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How to Overwinter Your Outdoor Plants Indoors During the Winter
108 Plays2 years ago
If you love your outdoor plants and want to keep them alive during the cold season, this podcast episode is for you. We'll share some tips and tricks on how to overwinter your plants indoors, from choosing the right containers and soil, to adjusting the light and temperature, to watering and fertilizing. Tune in and learn how to make your plants happy and healthy until spring comes again.
Tips for moving houseplants indoors and overwinter care
How to transition potted plants indoors for winter
Questions/Comments/Feedback/Suggestions for Topics: hortculturepodcast@l.uky.edu
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Transcript
Introduction to Hort Culture Podcast
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to Hort Culture, where a group of extension professionals and plant people talk about the business, production, and joy of planting seeds and helping them grow. Join us as we explore the culture of horticulture.
00:00:16
Speaker
Hey guys. So I'm coming to you sans one bald boy today. We're missing, we're missing Brett. He's off doing a quartet is not a trio. He's off doing amazing things for the community and beginner farmers.
Playful Banter on Brett's Absence
00:00:32
Speaker
So, you know, if you see him out and about, give him a little, get a little pet on the shoulder and say, thanks for being here today or a rub on the head for good luck.
00:00:39
Speaker
Yeah, but maybe like ask first because I just assume that bald head rubbing is similar to when people think they can rub women's pregnant bellies, which is weird. Okay. If you're one of those people, you're weird. Okay. There'd be problem. There's no baby in there. So okay. All right. And then the other one is like Brett's like six, five or whatever. So not many people can even reach up there. That's true. All right. Depends on if he's got his boots on or his Crocs on, I guess if he's six, four, six, five.
00:01:05
Speaker
High five was so fast. I mean, I saw the top of someone's head, right?
Houseplants and IFAS Resources
00:01:11
Speaker
I'm just kind of like, maybe we just like fist bump even that's like, run my head. So high five, my forehead, please. And then run away before.
00:01:21
Speaker
I was laughing this morning because I was on a zoom meeting with one of his suite mates and I see him like pass behind her with these bright like gold pants on and I like shot him a text message and I was like gold pants really and he's like okay I'm so sorry
00:01:44
Speaker
So, you know, if you see Brett out and his orange pants, give him a little fist bump or a little head patter. Whatever you're comfortable with. I mean, the leaves are falling and we need the color in their lives. I know, but he was wearing a blue shirt with it. So it was very like Florida Gators. Yeah. I know we're talking about tropical, by the way, we're talking about houseplants today, which I know are tropical and, you know, Florida loving, but we're talking about how to bring them inside today. So, uh,
00:02:12
Speaker
We need to bring in the cold vibes for this podcast. University of Florida makes me think of plugging IFAS as a website. Have you ever used IFAS? It's a nice, tremendous resource for extension publications. They have a wonderful website. Say it again slowly because all I hear is a terrorist organization. IFAS. Okay. All right.
00:02:43
Speaker
No, I just, I do. I think we've said this before, if you're ever looking up information and you're getting overwhelmed, you're like, I just want the right answer. Whatever you look up, put CES, obviously me, but just in case you can put CES behind it with stands for cooperative extension service.
00:03:01
Speaker
So you're going to get research based information there. And if you want to be more specific, wherever you are in, you know, the US or whatever zone you're in. So when I look up stuff, I put, you know, I might put houseplants, CES, UKY for University of Kentucky. But if you're in, you know, South Carolina,
Dealing with Temperature Changes for Plants
00:03:19
Speaker
if you're in Florida, whatever, you can put whatever the little
00:03:23
Speaker
The one of my acronym for them is you'll get some good information that way so so there's your fun fact for the day orange pants and CES in your search bar Maybe if you look orange pants CES you'll come up with a picture of Brett. We're not really sure
00:03:38
Speaker
be precise yeah i'm sure some other people out there wearing that color combination uh outside of florida may be harder to find well anyways jumping back to uh talking you know we talk a lot about farming and outdoor stuff here but in you know kentucky it is cold we've actually had a warm spell this past
00:04:03
Speaker
Yeah, that one of November it's back into the seven. Well, we were close to 80, but I think it was 80 in Lexington, but just 81 yesterday where I was at and most of the day where the last couple of days have been in seasonably warm. I think we broke some records in Kentucky.
00:04:19
Speaker
Yeah. That was weird. I do have to say I was really mad at Mother Nature for freezing because it was like 22 at my farm, October, November 1st. Yeah, something like that. I was mad because I was like, really? Then we have these nice days and it just cut my season off. I was a little bit upset, but then I realized Mother Nature is doing me the favor I didn't know I needed, which is very typical.
00:04:45
Speaker
She was like, look, you're done. Quit. Get it over with. But then I'm going to give you some warm days to clean up and catch up on all the things that you weren't doing because you were still doing in season stuff. So I do have to say I appreciate her for that. And I looked on the bright side.
00:05:01
Speaker
Well, it's tough this time of year. I mean, goodness, the temperature yo-yo is, but like you said, once we get that hard freeze, hopefully you've already like, if you had plants on the outside, if you haven't moved them in and let them in place, they're probably not doing really well right now. They might look a little slimy. They might be a little moist and droopy and dying. Yeah.
