaves and small dots on the leaves. To get rid of spider mites, you can use an insecticidal soap or put the plant in a bag with a few silica gel packets. You can also use a neem oil spray to kill the mites.
Plants Improve Our Mood
It’s amazing what a stroll through the park can accomplish when you’re feeling sad. That’s because our wellbeing increases when we connect with nature. According to studies, spending time in green areas outside can improve cognition, increase relaxation, and lessen mental tiredness.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency claims that we spend 90% of our time indoors, which is a significant amount of time. Indoor plants can help in this situation. Indoor plants can have similar advantages to the “great outdoors,” albeit they are not a replacement for it. According to studies, even a fleeting interaction with the natural world, such as touching actual leaf, can have a calming impact.
Additionally, scientific field studies have revealed that in offices with indoor plants added, work performance increased, employee wellbeing improved, and sick-leave absences were decreased. This is in addition to the fact that the presence of indoor Prayer Plant can calm and replenish. Talk about plants that have advantages!
Why do plants and nature make us happier and healthier, then? According to one hypothesis, human DNA contains a connection to nature and all living things. Although philosophers and scientists have long explored humans’ fundamental connection to the natural world, it wasn’t until biologist Edward O. Wilson’s book Biophilia that it entered the 20th century (1984).
Plants Make Our Environment Better
Let’s speak about how plants can enhance our environment now that we have a better understanding of how they might enhance our mood. Plants can instantly make a space more attractive, but they can also help with unseen improvements like indoor air quality.
There are several ways that Prayer Plant might enhance indoor air quality. While plants absorb carbon dioxide through photosynthesis and emit oxygen, they also produce water vapour through transpiration and evapotranspiration, which raises the relative humidity.
According to the NASA Clean Air Study, indoor air can be cleaned of volatile organic compounds by houseplants and the related microbes. In densely populated areas, pollution can be found within the buildings where we work, visit, or live in addition to in the outdoor air. This is due to the possibility of mechanical devices, building materials, and even common objects emitting airborne poisons and polluting gases.
These indoor contaminants can be captured by plants, who can then use them to create stored energy and release naturally purified air as a result. Toxins are transferred to the roots of plants where they are transformed into a food source by absorption through the leaves of the contaminants.
Conclusion
Prayer plants are great for beginners or anyone looking for an easy indoor plant to care for. They are easy to recognize and can grow to be quite tall. They thrive in a tropical environment with plenty of water and humidity. Prayer plants are a unique indoor Prayer Plant that can be appreciated by all.
Reference:
- Plants: Adaptive behavior, root-brains, and minimal cognition
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1059712311409446# - The Role of Plants in Traditional Medicine and Current Therapy
https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/acm.1995.1.131
