Aglaonema (Chinese Evergreen) Care: A Noob-Proof Houseplant

What's up everyone? Kevin from Epic Gardening here. Right here in front of me, I have three amazing varieties of Aglaonema also known as Chinese Evergreen. So we have Aglaonema Favonian, Aglaonema Wishes and Aglaonema Siam Queen, which in my opinion does hold up to the name. It looks absolutely amazing and quite a striking difference between these two. Kind of hard to tell the difference between these two besides larger amount of coloration on the leaves and the larger leaves in general on the Favonian variety. But okay, Aglaonema, if you are a self-proclaimed black thumb, which by the way is a myth. No one is a black thumb. But if you believe this about yourself or you have a friend who thinks that they just can't keep a houseplant alive, these are the plants for those of you who maybe are just starting out and you want a houseplant that can withstand a bit of neglect and really doesn't require a lot of care. So in today's video, that's what we're talking about. How do you care for this from start to finish, light, water, soil, fertilizer, all the way down through propagation, repotting and problems. Let's get into it. When it comes to light and temperature for this plant, like I said, it's a low light loving houseplant. However, you do kind of want to watch, watch the new growth on the leaves and see how that color variegation presents. And then you can kind of adjust where you put it based on what you find. So you might find that if you put it way over in some corner, like for example, here's a West or sorry, this is an East facing and there's a North facing window here. If I was to throw it over there in this corner that's just not as light and not providing any supplemental light, I might find that the colors are a little bit less intense. Then again, if I put it right in the window, I might kind of give it a little bit too much sun. So there is that little sweet spot in my personal opinion where they really work well in my home is if I was to move this pillar here right about here and they're sitting right about there next to an East facing window, they seem to do really, really well. They seem to really love that. And that's what I would recommend. Now, as far as temperature and humidity, you want to keep it in between 60 to 70, which indoors most of us live in that environment. So that's no big deal. They'll do fine in a variety of humidity ranges, although they do prefer to be a little bit higher. So you could, if you find that to be an issue, perhaps group them really closely so that there's a local humidity that's slightly higher. It's not a huge impact, but it can have a little bit of a difference. And then you could also do gravel underneath in the saucer like this. So you throw some gravel in there and put a little water and then you can increase the local humidity around that pot itself. But you know, again, it's a low light, low care houseplant, so you don't have to do something like that. As far as soil and watering, I find just the average indoor potting mix is going to be completely fine. And as far as watering goes, you can water them somewhat frequently in spring and summer, especially as they're really throwing out a lot of new growth. As it goes into winter, you can just water, let the soil dry out, water and give it that more irregular watering schedule. But in general, it's like many other houseplants, if you just evenly moist soil, don't let it get super dry, don't let it get super soaked. Especially if like me, you are sometimes growing in pots without a drainage hole, then you really want to watch out. If I'm growing, you know, this particular one, the Favonian variety, you can see there's a drainage hole here. I can be a little bit more laissez faire about my watering just because it's going to come out, especially because the terracotta, it's actually going to permeate the clay and it's going to come out this way as well. And so in terracotta, you can always be a little bit more freeform about your watering. Whereas in this glazed ceramic pot with no drainage holes, that is going to retain moisture way more. So you do have to be careful about that. And then when it comes to fertility and fertilizing, it's really not super, super necessary. These plants can live a long, long time without needing a lot of fertilization. However, I like to do a balanced liquid fertilizer maybe once or twice throughout the year, maybe once in spring, once in summer. I don't stress about it too much. And if I notice that it's coming out and it's really throwing out a lot of new growth, then I might opt to repot with some fresh potting mix and that can kind of act as my fertilizer. Because remember, you're adding a little bit more potting mix in there. You're actually adding more organic matter, more nutrients, and your plant's going to do really well. And so that's pretty much it as far as soil requirements. There's, there's not much else to talk about there. We can talk about a couple of problems that you might run into. Okay. Aglaonema issues. There aren't many, but a lot of the times people will wonder what's going on with the variegation and the coloration. A really good rule of thumb is the lighter the variegation, the more light the plant is going to want. And really that's because the areas in which, specifically when it's white and very light in the plant tissue, there's just no ability for that section of the leaf to photosynthesize. Thus the little bits that actually are green need to do a little bit extra heavy lifting, right? They're kind of putting the lighter sections on their back, carrying them as far as energy goes in the plant. And so if you're finding that the plant starts to look a little droopy, a little dim and the coloration is starting to go, then just move it a little bit closer towards the light. You're going to find that's going to be really helpful for you. Another thing that people will run into is the tips will start to brown or they'll start to die off. Of course, there's many different issues that can cause that along with leaf yellowing. And so a lot of these come down to having that grower's eye, right? So building your sense of observation and thinking, okay, well, if I overwatered, perhaps they're going to be a little droopy and they might be yellowing, right? Or if I've underwatered, they might also be yellowing. They sort of prevent in the same way, present, excuse me, in the same way. But if you're getting the browned tips, that's usually an underwatering or an overfertilization or perhaps too low of humidity to drive an environment. If you really want to nail the conditions for this plant, it's going to be that perfect amount of light, high humidity. If you have a greenhouse, you could like throw them in the greenhouse. They'll blow up, right? But most of us don't. Most of us are growing them in a houseplant environment. And so you really just want to watch out for that care. Like I said, don't stress. I'm making it seem like it's a really big deal. It's not. But you might run into those issues. As far as pests and diseases, unless you brought one in from the nursery, you're not going to deal with a lot of pests or diseases on this. The standard Holy Trinity of pests like mealybugs, aphids and scale might attack. But I've got articles on EpicGardening.com for how to deal with all those. And we'll do some videos on YouTube as well. But Aglaonema guys, again, this is the Siam Queen variety. This is Favonian and this is Aglaonema. Wishes. All are beautiful. I got all three of these actually from Josh's Frogs, which I'll have a little coupon code pinned in the comment down below. But if you want to see more houseplant videos, go ahead and hit subscribe. You can check out the playlist as well. And then on Instagram, if you want to see more regular updates about what's going on, both on my indoor garden and my outdoor edible garden, then please go ahead and check me out on Instagram. I do a lot more frequent updates over there. So until next time, grow some Aglaonema guys. Good luck in the garden and keep on growing.