Tips for Tending Your Indoor Plants

Keeping your indoor plants healthy requires time, effort and knowledge. It's important that you choose plants that will easily adapt to your particular indoor environment. You need to keep in mind the amount of natural daylight they will receive, and how much time you are willing to invest in them. Some plants are much hardier than others and can handle a little neglect, while others will wither away very quickly without the proper attention.

It's not uncommon for plants to grow much more slowly indoors than they would outdoors. You can really see this in action if you take one of your houseplants outside for the summer. They just go crazy. Most indoor plants will go dormant starting in the fall and continuing through the winter.

One of the things to be attentive to is the temperature of your home. Houseplants require a certain amount of heat in order to thrive. Generally, it's recommended that you maintain the temperature between 60 degrees to 70 degrees F during the day and 55 to 65 degrees overnight. If the change between nighttime and daytime temperatures is too drastic, you can end up damaging your plants.

You also want to place your plants in an area that won't get a lot of drafts. This will cause the soil to dry out much more quickly. Also, most indoor plants don't prefer a lot of direct sunlight throughout the day. It's best to find a spot where they get a few hours of direct sun, and indirect sun the rest of the day. Of course, this will depend on the particular type of plant you have, so you'll need to research the needs of your individual species.

In the wintertime, your indoor environment is much drier than it is in the summer. This can cause your plants to suffer from a lack of humidity. That's why it's important that you mist them regularly to create a more humid environment for them. This should be done at least once a week, preferably twice.

Watering your plants also takes a little extra effort. You don't want to use water directly from the tap, because it's high in chlorine. Fill a container with water and let it sit for a day or two before you use it to water your plants. During that time the chlorine will dissipate and the water will be perfectly healthy for your plant.