The first step to take with your plants in the winter
It's winter in the Northern Hemisphere. When winter starts, your plants go dormant. But what can you do to make sure your plants stay healthy during this season, so they're ready for spring? Let's find out!
At last, it's winter. If you're anything like me, winter is an amazing time, but also a sad time. I love the winter lights, but these dark and cold days mean that my plants aren't growing anymore, they've all gone dormant.
So what can you do, right now, to help your plants get through this dormancy period as well as possible? That's what we're going to look at in this practical plant care guide on the first step to take when taking care of your plants in the winter.
A quick summary of winter care
Before I share the first step you should take to make sure your plant(s) get through the winter well, I need to share a few sentences on taking care of plants in the winter.
Taking care of plants in the winter has 1 goal: maintain your plant's health. Your plants won't grow in the winter, so your main goal is to keep them healthy. You'll want to keep your plant healthy, so when spring comes around the corner, your plant can instantly start to grow rather than first having to recover from poor health.
The most important change from your summer care routine is that you should water your plant less often. It'll need less water, so make sure to frequently check the soil and only water it when the top of the soil is dry. This usually takes anywhere from 7 to 14 days.
Okay, quick summary over! Let's get to the first step to take with your plants in the winter!
Move your plants closer to a window
Now that it's winter, you'll have noticed that the sun is up later and goes down earlier. Your house is darker, and you'll have to use artificial lighting for much longer during the day and evening.
If there is one thing I want you to do after reading this post, it's this: Move all of your plants as close to south or west facing windows as you can right now.
I'll get into why this is so important in the next section, so stay if you're interested to learn more. If you're not interested in that, go move your plants closer to a window, they'll thank you for it!
Won't the direct sunlight harm your plants?
In all of my plant care guides, I make sure to tell you that you shouldn't expose (most) of your plants to direct sunlight, because it'll cause sunburns and is generally not good for most houseplants. But now you read this guide, and you might be confused why I now tell you to move your plants as close to a window as possible. How does that make sense?
I'll tell you why! In the summer, the sun is very strong and high in the sky. It brings warm, full, rays of light. This sunlight is too strong for most of your houseplants to deal with, so you'll want to move them to a spot where the direct sunlight can't reach your plant. But the winter is different.
In the winter, the sun is very low in the sky, it's very weak and that's why it's so dark outside. This type of sunlight isn't strong enough to cause sunburns on your plant. In fact, it can't give your plants the sunlight they need to stay healthy.
Those spots, in bright indirect sunlight in the summer, are now low-light spots.
The same goes for those bright spots in the summer, where you can put plants that love direct sunlight. These spots are now more like indirect sunlight spots.
So no, the direct sunlight won't harm your houseplants in the winter, because the sunlight is much weaker.
Do I move my plants away from the windows in the spring?
In the winter, you should put your plants in the brightest spots of your house, because the sunlight is weak. In the spring, when the sun is getting stronger again, you will have to move your plants back to their old spot again.
The stronger the sunlight becomes, the further your plants should be away from your windows. This is obviously a very general statement, but the average houseplants thrives in bright, indirect sunlight and shouldn't be next to a window in the spring or summer.
So in the spring and summer, you'll have to move your plants away from the windows again and in the winter, move them towards the windows.
The great yearly plant migration.
Thank you for reading this post! I hope it helps you to keep your plants healthy and beautiful! If you're looking for more guides on specific plants, you can always request a plant guide to get a guide for the plant you have trouble with.
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