00:05:25
Speaker
that's tough that's one of those situations where if they're cold or wait if you're cold they're cold bring them inside so if you see them on the porch did you know possums can get frostbite
00:05:43
Speaker
I guess they're little beetsies and their tables. I guess they're mammals. They can get frostbite.
Pest Management for Indoor Plants
00:05:48
Speaker
Yeah. So if you see a possum in Lexus, bring it in. Bring it in. Make it little mittens. Make it little mini little mittens. I'm going to be crocheting little possum mittens. It's winter little tail mittens.
00:05:59
Speaker
Sounds like an Etsy project to me. Let's put the 4-H clubs on it. Yeah. Anyways, if you've not brought your plants in yet, definitely, I know I wait probably an extra week or so from the plants that are upright against my brick house versus the ones that are down further on the steps or maybe somewhere else I wait, but you've probably brought them in
00:06:22
Speaker
And here's the thing. So I think we've talked about before when you're bringing your plants inside, you know, in a perfect world, you're giving them this nice essentially two week adjustment period where you're moving them slower into the shade and you're watering them maybe a little less and you're doing all these things in the perfect world. And I'm here to tell you that I have pretty much never done that.
00:06:46
Speaker
So if you didn't do that and your plants are already inside and you're like, it's too late, Alexis, I'm past the point of no return. I get that I'm there with you and I hear here's what I have done to help the situation. So I bring all my plants in. Actually, there are some that I don't even put outside. So first rule is just because it's warm out does not mean you have to move your plants outside. If they're comfortable and happy and living inside and it's a pain in your butt to get them out, don't feel like you have to take them out just because it's summer.
00:07:14
Speaker
Uh, because what you introduce them to is there's insects inside. So you might be bringing in some melee bugs, some aphid scale, whatever. Uh, but also you're going in that shock. It's the shock of them going out into, you know, high humidity, high temps, high sunlight, and then you shock them again when you bring them back in. So I have plants that I know are, um,
00:07:33
Speaker
through killing several of them, I know that they are just, they don't transition well. So I've just stopped putting them out and I put them in a highlight and maybe they don't grow as much as they would if they're outside, but then I don't get those big shocks. So I think kind of overall over the years, I've received the same amount of growth on them that I would have if I had been bringing them in and out. So that's my first little PSA. You don't have to put them outside if you don't want to.
00:08:04
Speaker
I don't know, Ray, you've got some indoor houseplants. What do you do with them? Try to keep them alive basically for the next three or four months. We were, some of us were having a little bit of a discussion earlier.
00:08:17
Speaker
For the past couple of years, I've had trouble with mealybugs. And a lot of that prep work, and I realize that it's a little too late now. We've had hard freezes here in Kentucky throughout the state. We've had those hard freezes, so you've already moved your tender plants in that need to come in for the winter. But I need to do a better job, and that includes this year, and I'll tell you why in a second, but I need to do a better job
00:08:44
Speaker
of making sure that all of those pests or as many of those pests as possible are off the plants before I moved them in because I think that kind of prep work.
00:08:53
Speaker
in moving the plants inside is really, really important. And one of the best things I've done in the past is, and it's worked great for me because I have some big containers and you'll be shocked at all the critters that will live in the container, especially in the bottom if you have saucers and things on those, is one of the things that I've done to help, because a lot of the pests can be in the soil. I mean, from earwigs to, I had snakes in the bottom of big containers. But none of the, yeah, true story. One of the things I have,
00:09:23
Speaker
done preparing plants to bring them on the inside is kind of soak that for, you know, 20 hours 10 to 20. And I've actually done that with my larger plants and everything, all the things that breathe that I don't want on the inside of my home.
00:09:38
Speaker
I kind of either flush thoroughly, thoroughly, thoroughly or soak them for several hours before I bring them in. And that's done really well for me. That's my larger plants now. I had tubs and stuff at the time and that was a little easier for me to do. Otherwise it can sort of be a pain. But another thing that I do, I was bringing in some, I don't know, some fancy leaf ivy.
00:10:03
Speaker
in and that stuff just grew so much and one of the prep things I always do with like the ivies and even you know pothos and stuff because everyone knows how the golden pothos I think in my case how much that stuff grows is I trim everything before I bring it on the inside so
00:10:19
Speaker
I kind of go through all of my plants. I look for mealybugs and I kill all of them that I can with a vengeance. I will. Burn it with fire. That's the way I feel. But that's much easier to do on the outside is we've got a lot more options for strong water streams that you couldn't necessarily do on the inside to wash.
00:10:39
Speaker
some of these insects off that you don't want we have a lot of options on the outside whether it's an insecticide or just jets of water but we have a lot of options but once you bring them on the inside my options become really limited so i do all of that try to do all of that prep work but even that being said i noticed that
00:10:57
Speaker
my wife, Jennifer, brought in, you know, I was real careful with my set of plants on the front porch and she's got it some on second on the back porch. And I hope she doesn't listen to this episode because I noticed today when I looked at I was making my little cup of coffee before this because I need a caffeine for that energy boost for this episode. But all for you has sleek and it has mealy bugs all over it.
