How to Care for Your Houseplants in Winter

Houseplant growing has been a favourite hobby of mine for many years. I particularly like growing exotic and tender plants that can live inside the house in winter and outside in Summer. Houseplant growing has gained popularity again having been a hobby since the Victorian era. In those days large houses were decorated with the most lavish tropical foliage plants. They built large heated Conservatories and Hothouses and filled them with newly introduced plants from expeditions in places like South America and China. So today we can enjoy species from the rocky mountain and desert areas and tropical and subtropical regions.
Poinsettias with their striking green and red upper leaves, called bracts, are the classic Christmas Gift Houseplant. They’re a small and extremely frost tender plant in this country but in their native home Mexico they can grow into a large outdoor shrub. In your own house you will need to find a warm but light position away from both radiators and draughts. Water them only when the soil is dry and maybe the leaves start to droop a little. Overwatering will kill them. After the red leaves start to fade keep the plant warm but reduce the amount of water. The leaves will fall but keep them quite dry until June when new shoots and leaves will develop. Move to a larger pot using a good compost.
Miniature Gardens in terrariums are also popular gifts. They usually come with a variety of plants that should need the same growing conditions, a moist atmosphere, so keep them moist by misting with a spray water bottle regularly. A room temperature of 20°C – 22 °C is recommended with plenty of light to avoid the foliage turning yellow. Repot each plant separately once they have outgrown the space in the bottle.
Azaleas and Cyclamen are Houseplants that like cooler conditions of 18°C so ideal if you’ve turned down the heating to save energy costs. Azaleas will enjoy an even lower temperature of 15°C while flowering. As the buds burst into flower water your Azaleas well and keep really moist during the flowering period to avoid the petals turning brown. Stand the plant in a saucer with a few millimetres of water while flowering to ensure this doesn’t happen.
Cyclamen like good light and a temperature of about 18°C. To avoid overwatering plunge the plant in a bowl of water for 30 mins, remove allow to drain and only water again when the soil is dry and the pot feels light when picked up, Remove the dead or yellowing leaves and flowers leaving no stem to prevent them rotting back into the corm. This encourages more flowers.
There are 30,000 different species of Orchids in the world but only a few like the moth orchid, Phalaenopsis, are grown as houseplants. They grow naturally in the tropical rain forests so like warmth and high humidity. Mist and plunge the pots in water regularly, feed with special Orchid feed and repot using the course bark Orchid compost and a clear pot so the roots get some light. The ideal position in an east facing window. Trim flowered stems back to a bud and a smaller flower should grow from this. Scale insects and mealy bugs can be a problem so use an insecticide to control this.
Cacti and succulents such as Living Stones, Lithops, Echiveria and Coral Cactus are today’s trendy plants. They are interesting for shape and colour, drought tolerance and low maintenance. An ideal houseplant to collect if you are new to the hobby. There are hundreds and thousands of different types to collect too. Just remember to keep them between 8°C to 20°C in the winter and water sparingly. Increase watering in spring and summer and feed with Cacti food between March and September. They are mainly pest and disease free and are more likely to be killed by overwatering than anything else. Plant in groups in a bowl, with a top dressing of sand or grit. In the summer they prefer a little dappled shade and in winter a sunny south facing window would be better.
All plants make fantastic Christmas gifts so for
The Special Person…. The Don’t Know what to Get Person
The Encourage Young Collector Person…. and the Gardener
Give a plant this Christmas. Happy Gardening
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