Tips

Which houseplant do I have?

Have you ever gotten a plant from someone and had no clue what the plant’s species is? Maybe you were given a cute cutting, or have adopted some plant on a market. Identifying your plant can be a challenge, but we wouldn’t be PLNTS if we didn’t come to the rescue. In this blog, we will share some characteristics of recognizable PLNTS and we also have found a good app for you, that might benefit you when on the search for the right houseplant name. Are you ready? Let’s get into it!

Characteristics

When you have your plant you can determine quite a few characteristics, which can rule out many options of what your specific houseplant actually is.

Leaf shape

Some plants have a very distinctive leaf shape, which makes them fairly easy to recognize. Think of the large incised leaves of the Monstera Deliciosa, the elephant ear-shaped leaves of the Alocasia and the big heart-shaped leaves of many Philodendron varieties. Determining the leaf shape can bring you one step closer to the plant species you have.

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Leaf colour/variegation

Some plants distinct themself due to their special leaf colour, or the variegated pattern on top. Think of the beautiful printed and colourful foliage of the Calathea family or the Syngonium family.

Aerial roots

Have you spotted long aerial roots on your plant? Good chance that your plant belongs to the huge Araceae family. Luckily many species of this plant family are very popular under the PLNTSlovers, which makes finding pictures of species of this plant family super easy!

Growing habits

How does your plant grow? Does your plant have long trailing vines? You might want to look for hanging plants and see if you see a plant that matches the one you have. Or did you get your mystery plant growing with the support of a climbing pole? Fair chance that you might find your plant under that category. A creeper will try to grow crawling over the soil, which makes them not grow upright, but look a bit similar to climbers. There are fewer plants that grow in this manner, so by determining this, the research into the name of your mystery plant will be a lot easier!

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Plant app

Have you determined and do you still have no clue at all what your mystery plant is? No worries, we have found a great app for you! The app is called pictureThis and has been the one we have experienced works the best out of all of the available apps. Simply download the app and take a good picture of one of the leaves of your plant. The app will determine very soon which species you have in your hands!

Rely on fellow PLNTSlovers

If you rather rely on the knowledge of other PLNTSparents, you can always go on the hunt for either Facebook pages for plant lovers or Instagram. We are in such luck that we have a loving community around us that all share the same passion for PLNTS! So don’t be shy and who knows, maybe you will gain some plant-loving friends. 🙂

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These were our tips on finding out what plant you have on your hands, did you find this blog helpful? We hope so! If you ever struggle with your PLNTSparent duties, we are here to help you out! Feel free to send us a message through Instagram or Facebook. Or if you just want to see lots of fun plant content, you might find following us on our socials very enjoyable too!

Carlijn
Carlijn

Carlijn is probably one of the biggest plant geeks ever. She is always on the lookout for new gems and loves to share all her plant knowledge, tips and inspiration with our community!

21 November 2023