00:11:23
Speaker
Everywhere. And I'm like, no. So I'm quarantining that thing. I've moved it. I'm going to get in trouble. I put it all the way in the corner of the kitchen where there's not sufficient
Adjusting Indoor Plant Care for Winter
00:11:33
Speaker
light. And I don't know. I've got to, I've got to assess my options. There are some options there that I'm sure we'll talk about, but oh my gosh, guys, mealybugs. Yeah. And Ray, that's a really good point bringing that you soak your plants and like let like essentially drown them for a little while. Yeah.
00:11:52
Speaker
There's different reasons for that. Yeah. You can leach out some salt levels. Some plants, a lot of our tropical plants are more sensitive to salts that are in our tap water and things. You can leach them out. Using rainwater is always a good option, but it also, insects need to breathe. By doing that, you're drowning them.
00:12:14
Speaker
And don't do it for more than a couple hours because roots also need to breathe. So you got to be a little bit careful with that. You have to know the plants you're doing that with and some plants will not respond well to that. Right. And you want to give them enough time to dry out before bringing them in because number one, it's going to be heavy. And number two, when they do come inside and we're going to talk about this kind of the low light levels, things like that will cause that root systems to stay, you know,
00:12:35
Speaker
wet longer. One thing I saw that I love a good systemic treatment on my, you know, when you bring them in a systemic that's usually like a granular or something that you're watering in. And those plants uptake that pesticide through their leaves a lot safer if you have pets. So a lot of people have, you know, cats and stuff that they don't want getting pesticide on them. But
00:12:56
Speaker
For those of you, I always like to have lots of different options. One that's good for mealybug and scale is if you have a small pot that's relatively easy to handle, you can dunk the whole plant. We just talked about submerging the pot in water to get out those soil critters.
00:13:16
Speaker
putting just like a little drop of like Dawn dish soap in some like a bucket of water just to create like a nice surface and then dunking like the whole plant the top growth down into that water. You can leave the root ball out if you want to so for this I'm thinking a lot of those vining plants that can be hard to rinse off and stuff so dunk them into that and let them you know sit in there for 30 minutes or something like that and then you pull it off and all those mealy bug those scale
00:13:44
Speaker
aphids, things like that would fall off into that soapy water. And then you just spray off them again, spray that foliage off. But if you haven't done that, or maybe you have... All of that is paperwork. All of that is... My wife didn't do that. She didn't do any of that under House Lake. Jennifer did not do any of that under the bus, under the bus. You can, if you've got small stuff, you can put them in your bathtub. So there's been numerous times my husband has come home and
00:14:14
Speaker
Ben want to get in the shower and he opens the shower curtain up to just play it's like a scary movie. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Play it some, you know, Lee dead leaves everywhere. But anyways, so bringing them in. We're kind of past the point of no return. What do you need? Yes.
00:14:31
Speaker
to keep them alive you know we a lot of time we buy these really nice plants on the summertime we splurge on them they're so pretty they're so cool uh guilty i'm talking about me i'm the problem um and then i bring them in i have a forest a jungle in my in my living room but what i ask you alexis yeah is it possible to bring any plant that you go and purchase successfully bring that in and overwinter it
00:14:57
Speaker
I mean, are there just some, it seems like there's just some plants that don't do very well, no matter how much supplemental light I give them or how I modify the humidity. There are some that you can do this. Apothos is obviously easy to bring on the inside. It does fine. I think that every horticulture is every person. If you're that person who is like, I have a brown thumb and I kill everything.
00:15:20
Speaker
You do not and we all have things we kill. So for example, I think I've told you all this before I have killed every airplane I have ever owned
00:15:34
Speaker
I blame it on the fact that there's no soil. My brain understands soil. I am a soil scientist. I cannot grasp this whole air plant thing, but we all have something. One of the best horticulturists I know, she can't grow aloe, which is one of the easiest plants for most people to grow. It's one of those beginner house plants. She kills all the aloe. She's one of the most decorative tropical. She runs entire greenhouses and she cannot keep aloe alive.
00:16:02
Speaker
That being said, maybe you just haven't had found the plant for you. There's a lot of truth to that. There's a there's a great amount of truth to that. I mean, yeah, there's factors. There's like the secondary factors like you may be using a wrong type of soil amendments or yada yada. But sometimes you really like the water. You have to I don't know. My main takeaway for indoor plants is.
00:16:23
Speaker
You brought up watering earlier. I mean, there's different ways to water, you know, there's two different main ways to water. My favorite is like when I want to dust them off. I love the shower because you can flush it thoroughly, don't have to worry about, you know, the water getting everywhere on the floor and then bring it back down. That works good for small plants.
00:16:38
Speaker
But the main takeaway from today is i think i've worked with more people that kill plants once they bring them in kill them kill plants with over watering versus under watering that's the number one problem with bringing plants into me is scaling back your water schedule to match the new growing environment and the growth rate of the plant.
00:17:00
Speaker
And, and it's so, I can't just tell you, right? Like you can't just, you have to learn how to be intuitive about it. And this is really hard. If you are new to like the world of potted plants in general, it can be really hard to be intuitive about knowing that. And I say that because, uh, Brett's wife, Annie, once she has a bunch of house plants and I remember I went over to their house one time and she's like, can you help me with these? And I'm like, that's my thing. Well, let's do it.
00:17:26
Speaker
She's like, I just want to water them on a schedule. And it's like, it doesn't work that way. She's like, well, but how do I know? And so there's the pick up the pot test, which isn't the easiest one for me.
