Expert tips on how to know if your plants need water – including an ‘old-age’ test to help them thrive in winter

AN expert has shared her top tips about caring for a plant- from how to know if your plants need water to an “old-age” test to help them in the cold winter months.

Houseplant expert Silver Spence has revealed that she learned the old trick from her relatives and is meant to help those who are unsure of how to care for their plants.

GettyAn expert has shared her tips on how to care for a plant[/caption]

Silver, who is the CEO of independent houseplant site Friends or Friends, explained what’s the best way of caring for your plants in the winter.

She told the Express: “First of all, you have to reduce watering by around 50 percent.

“If you were watering once a week, now you can water every 14 days – at least.

“But the best way to do it is, if you have a plant, it’s really healthy for you to have contact with the plant.

“This is so you can check the under leaves and check there are no bugs sitting there.

“You can make sure if there’s something that the plant is trying to tell you, you can find out.

“The secondary part of that is when you pick up the plant, you can feel how heavy it is when it’s watered.

“Then, when it dries up, or as it dries up it changes weight.”

Silver added that some people choose to literally weigh their plants using scales and keep track of its weight.

She said: “We give this piece of advice to people who are quite nervous about that situation.

“About overwatering if it’s too heavy or if they don’t know how to go about weighing the plant, they will literally water the plant and then weigh it.

“Then they will write that down in their plant journals.

“It’s something that a lot of devoted plant people use.

“Weighing the plant is the best option because you can see how light the soil is going to be.”