Get your plant babies through winter

Watering

Overdoing the water is the biggest cause of fatalities over the cold season. The trick is to keep plants barely moist, but not saturated and definitely not with wet feet. Make sure there isn’t any standing water in the bottom of your nice ceramic pot liners, empty them out. You can cut right back on watering through winter, with very few exceptions.

Leathery toughies like ZZ Plants and Mother-in-Law’s Tongue only need watering in winter when they completely dry out. For most other popular houseplants, don’t water by the calendar; it’s better to use your “finger moisture meter”. Poke your index finger into the potting soil to the first knuckle – if it feels dry at your fingertip, you can water, but not too much. If it’s moist, wait a bit longer. This approach suits glossy or waxy-leaved plants like Philodendrons, Devil’s Ivy, Monstera, Ficus, Anthuriums, Alocasia, Hoyas, Peperomias, Fatsia and Aspidistras. Plants with soft, lush leaves (Ferns, for example) will be a little thirstier.

Humidity

Most types of indoor heating will dry out your home. If you’re interested in the science behind it, do a search on “relative humidity”. This has a big effect on houseplants; in high temperature and low humidity situations, plants transpire (release moisture through their leaves) faster, which means they dry out faster. Considering a lot of indoor favourites have a high-humidity tropical origin, that’s not ideal!

There are a few things you can do to improve conditions for your plants.

• It’s a great idea to group similar plants close together, because it creates a little humid microclimate around them
• You can fill a plastic drip tray with large pebbles, part-fill with water and sit your plant on top of the pebbles to increase humidity
• You can mist spray plant foliage a few times a week, or even pop them next to the shower while you’re in it
• In fact, it’s not a bad idea to just move your humidity-lovers into your bathroom for winter. If you get a bit of condensation in the bathroom, it’s ideal! Another spot worth considering is beside the kitchen sink

Temperature

Plants usually adapt to normal indoor temperatures and actually benefit from the temperature dropping at night. Fluctuating or extreme temperatures aren’t good though; avoid putting plants near heat sources, or in cold draughts.

Windows can radiate cold on frosty nights, so move your babies away from the glass. If you can close curtains or blinds behind them it helps insulate them.

Light levels

Light powers plants. Shorter daylight hours in winter can mean your plants aren’t getting enough light to stay healthy until spring. Grow lights are excellent to compensate but can be expensive.

If you only need the extra light for the cold season, you can get away with supplementary light from a desk or gooseneck lamp. Go for very bright ‘cool daylight’ LED bulbs, with a colour temperature of at least 6500k. Choose something powerful, preferably 10W or higher; when you’ve finished using it for plants you can swap the bulb to the kitchen light! The trick is getting the bulb physically close to the plants, which is why a moveable desk lamp is ideal.