00:17:40
Speaker
After you water it, pick it up. When it's nice and soaked, you got water running out the bottom. The soil looks dark. It's nice and soaked through. Pick that pot up and feel it. What does it feel like? It just feels heavy, right? Don't water again until that pot starts to feel light. It's the easiest thing and I can't tell you because you have to feel it for yourself.
00:18:01
Speaker
Think that's the best method is, I mean, people say stick your hand, you know, into the pot to the second knuckle and all these methods. And I struggle with that because sometimes that soil gets hard and dry and I'm like, ouch, that hurts. But the weight of that container is, will tell you, but you do have to test it when it's heavy and what it feels like when it's
00:18:19
Speaker
very, very light and hasn't been watered a long time, but your brain will know after a while you just kind of give it a little scoot or lift the edge of it up if it's a large plant. And that's my favorite method of telling when I needed water. I think it's simple. It's simplified because most of the time you're overthinking it. Like plants are ultimately very relatively simple organisms they
00:18:41
Speaker
They need water. They need light. Um, they need nutrients and a lot of that they make for themselves. So really it's the water and the light that you're most concerned with at least in the wintertime. And so if you understand the basics of photosynthesis, you know, that they are not going to use that water up unless they're getting enough light. So therefore we lose light in the winter, right? We know we have less hours of daylight. A lot of those daylight hours are cloud covered and those plants are inside. So you kind of have this triple threat of lack of light.
00:19:12
Speaker
So you kind of have to say naturally thinking, well, if I watered it once a week outside when it was in full sun, I'm probably going to water it once a month with all of these things stacked up. That's what gets people as they stay on the same schedule. Even experienced growers, if you're experienced growing plants on the outside, let's say annuals every year,
00:19:30
Speaker
that you do not overwinter if all of a sudden you get a firm or something you want to bring it in is you continue on that same schedule and then you overwater and it's a problem but a question i'll pose for you guys is this when you're watering do you put the water in a container and let it come to temper i mean what's your what's your thoughts on that anybody with any thoughts as far as
00:19:51
Speaker
you know, matching, like I don't put really hot water, really cold water on plants. I know it doesn't make a big difference. The way that you water probably matters more top water versus bottom water. But that's something that some plants are a little bit sensitive to that. So I do, I usually set the water out for two reasons. Number one, come to temp so that I'm not shocking anything if I'm given a pretty good dose of water in large plants, but also the chlorine content will decrease just a bit if that's been sitting out for a week or two.
00:20:20
Speaker
Uh, any comments on any of that, uh, or the way that you water top versus bottom, anything I watering, I think is, is a good place for us to start with this conversation today because so important. Well, you're talking about come to temperature, like kind of come to room temperature. Yes. Over time. Yeah, exactly. Typically you're starting with something that's much cooler, right? Yes. Uh, yeah, can be, especially in the wintertime because the water travels through lines that are pretty close to frozen ground outside. So the water can be really, really cold.
00:20:49
Speaker
And in the winter, I don't see it have a big impact, but at larger containers, I have observed that it may be affecting things somewhat. So in the last several years, I've, I'll sit the container out and it's just ready to go. And it also helps me water and monitor my water levels. I think about watering. This is like the weird thing that I do. I always think about my plants and when I would need to water them while I'm brushing my teeth. Hmm.
00:21:17
Speaker
I don't know why, it's just like I guess I'm bored while I'm brushing my teeth so I'm the one who walks around. It's just once a month, right? Yeah, that's only once every three weeks. So I'm walking around the house like, you know, brushing my teeth one and like trying to do something I definitely cannot do one handed, one handed because I just ADHD when I brush my teeth.
00:21:37
Speaker
It's funny. So I do not have the forethought because I'm going to water while I'm brushing my teeth. And so I don't have the forethought. So I just use like lukewarm water. Like I just, when I get it right out of the tap, but that being said, I do not have plants that are overly sensitive to tap water. I definitely don't do cold. I know a lot of people are going, I use ice cubes on my orchid. And I'm like, look,
00:22:05
Speaker
Have I thrown ice cubes in my jade plant because the dog didn't eat them and so they're right there and I throw them in the pot. Yes. I don't waste ice. It goes in the plant somewhere. But I'm not going to put it on like my vining plants where I'm going to put an ice cube right on top of like foliage. I also don't use that in- That's a good point, foliage plants. Yeah, you can burn it. Can you talk about that for a second? I mean, do you water those like with a pistol-type spout?
00:22:30
Speaker
or do you like bottom water any of your plants? Because foliage plants and some succulents, they just don't seem to like it. Yeah. Do you bottom water any plants? Yeah. Um, so I will water through their saucer. Uh, if I can, I have a, I have a, uh, like a tree, like it looks, uh, looks not an actual tree. I it's a thing I hang all my plants on. So I have a lot of hanging baskets that I can't bottom water. So I use like a fine little spout to get in there. Honestly, I also, my thing that I,
00:23:00
Speaker
I have this really lovely watering can that somebody bought me and it like works really really well and you know the thing I use the most often water is an old Fiji water water bottle. It's just the right size like for my hand and but it also holds enough water and that's just what I use so
00:23:23
Speaker
You could probably monitor pretty well too in that clear bottle that you're really used to. You can monitor how much you're putting on. Yeah. Yeah. So, but I use a big watering can. So then like watering, right? We talked about like decreased during like, so for an example, like when I, when we get into winter, I water no more than twice a month. Um, my plants and some of them only get once a month if they're smaller or if they're more, you know, they're getting less light, something along those lines.
