How to care for a Philodendron Birkin
The Philodendron Birkin is a beautiful plant with striking white stripes on its green leaves. These patterns might make you think that the Philodendron Birkin is a difficult plant to take care of, but luckily that's not true. The Philodendron Birkin shows you when it's not happy, which makes it the perfect plant for beginners. In this guide, we're going to look at how you can take care of this beautiful, yet easy-going house plant.
We're going to look at these topics related to Philodendron plant care:
Watering your Philodendron Birkin
Light requirements
The perfect soil
Fertilizing your Philodendron Birkin
Repotting
Humidity
Toxicity
Leaf colors
Let's get right into the tips on how to take care of this wonderful house plant.
Watering your Philodendron Birkin
Watering your Philodendron Birkin is one of the easiest things to get right. Watering is always quite a tough subject when it comes to plant care, but not for this plant. The Philodendron Birkin is a thirsty plant and likes to be watered as soon as the soil is dry.
If you're looking for a watering schedule to use for this plant, it's this: Water this plant once per week. It doesn't really matter which season it is at the moment, this plant loves to be in moist soil most of the time. Even though it loves to be in moist soil, it also likes to dry out.
Light requirements for your Philodendron Birkin
The Philodendron Birkin is the perfect house plant when it comes to light requirements. It doesn't want to be in a low-light place, but also not in direct sunlight. However, you can put it in any other type of light exposure. This makes it great for windowsills that don't get any direct sunlight, or just any other place away from windows in sunny rooms.
This plant doesn't like low-light situations. When it doesn't get enough sunlight, two things will happen. The first thing you'll notice is that the plant starts to grow towards a light source. The second thing is that the bright white lines on its leaves will start to fade to dark green.
When the Philodendron Birkin is exposed to direct sunlight, it will get sunburns quite easily. Once you see sunburns, move your plant to a place where it doesn't get any direct sunlight.
The best soil for your Philodendron Birkin
As we've discovered in the earlier section about watering your Philodendron Birkin, this plant likes to be in moist soil, but also likes to dry out. We've also discussed that you should water this plant once per week. So what does this have to do with the soil? well, it means that you should find a soil that stays moist for at leas a few days, but also dries out. It also means that the soil you use for this plant needs to be able to deal with being watered quite often.
When we keep all of these things in mind, the perfect soil for your Philodendron Birkin is a mixture of these ingredients:
General potting soil
Perlite for excellent drainage
Sphagnum moss to retain moisture
The perlite helps to make the soil drain excess water quickly. This is important to prevent root rot due to the plant sitting in water all the time. The perlite also helps the soil to dry out quickly, because your plant loves this.
To retain some of the moisture, we can add sphagnum moss to the soil. Sphagnum moss is a great way to add some pockets of moisture to your soil. The Spaghnum moss, along with the perlite, helps to keep the soil soft and airy.
When you water your plant often, the soil likes to compact. This is bad for drainage and oxygen flow to the roots of your plants. Adding perlite and Sphagnum moss helps to keep the soil airy and helps to water your plant perfectly.
Fertilizing your Philodendron Birkin
The Philodendron Birkin is a fast-growing house plant. Because it grows so quickly also means that it uses a lot of energy to grow new leaves. If you like that this plant grows so quickly and you want it to keep doing this, you'll need to fertilize it regularly.
During the growing season, spring and summer, you should fertilize your Philodendron once per month. This will give your house plant the energy it needs to keep growing quickly. There are several ways to fertilize your house plant. You can use sticks, balls, or liquid fertilizer to feed your plant. Liquid fertilizer is one of the easiest ways to feed this plant, since it likes to be watered once per week. You can simply add some fertilizer to the water once per month and that's how you can feed your plant.
Repotting your Philodendron Birkin
We found out that the Philodendron Birkin is a fast-growing plant, which means it also needs to be repotted eventually. You don't have to repot this plant very often, like some plants, but you can't keep it in the same pot for 2 years. Usually, the Birkin outgrows it's pot in a single growing season. Which means you should repot your Philodendron Birkin once per year.
When you're ready to repot your Philodendron Birkin, pick a pot that's about 1-2 inches (2.5-5 cm) bigger around the current pot. This way your Birkin has plenty or space to grow, but it's also not too big for your plant. You risk overwatering your house plants when you plant them in a pot that's too big. There will be too much moisture in the pot that your plant can't absorb quickly enough. When you repot your plant in a incrementally bigger pot, you don't risk overwatering your plant.
Humidity for your Philodendron Birkin
The Philodendron Birkin is a tropical plant and loves humidity. This is part of the reason it loves to sit in moist soil most of the time. To help your plant be happy, make sure to keep it in a humid place. You can do this by misting it occasionally, but also by keeping it around other plants. These plants will keep their environment more humid and grouping plants together helps a lot. If you're looking for more ideas to raise the humidity for your plant, read "10 ways to raise the humidity in your house".
Toxicity
Unfortunately, the Philodendron Birkin, like many other tropical plants is toxic to both pets and humans. Because of this, make sure you keep it out of range of your cats and dogs, but also small children. This plant is only toxic when the leaves and stems have been chewed on. So if you notice that your pets have eaten this plant, make sure to call your vet right away for advice.
The leaves and stems contain calcium oxalate crystals, which cause irritation and stomach problems.
Leaf colors of the Philodendron Birkin
The Philodendron Birkin has a variety of different leaf colors. When you have new leaves, they will be completely white. When the leaves age, they will get progressively darker. The oldest leaves on your plant will be dark green, while the newest leaves are completely white. Any leaves in between those two extremes will have the white stripes on green leaves like in the photos in this guide.
Yellow leaves
When you see yellow leaves on your Philodendron Birkin, this could have two causes: old age or overwatering. If the leaf is at the bottom of the plant and it was dark green before, this is an old leaf. In this case, you have nothing to worry about, because this is the natural lifecycle of this house plant.
If this is not an old leaf, you might be overwatering your plant. To see if this is the case, check if your plant is standing in a puddle of water. It's best to have drainage holes in your pot to avoid overwatering your plant. When you have overwatered your plant, make sure to let the soil dry out before watering again. If you want to go deeper into what to do when you've overwatered your plant, be sure to read "How to rescue a plant from overwatering".
Brown leaves
As we've discovered, the Philodendron Birkin is a tropical plant and loves humidity. When it's getting brown and crispy leaves, it's too dry and you should try to find a more humid spot for it.
Thank you for reading this post! I hope it helps you to keep your plants healthy and beautiful! If you're looking for more guides on specific plants, you can always request a plant guide or donate a plant in order to get a guide for the plant you have trouble with.
