Even if you don’t have a green thumb!
Some plants, like people, hate the cold. Especially when you’re dealing with plants who come from warmer climates. So whenever it gets colder, your plants might suffer. Some might even die. And because we understand that you don’t want to say goodbye to your plant babies, we give you some tips to help your plants survive the winter.
Light
Most plants love light. But this can be especially challenging in winter when there is not a whole lot of light during the day. That’s why you want to make sure your plants still get plenty of light. There are different ways to do this. You could move them to a different spot in your house. One where they can get more light but where they won’t get cold. Or you could invest in some artificial lighting. These kinds of lights give your plant the feeling of basking in sunlight. Kind of like a tanning bed for your plants!
Water
When you turn up the heat in your home, it influences the humidity in the room. This means that your plants might dry out. Especially your tropical plants love humidity and might need a little extra moisture in their life. The way to do it is by spraying your plants with water. Another way to keep your plants humid, is by putting them close together. That way the humidity will stay between the leaves, keeping the plants warm and damp.
Your plants need to be watered less in winter. So make sure you don’t overwater them! If you do have to water them, try to use lukewarm water instead of cold. Cold water could really damage the roots of your plants, ultimately resulting in their untimely demise.
Temperature
Your plants do not love the changing temperatures that come with winter. If you turn down the heat when you go to bed and turn it back up during the day, your plants won’t appreciate it. So make sure you keep them in a room that has a constant temperature. If there is one room of the house that you don’t want to heat up (to save money on your gas bill) you can move the plants from that room to a more stable room, temperature wise.
Don’t feed them
Even though you might think that your plants could use the extra care in winter, your green friends do not like to be fed fertilizer when it’s cold. In winter, your plants are dormant. That means they’re not really growing and saving their energy to come back strong in spring. When you fertilize your plants in winter, the fertilizer will stay in the soil to damage the roots of your plants. Repotting them is another activity you should save for spring. If you move your plant from one pot to another, it is too stressful for them and they might perish because of it.
If you keep these things in mind, your green roommates will survive winter only to grow even stronger in spring!
Also read: Pruning your garden in the winter? This is how to do it
Source: RADAR | Image: Unsplash, Kendal