00:23:51
Speaker
But there are plants that I have right by a heat register because I have a register right underneath the sunniest window and I have some full sun plants that I put in that window. They get watered, they're going to get watered for sure twice a month because they're getting a lot of extra heat and that's going to dry that soil out.
Maintaining Humidity for Indoor Plants
00:24:07
Speaker
So we talked about light, but you also have to talk about the fact that when you turn your
00:24:11
Speaker
heat on in the winter it's like the frickin sahara desert from a humidity i have some plants that that's the best it's the best window i have which unfortunately is east facing him when we talk about light here in a little bit will get into more of this but it's nice facing window not great but it's the best window for being a big window.
00:24:29
Speaker
that I can crowd my plants around, but there's a heat register right there. Once upon a time, I did a lot of reading on misting and looked into that a whole lot more. I was not encouraged by what I read about misting as a method of increasing humidity and from what I could read from
00:24:47
Speaker
You know verifiable result type studies is that you can mist and then that that works really great for five to eight minutes Depending on how you missed unless it's a constant micro dose of mist. I mean you guys like a humidifier Yeah, humidifier would be much much is a much better option if you have a humidifier because plants are what 50 ish
00:25:10
Speaker
percent humidity in our homes in the wintertime are 10% or 20% of the temperature outside. That's really tough on the tropical. That's a big one too. I was not encouraged by hand misting. Yeah, that's a big one too when you're doing that transition. If you've brought your plants in, it's been probably two weeks, maybe you've had your plants inside for those of you in Kentucky.
00:25:30
Speaker
you're probably just now or you're gonna maybe by the time this comes out have started to see some browning around the edges like a little crispy a little crispy in there
00:25:41
Speaker
That is most likely humidity. Okay, so first of all, don't water more. It's most likely humidity problem. So you can cluster your plants. So if you've got several house plants, put them close together, those plants naturally respire out of their leaf surface. So they increase their own humidity. You're making like a little microclimate there. A little microclimate. And it seems silly because you're like three plants together. It's not going to make a big difference, but it's kind of like
00:26:09
Speaker
Well, it's like water all three of those with three Fiji bottles, then you have three Fiji bottles of moisture going somewhere. The other thing I think of is like, okay, well, water freezes, you know, at one degree temperature difference. So like one little, 1% more humidity could mean the difference between a plant. Like I try to cluster mine for that. That's one of the reasons it's around a heat register. They need all the help they can get, but there's sometimes a big container. So I do that in hopes that maybe it makes a difference. Well, and then.
00:26:39
Speaker
If you're, uh, you can put dishes, I've done this for, and I'm now a good expert. I'm learning on the fly. I have killed plenty. I have some that I've had for years and they've never bloomed, but they're still alive. So I'm trying a new thing this year, but anyways, putting them where they can have bottom water. So that water is, what's the word I'm looking for? The water, what happens to water when it turns to a gas?
00:27:08
Speaker
Evaporate. Evaporate. Evaporate. You always want to say evapotranspiration. Evapotranspiration, slightly different, but I was like, how could water evaporate with evapot plants? I don't understand plants only. But you're not merging that pot in water, you're just kind of maybe sitting that pot on a rock and then... Gravels to elevate it just above. So it's not as saucer as they just... Because it's going to turn into a gas eventually if the air is dry.
00:27:35
Speaker
And I've read that that is a much, much better option than just hand misting. It's way more effective. I think you really only need that for like more specialized plants. So like your epiphytes, like an orchid that, you know, your plants or an airplane or something like that.
00:27:51
Speaker
Yes. The other hint I give when I give a big, I give like a two hour long houseplant talk so I can go on and on about this. But one of the things I say is you got this plan, you probably have a tag with it so you at least know what its Latin name is.
00:28:07
Speaker
look up where it's native to. It's the easiest. If you're like Alexis, I don't know. I put it at the heat register and it seems to do fine or I put it over here. Where is it native to? Is it native to the desert? Is it native to the jungle? I've said this before and I'm going to keep saying it until everybody gets involved.
00:28:26
Speaker
And then mimic its environment to the best of your ability. So do you need it to be more humid? And then dead a winner, I put my, I've clustered my plants together and I put a humidifier on every day. But like, I, those are, those are very important plants to me. All the other ones that aren't that important. I'm like, you know, they'll look bad all winter and then in the spring they'll look better. It's fine. I work with some homeowners and the orchid society there in my county that I work in and some of them do this.
00:28:51
Speaker
They have the big humidity tents and they monitor that with, you know, different monitors, but they go to the extreme of doing that with plants that require more of a jungle type environment. They get that humidity up. They vary their nighttime daytime temperatures by 10 to 12 degrees. I mean, very specialized. Obviously there's not a lot of people going to go to that.
00:29:12
Speaker
length, uh, you know, take care of plants, but these are very valuable plants to these folks. And, uh, they do that. They use a tent. Well, it's their passion. Yeah. And it's so cool. I mean, they use grow lots and supplemental lighting and they manage all the variables to do a really good job. Which we haven't talked about light yet. No, that should be next. Yeah. Sunlight. What about that? Wintertime days are getting shorter. Yeah.
