Home gardening can be an easy way to brighten your life while maintaining a healthy hobby. Plants can range from being indoors to outdoors, pet-friendly and edible to eat.

Senior Sofia Okuma works as a tour guide for Tanaka Farms in Irvine. She acknowledges that gardening can provide benefits that are not just physical, but instead are lifelong skills and can even have mental health benefits.

“A garden teaches you that with enough patience and nurture, beautiful things will happen,” Okuma said. “If you are someone who deals with anxiety or feels like you can’t slow down at times, gardening is a great way to teach you to slow down.”

First off, you want to make sure you have the types of plants you want. There are a variety of indoor and outdoor ones to choose from, with even more subcategories to branch out into.

Basil is a versatile herb that can be grown outdoors or inside and is pet-friendly. An added benefit is it is also edible. Making sure to water at the base is more helpful than watering the leaves since they absorb water from their roots.

A spider plant is grown indoors and is also pet-friendly, with long draping leaves which are perfect to drape over a high shelf or to hang. Making sure the soil is somewhat moist in the hotter months is key, and let the soil dry out in the colder season. Watering once a week is recommended.

Strawberry plants are grown outside and are a great rewarding treat for all the hard work they require. They are best to plant in March and April. Using mulch can help keep the soil moisture regulated and help the roots not completely dry out. When you first start out, water around an inch per week, but when fruit starts appearing you can work your way up to two inches.

The zebra haworthia plant is a type of succulent that is most commonly grown indoors. They grow best in sunny areas inside when light is able to be filtered through a window, but can become accumulated to low levels of light or direct sunlight. Make sure to let the soil dry completely before deciding to water again.

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Lena An

The spider plant is attractive and easy to care for for busy households.

Rules for your green thumb:

Checking the soil moisture is key to prevent root rot from overwatering and the plant roots from drying out. You want a happy medium when watering plants. If the soil is already moist you can refrain from adding more to it, however if not then you know it is time to add some more. Keeping plants near a window or outside in a sunny location is helpful for them to receive sunlight and help to dry out if overwatered.