Essential Tools for Indoor Gardening
Once you’ve decided that you’d like to start indoor gardening, there are a few tools that you’ll need. They’ll make your maintenance tasks easy and efficient, while keeping things clean and tidy.
Table of Contents
The Basic Tool Checklist
Here’s a list of the basics to get you started:
- Garden gloves
- Watering can
- Spray bottle (with adjustable nozzle)
- Moisture meter (optional)
- Plant snips or sharp kitchen scissors
- Hand-held pruners
- Bamboo plant stakes or other supports
- Ball of string or plant ties
- Hand trowel
- Hand-held cultivator or old kitchen fork
- Old kitchen knife with a dull blade
- Small root saw or old serrated bread knife
- Drainage trays to fit under each of your plant pots
- Plastic tablecloth or tabletop tarp
Note: If you are starting completely from scratch, you can also opt for a complete indoor garden tool set to get all the basic hand tools together in one package.
Garden Gloves
Garden gloves come in many different materials, from cotton to bamboo, suede to neoprene. Wearing garden gloves for indoor gardening is a matter of personal choice. They help keep your hands clean when handling soil and fertilizers. They also protect your hands if you choose to grow plants with thorns or spines.
When selecting a pair of garden gloves, they must be the right size, preferably with a snug fit so they don’t impede your work. For indoor gardening, you don’t need a heavy-duty pair of gloves. Look for something lightweight like sustainable cotton garden gloves
or breathable bamboo gardening gloves, or a stretchy neoprene that will give a tight fit.
Watering can
A watering can is an essential accessory for indoor gardening; plants will need watering regularly. An old milk jug or soda bottle can be used to water larger plants, but on smaller plants these bottles might pour out water too fast and disturb the soil in your plant pots.
For use on smaller houseplants, it’s best to search for a dedicated indoor watering can with a long narrow spout. This shape spout can reach under plant foliage to the soil surface, and will pour out water more gently than bigger cans with wider spouts. You can buy a basic colored plastic watering can or go for a more stylish version to suit your decor.
Spray bottle
A spray bottle with an adjustable nozzle can spray a fine mist or solid stream of water. Adjusted to fine mist, it can be used to give your plants a boost of humidity or to clean the foliage of glossy-leafed plants like fiddleleaf fig. The mist setting can also be used if you need to give your houseplants the occasional foliar feeding (fertilizer).
Set to solid stream, a spray bottle can be used to treat insect pests like aphids. Sturdy adjustable 16oz spray bottles work best for these routine tasks.
Moisture meter or gauge (optional)
The easiest way to tell if a plant needs watering is to stick your finger into the potting soil to feel how wet or dry it is. Another way is to use a moisture meter. Moisture meters have a metal spike that gets stuck into the potting soil, and an attached gauge gives a reading of dry to wet. They’re easy to use, but unfortunately they don’t always give a reliable reading.
Plant snips or sharp kitchen scissors
Plant snips are like scissors for plants. They can be used to cut off spent flowers (aka dead-heading), cut out diseased foliage, or to prune roots when repotting plants. You can also use a pair of sharp, sturdy kitchen scissors. The important thing is that the blades are nice and sharp, such as dedicated Corona straight-blade plant snips, so they make a clean cut.
Hand-held bypass pruners
Hand-held pruners are used to cut stems that are too thick or woody for plant snips to cut easily and make a clean cut without shredding. Bypass pruners have two blades that slide past each other when cutting (like some scissors).
The other type of pruner, called an anvil pruner, has one cutting blade and one flat blade; it cuts like an axe landing on a flat surface. Anvil pruners are used for outdoor gardening. You’ll need a pair of bypass pruning shears for indoor gardening if you’re growing larger plants or those with woody stalks.
If you want both tools together, you can also grab a 2-pack set of snips and bypass pruners.
Bamboo plant stakes or other supports
Many indoor plants grow tall and bushy, and will need support to remain upright and controlled. Plant stakes made of bamboo are readily available, but they can also be made from plastic-covered metal (used more for large bushy plants). For taller indoor plants, orchids, or monstera, you can also look into extendable plant stakes. For trailing plants like pothos, you may also choose to use a small wooden trellis to keep the vines tidy. Traditional metal tomato cages are also an option.
Ball of string
Most trailing plants will need to be tied onto their supports using string or reusable Velcro plant ties. Tall bushy tropical plants or tomatoes will also need to be tied to their supports.
Hand trowel
A hand trowel is a small shovel used to scoop soil when planting or repotting your plants. It’s tidier and more efficient than using your hands. There are many designs available; wooden handles, padded handles, and sturdy plastic handles. They’re all different shapes, and some are more ergonomic than others. Choose an option like a classic Corona steel trowel that will be comfortable for you to hold and use.
Hand-held cultivator or old kitchen fork
A cultivator is a tool usually used to loosen the soil in outdoor garden beds, but it’s also useful to tease out a crowded root ball when repotting a pot-bound plant. A hand-held cultivator is shaped like a hand with curled fingers. Look for a hand cultivator with thin tines to better cut between crowded roots. An old kitchen fork can be used to tease apart a crowded root ball, but sometimes the roots are too thick and too crowded for a fork to get through easily.
Old kitchen knife with a dull blade
An old kitchen knife is useful when repotting plants. It’s used to loosen the potting soil away from the sides of the container so the plant will come out of the container easily. An old bread knife with a serrated blade can also be used for this task.
Fine-toothed pruning saw or old serrated bread knife
When it comes time to repot a root-bound plant, you’ll need to slice off the bottom of the root ball, and possibly more of the root ball around the sides. If you’re growing lots of large indoor plants, you may want to invest in a root pruning saw with fine teeth. Larger teeth will rip the root ball instead of making a clean cut. If you don’t want to invest in a pruning saw, a serrated bread knife will work too.
Drainage trays (saucers) to fit under each of your plant pots
Containers for indoor gardening should always have drainage holes in the bottom to let excess water run out of the container when you water your plants. Some containers have a drain tray built in, but most don’t. It’s worth investing in a pack of sturdy round plastic plant saucers. Some drain saucers are made of terra cotta or glazed clay. These may be more attractive, but they allow moisture to slowly seep through the bottom, risking damage to furniture they’re sitting on. To use these saucers, add small plastic bumpers to the bottom to raise the saucer off the furniture. Whatever drain trays you choose, be sure to buy one for every one of your plants to keep your indoor garden space clean and dry.
Plastic tablecloth
Repotting plants can be a messy process. You’ll want to cover your workspace to contain spilled soil and water. You can use sheets of newspaper, but spilled water can make a mess. So a plastic tablecloth, a specialty Lee Valley tabletop tarp, or a foldable repotting mat with corner snaps is the best option. The snaps create raised edges to hold the tarp in the shape of a shallow tray.
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