A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2006 how do you clean leaves?

Morning everybody!!!!!!

I have a question about leaf cleaning. Whenever I look at photos here or in plant books, all leaves are so shiny. How do you achieve this effect?
My plants look fine, healthy, but the leaves are not shiny. For example, on the two ivies I have, only very new leaves are glossy; when they reach maturity, they become dull green.
How do you clean leaves?
what do you use?
How often?
Or maybe the shiny leaves mean that the plant is healthy, and the dull green of my plants indicates that they are missing something in their diets? (I do feed them according to instructions on the bottle and advice given here. Also, I use Miracle gro potting mix.)

Thank you all for the help,

have a great day,
t.

Sometime, the glossy leaves are just the way the pic was taken or the type of camera that was used. I'v enever cleaned any leaves on my plants before, but I would guess to use a moist cloth and gentlly wipe it?

I clean my leaves a lot because of dust, etc....

I just use a paper towl and water.... My rubber plant especially gets cleaned a lot because the leaves are so big.

I take a damp cloth and wipe em down when they get too dusty.

Me, too. I take a bowl of distilled water (my well water is VERY hard and leaves water spots), a soft cloth, and wipe upper and lower surfaces. It's the dust! Some smaller plants that won't mind the soaking, I put in the bathtub and shower them. I always end off with a spray bottle of distilled, for the afore-mentioned reason.

careful, there are some leaves don't support water

If the plant is really dirty I put a tablespoon of Murphy's oil soap in a quart of water and spray the leaves. It also helps prevent spidermites and white flies.

Well, sounds easy enough. Thank you all for your replies.

Yes, I am aware of that. My plant book warns that "hairy" and downy leaves don't like getting wet.

Thank you all for the advice!
Have a good weekend everybody,
t.

I just either throw mine in the shower, or put them under the kitchen sink sprayer (Avs too) throughout the summer months, or take certain larger ones outdoors and hose them down, once in the spring and then again in the fall.

I don't have any indoor plants now because my house receives too much shade and it's difficult to keep them healthy and alive. When I had my office I had made a hefty investment in plants to make it look homey, so I made it my business to find out how to care for my investment and keep the plants looking healthy and attractive.

Dusty plants do not look attractive and the dust is actually detrimental to their well-being and good health. The leaves of plants have pores and when dust collects on the leaves it can clog or reduce the necessary function of these pores. Any plants that are indoors are already receiving less than the optimal amount of light, and a coating of dust on the leaves further reduces the amount of light the leaves and further limits the food manufacturing process that goes on in the leaves. I found this will cause weak, spindly plants with paler leaves. :rolleyes: So, I always washed all the leaves of my plants every month using a soft cloth dampened with room temperature water and a "wee" bit of mild liquid detergent. Of course, this whole process took me quite a while; especially for my Ficus 'benjamina', Weeping Fig; but, it was worth it because all my plants were beautiful and the Weeping Fig was absolutely gorgeous!