00:29:38
Speaker
So all of my full sun plans I put, they get priority in my windows.
Optimizing Light for Indoor Plants
00:29:43
Speaker
I don't know about you guys, but in my south, Mike, well, I don't have a south south facing window, but the West is good. They get my West facing windows. Um, and then everybody else gets moved out. I should pull up.
00:29:55
Speaker
I'm going to pull that up while you all banter, but I haven't. I was coming earlier that you elevate them too, don't you? And I never thought about that, but after you said that, you said, was it you that has a plant stand? You have a lot of plants on plant stands. And I would like to get some reading and oh my gosh, and I have plant stands, but I didn't realize like on an average window is at a certain height in most homes. Like the window doesn't start at the floor level unless it's a door or something.
00:30:20
Speaker
But what a huge difference a plant stand makes by elevating that plant into full exposure to the actual level of the window. Well, and in winter, you know, like the sun is lower horizons coming at the plant more of a direct on angle. So that's one of the things that I encourage folks. Number one is don't be like me. I only have good east facing windows. That's not desirable. It's more of a south or southwest facing windows tend to be better in the winter.
00:30:51
Speaker
But the next thing you can do, like Lexus has, is have some kind of plant stands to bring those plants up for that reason you just mentioned, Josh, that the angle of the sun is actually coming down in the wintertime. So that's going to have a direct shot at the plants. And that really does increase the exposure
00:31:11
Speaker
the plants of that better quality of sunlight, better angle, they just get more sunlight overall. When I give this big talk for master gardeners on houseplants, I have a slide on lighting and it has been the most helpful because it's like
00:31:30
Speaker
It's like, okay, put it in the window. Well, you run out of space in a window and you're like, okay, where else can I put this and like, how far? So I found this years ago and it was super helpful. So.
00:31:43
Speaker
There's two things to think about when for plant growth, right? There's duration of light and there's intensity of light, right? So it's the amount of hours is your duration. The intensity is going to be full set sun versus full shade kind of thing. So if you're trying to mimic a full, like as much full sun as possible, you can indoors.
00:32:03
Speaker
For a full sun plant, that's within two foot of a south facing window. So if you have a window that's east facing, you need it in the window, right? And you're still not probably going to reach maximum capacity, but that's kind of the equivalent. If you have a plant that does better with kind of some direct sun or maybe some like, if it was outside, it would like afternoon shade, kind of those morning sun afternoon shades scenarios.
00:32:29
Speaker
You would want that plant where it is, you're going to see sun sun rays on the leaf surface for a couple hours a day. So I have a dining room table that's, you know, maybe five feet away from the window. And for an hour or two a day, I can see rays of the sun hitting it. But other than that, it's just kind of bright in there. And then if you're talking about a shade plant. So an example of this would be like a ZZ plant or a snake plant. A lot of people have.
00:32:58
Speaker
You want to be able to read a newspaper in that room without additional lighting for five hours a day. So that means you can put it over in the corner as long as if you were in the corner, you could pretty easily read your paper without additional light.
00:33:15
Speaker
And then essentially anything worse than that is not going to be ideal, especially in winter time. In the summer, you might be able to get away with it, but in the winter time, like my bathroom really doesn't have a window and I have no plants in there and it kills me inside because it's the best humidity area in your whole house is your bathroom. I have a friend who has the most beautiful staghorn ferns that she like mounts on wood and puts them in her bathroom and they just thrive in there. But she has like three windows in her bathroom. So
00:33:45
Speaker
I'm very, and she has like white and it reflects all the light. And I'm, Josh, with any kind of plants on the inside you guys provide, I know there's all, I mean, incandescence technically can provide some, you know, white source of light. You know, it takes different spectrum of light for the cool and the warm and the full spectrum. But do you guys, do you guys get into any of that? For the first time, I was just telling Josh before you hopped on Alexis, uh, that I ordered
00:34:14
Speaker
There's this one big, and I've talked about it before this, and it's gotten huge. It's Barbados Lily. And I've ordered actually a light with a timer designed for that. It's full spectrum light. And it's three or 400 watt equivalent. It's an LED array. So it's 20 watts, I think, actual. But it's just for this one plant. And I'm very curious to see what a difference that makes for me because this plant, this one particular plant just looks terrible because it's a light lover.
00:34:42
Speaker
It just looks terrible by the, I mean, I take it outside and it takes it a month to recover. Right. Let's see if that makes a difference. And the cool thing I noticed about a lot of these newer plant lights, and I hadn't looked into it in a while, is they have built in timers, like right within in line with the core, like three, nine hour, 12 hour timers, it'll come on and off and sort of take care of itself. But you guys get in any of that? It seems like Lexus, you said you have like,
00:35:05
Speaker
Yeah. It depends on what I'm doing. I've got a whole mess of different things. One year I started all my amaryllis inside and I had a rack that had lights on it and blah, blah, blah. I actually was just telling somebody this morning, a coworker of mine was like, I'm going to bring these plants in and what do I need to do? So I would say if you're going to get into lights and you have, let's say you have a nice floor lamp that you're like, I want to hang my plant under this floor lamp, whatever.
