Happy Lunar New Year to all! As we say farewell to the Year of the Ox, we officially welcome the Year of the Tiger on Feb. 1, 2022. Many may refer to the 15-day celebration of Lunar New Year as Chinese New Year, but it’s important to acknowledge that other countries across Asia including Korea, Vietnam, Singapore, Japan, and Brunei celebrate this traditional holiday as well. The Lunar New Year is all about celebrating the renewal of life, putting the past behind, and focusing on prosperity and good health for the new year.
As many outdoor and indoor festivities may be limited due to the pandemic, those who are celebrating Lunar New Year will still be honoring the holiday by cooking delicious traditional foods, exchanging gifts, and decorating with new plants and flowers. Pick up one of these seven plants and flowers to help bring a little luck and prosperity into your home for the year ahead.
The stunning orchid flower symbolizes fertility and abundance. It looks intimidating, but some varieties are actually quite beginner-friendly. The most important part of caring for an orchid is making sure you don’t overwater it, which can cause the root to rot. A simple way to maintain an orchid’s health is to soak its growing pot in water for about 20 minutes once a week; it will allow the orchid to take in as much water as it needs from the roots while ensuring that it’s not sitting in water after. Whether it’s a gift for yourself or to someone you care about, a beautiful blooming orchid can add prosperous vibes to the home and brighten up any area.
A must-have plant for Lunar New Year is the pilea, also known as the Chinese money plant. These plants have leaves that resemble coins and they symbolize prosperity, good luck, and fortune and they’re best given as a gift (it increases their luck). That’s easy to do, since happy pilea plants produce “pups,” or smaller pilea offshoots. These can be repotted into their own planters to spread around your home or share with friends.
Pileas are easy to grow, but do require some care to make sure they’re not placed in direct light (which can scorch the leaves) or under-watered.
The vibrant bromeliad plant, part of the pineapple family, is another plant that symbolizes good fortune. While it has a high-maintenance watering schedule and needs to have bright indirect light, it rewards you with showy foliage in colors like yellow, hot pink, and orange.
The jade plant symbolizes wealth and prosperity and, like pilea, increases its luck when it’s given as a gift. These richly colored succulents are also simple to maintain. Since they hold water in their thick leaves, they don’t need frequent showers; only water once the soil becomes dry.
The Zamioculcas Zamiifolia or ZZ plant is another plant that symbolizes as a “money tree” to help bring wealth and fortune for the new year. If you’re looking for a statement-making plant that’s also low maintenance, the ZZ plant could be for you. These are easy to find in a range of sizes, from those housed in planters the size of a coffee cup to giant ZZs in 12-inch growers’ pots.
If one of your intentions for the new year is healing, cleansing, and starting anew, the peace lily may be your good luck charm. These plants prefer indirect light and would rather be under-watered than over-watered — and they’ll tell you when they’re ready for a drink with slightly drooping leaves.
The lucky bamboo plant might be one of the most popular and recognizable plants of Lunar New Year. It symbolizes good luck and prosperity and also known to increase feng shui. It’s important to note that the number of stalks in your lucky bamboo also has meaning in Chinese tradition. For example, two stalks represent love and three represents happiness, wealth, and long life. Make sure you do not gift someone a lucky bamboo plant with four stalks, as it symbolizes negative energy and death. Lucky bamboo doesn’t necessarily need to be planted in soil, so many people like to display it in clear glass planters filled with pebbles and water.
Full article from apartmenttherapy.com – by Contributor: Donna Kim
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