Winter Chores for Your Houseplants

How to keep your houseplants healthy this winter. Find out about proper lighting and
watering and how to keep plants humid and thriving.
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Winter Chores for Your Houseplants
True, your houseplants aren’t going to feel the same effects of weather as their outdoor
counterparts. They aren’t buffeted about by high, cold winds in winter or buried in snow. But
houseplants do know that the weather has turned. And they will require different treatment
during the winter months.
Here’s how to ensure that your houseplants thrive this winter in your indoor garden.
Ensure good lighting
Winter days are short, so it’s important that houseplants get the right amount of the correct
lighting. Without sufficient light, houseplants will look okay for a while, but eventually they’ll
run through the light that they had stored up and start suffering and eventually look terrible.
Light-starved houseplants drop flowers and fruit first and then start dumping lower leaves.
Eventually, you’ll have this weird looking plant with just the top foliage.
Concerned that your houseplants are getting enough light this winter?
It’s easy to fix the problem. Add full-spectrum lighting to your indoor garden. Full-spectrum
lighting comes in bulbs and tubes. When growing with full-spectrum lighting, place the lights as
close to the top of the plants as possible. Although avoid leaf burn by keeping the light about 4
inches from the top of the plants.
Humidify
Many houseplants come from the jungle floors. Imagine turning on a big heater in the jungle.
Things would look parched and dried out very soon—wouldn’t they?
Heaters dry out the air for houseplants, causing leaf tip burn and leaf loss, as well as slower
growth. It’s important to counteract the dry air with more humidity. This is especially important
for plants that like high humidity, like African violets and maidenhair fern.

To humidify your houseplants, place them on humidity trays, mist them and/or group them
together. Houseplants sweat, humidifying one another. That means the more houseplants in
your indoor garden, the more humid everything will be. Like a greenhouse.
To see how to set up a humidity tray, watch our video on the topic.
Check for pests and treat
Often in winter, houseplant pests tend to settle in and start snacking. To combat this, check
your plants thoroughly on a weekly basis for pests such as mealybugs and scale. Treat
mealybugs with isopropyl alcohol or insecticidal soap. Treat scale with neem oil. Then rinse the
dead pests off of the plant. If you want to see what mealybugs look like and how to get rid of
them, watch our video on the topic.
Watch watering
Many houseplants die in the winter months from too much watering. The soil remains soggy
and wet and the houseplants succumb to life-threatening fungal disease. Symptoms of fungal
disease include distorted, small new leaves, plants seeming to grow smaller in their pot and a
squishy plant base, as well as smelly, black roots.
Only water when the top one to two inches of soil has dried out. If you’re unsure, wait another
day to water. This applies to most houseplants. (Maidenhair fern is an exception. It needs to be
kept moist, but not soggy.)
Soak plant soil well when you water.
Have faith
With a little extra attention, your houseplants will survive the winter months in your indoor
garden. As a matter of fact, they’ll likely thrive!