00:35:36
Speaker
And it only has one bulb. Invest in just getting a grow bulb. You can get them at, you know, box stores and you only got one option. You can buy the grow bulb. Notice the wattage on those. Some of those get really hot. I noticed the grow bulb because you, you won't think it'll, it'll look a little different, but you'll get it. And it's a 20 watt, but it's 400 watt equivalent.
00:35:57
Speaker
Yeah, they do. Some of those I notice I caution. They're not like LED or they are, but they're still getting a lot. They're an LED array, a lot of those. They'll have an array with different light emitting diodes of different color spectrums within, like they look like a bug eye, a lot of those inside and out of Lexus, like they look different. Yeah. But some of those get warm. Yeah. But so you, you can get the regular screw in. You can get just like a screw in light bulb that is a grow light. So it's a full spectrum bulb. Now, if you have.
00:36:22
Speaker
I have two things that I like and one of them is if you have the ability, maybe you're going to go out and buy a light fixture or the light fixture you have takes more than one bulb. You can get a warm bulb and a cool bulb and that is your full spectrum that you need.
00:36:38
Speaker
So like I have shop lights, I have some on in my office right now. And these are the ones I use on like my rolling racks that I might start my seeds with or something like that. We can do a whole seed episode if you guys want. Oh, it needs to be done. I just, you know, those cheap shop lights that you get at the box store and you just hang them up and they take two bulbs and I buy the cheap, one cheap, warm, one cheap light are warm and cool and you plug them in and they're the full spectrum. And so I'll put a timer on those.
00:37:07
Speaker
And I'm looking for 12 hours a day and you're good to go with that. And those are usually cheaper, but if you already have the lamp or whatever it is you're using and you're just buying one bulb, then that's probably a cheaper route. So like kind of lamp in the past, it had like, it was a kind of an old school and 20 years old or so, but it had the three different angles and I loved it for this. Oh yeah. The lower wattage grow bulbs, but it was kind of the old classic reading style that you could point the three.
00:37:35
Speaker
lamps and individual directions. And it was so perfect because it was about 62, 65 inches tall was perfect. And I probably need to get one of those back. The thing I loved about that versus some of them.
00:37:47
Speaker
the one piece grow lights, like the bulbs go out, like then you have to throw the whole thing away. The thing I like about what you're saying, Alexis, is it uses a standard bulb base and you could just screw those into, so that's the two big differences. One's the integrated. Yeah, I did get just because my plant collection has gotten to read our.
00:38:07
Speaker
Uh, I'm not supposed to be bringing plants home anymore, but, um, I said, well, I'm going to keep bringing plants home, but I promise not to bring home any more coffee mugs. Uh, so now they're all at my house. Anyways, um, the planting coffee mugs problems. So, um, now I've started to hang them on walls as decoration. That's where I'm at with my playing collection. So I don't have like, not coffee mugs, but the plants on the wall. Wow.
00:38:35
Speaker
I have a I had to get like a different stand right and I wanted to elevate them getting them closer to the window and I just needed more space so I ended up I have this stand that is multi tiered and it's real cool but I found this little clip on.
00:38:49
Speaker
And it has like three bendy, like option pussy looking things. After I talked to you, I went and checked those out and those are super neat. And it wasn't expensive and it does red and blue light. And like I can set a timer. Yeah, it has like six, nine and 12 hours. Um, and so I just set it and forget it. The only weird part is like, sometimes if I'm like, if I get up early, it's dark outside and like there's a.
00:39:14
Speaker
red and blue glow coming from my dining room. And I'm like, my neighbors probably think I'm growing all kinds of illegal things in here. It's really just for my baby rubber tree.
00:39:29
Speaker
Yeah, the supplemental lot I'm kind of getting into. I've not done a whole lot of that, but I want my plants to look a little nicer going back onto the front porch next year. How would you say those lights are to kind of be in the same space with? I mean, I know Alexis thinks of herself as somebody who is invading the plant space, so she doesn't want to bother them. But if you're trying to, let's say, live a normal life,
00:39:54
Speaker
Having these plants around, do they bother you, like being in these spaces? I think if they're adjustable, because I guess the rule of thumb is the one thing that you're doing is all of these lights need to be adjustable so that light emitting portion of this unit that you're in need to be close to the plant. So the way that I do it, Josh, and that is a big consideration for me because where I've clustered my plants is in the living room. It's a long, it's sort of a rectangle shaped living room.
00:40:19
Speaker
Uh, on one end of the living room is where the plants are clustered in the TVs, like on the other side of the living room. I don't want this 400 watt light, like giving off a tremendous glow. So I do angle that a little bit pointing back towards the window. So I really, the neighbors are probably going to be freaked out. But yeah, I don't want that. So that was a big consideration when picking out the lights is I want that customizability.
00:40:43
Speaker
to be able to angle that away from me because I cannot imagine that shining in your face. Mine are angled away from me. I would say that because they're on sometimes during the night, I get up to pee or whatever. The red and blue lights, of course, that's what they use in the dark. You're using a red flashlight, so it's not a shock to the system. You don't see that.
00:41:08
Speaker
So yeah, when they're on and I have kind of like, I have a small house and it's real open. And so they're, you know, not that far away from me and they're opposite of the TV. So they would reflect if they were too bad, but yeah, I have them facing the wall where they're so flexible. And even the shop lights, like when they're on there, so like Ray said, they're close to the plant. So they're not really.
00:41:31
Speaker
They're not really bothersome. So yeah, I mean a floor lamp might be bothersome. I just use that as an example for something that like if you already have. But a lot of the floor lamps you can, several models like we were talking about earlier, can be angled and you can angle those away from your line of sight. You can create some kind of a barrier. So it's not like. You wouldn't want a shining drink because most of these bulbs tend to be higher intensity bulbs. Right. You know, when it uses that blue light, because blue light is really high energy and hard. You know, it kind of.
00:42:01
Speaker
messes with your eyes, especially late at night, whereas like red light is pretty calm. I turn, I never have the blue light on by itself. I can turn red on by itself, blue on by itself or red and blue combined. And so I do red and blue combined and that like tempers it enough where it doesn't, I don't even notice, except for I'm like, wait, what? I'm jealous of my office set up. I have the grow lab, the typical, like it's like a grow lab multi-tier, but it's got that custom made, you know,
00:42:26
Speaker
LED bulbs that have come down in price quite a bit, but I would love to have something like that at home, but I don't. So I'm getting this floor lamp, and if I like it, I'm going to get a couple more because I won't do all of my plants because I want to keep it close to the plant level of the plant. So we're going to see how this goes. And if I get a suntan, you guys will know why.
00:42:45
Speaker
I'm laughing because I love this because I just think about the fact that I still have from last winter when I was growing these amaryllis on a rolling rack like it's just not like it's not even cute why do I still have this in my house but yet I'm like what if I need it you know and I don't I don't need that like I have a greenhouse right now but here I am and I'm like I'll just I'll just and it's ugly I don't know it's just
00:43:10
Speaker
I don't know. It's because there's not enough plants. There's not enough plants on it. Actually, I have a mushroom. My mushroom buckets on it right now. Perfect. Well, maybe a good way to kind of sum up would be to talk about what and I'm sure the true answer is always it depends. But when it comes to when it comes to selecting the site for bringing your plants in and where you place them, kind of what is your
00:43:35
Speaker
What's your, you know, most important resource would be the sunlight. Yeah. That goes first. I would say whatever is the hardest for you to mitigate. So if, if you have a lot of natural light and you have, it's comfortable for your plants to be there and like live amongst you, then put them there. But you know, if it's easier for you to put a humidifier on something and maybe close event, uh, and you can.
00:44:04
Speaker
you know, supplement light. I mean, I think all of these things can be supplemented. Of course, natural is the best way, but when it comes down to it, they can be supplemented.
Choosing Plant Placement and Care Equipment
00:44:13
Speaker
So whatever makes it so that you can enjoy them. I know, Josh, like in my house, plants take priority, but the Corgis take priority. It's really a house of plants that like somebody lives in sometimes. I live in their home. Caretakers live there for the plants. So I am their caretaker. Yeah, but for most of the people,
00:44:30
Speaker
You don't want them to be in your way, but you also want them to be somewhere where you can enjoy them. You're enjoying that extra good oxygen that they're giving you and you see them. So you're paying attention. Oh, Hey, he looks crispier there. That one's wilted. Um, that died six months ago that tides it. Yeah. You don't want that. You want it to be like before it gets to that point. So everything can be supplemented, but yeah, I would say my top one would be light. Um, but like Ray was just saying, there's lots of light options. You got to plug close by. So.
00:45:00
Speaker
That's what I'm having to manipulate. The best sunlight exposure for me would be the sliding glass door to my back deck area, but unfortunately, we have to walk through there. It probably gets a little bit drafty there, right? It's drafty, so my best spot for sunlight, that is exactly why I'm purchasing this supplemental light because there's a better spot for them that has some light, so I'm making the best of an okay situation. We've talked about the water and the sunlight.
00:45:28
Speaker
just take a minute or two on fertilizer. What's going on there guys? I know we're probably cutting back on water. What about fertilizer? So that one I think is a little bit of a trick question because we do have plants that bloom in the winter. Something like Thanksgiving cactus, Christmas cactus, Easter cactus.
00:45:45
Speaker
So I want you to first think, remember we said go back to where that plant is from. Is that plant going to bloom during the winter? And if so, then you actually want to bump up your fertilizer, but the other 90% of plants that we are having
00:46:01
Speaker
at home, you don't really need to fertilize during the winter time. But you do want to fertilize first thing in the spring. So once that light starts to really increase, usually that's like end of March, early April, you can boost them. I like a slow release fertilizer because I'm going to forget otherwise.
00:46:21
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, if you don't fertilize because you forget in the winter, even for those Thanksgiving cactus and things like that, it's better to forget about it than to overdo it because you'll get a lot of salt buildup this time of year. Yeah. Yeah. That, I mean, that's pretty much everything I have seen on this is like back off. Yeah. Unless you're like me and you're growing plants and water all over your walls. And in that case, if you are
00:46:49
Speaker
that the whole, like a lot of people are into, and I'm just like getting into this thing called lekka balls for your media. So there are plants that will do well in a, essentially in just growing in water, right? As long as they have the ability to have some air pockets, which is what these lekka, little lekka balls, they look like little marbles, but made out of like clay essentially.
00:47:12
Speaker
That's the reddish sort of terracotta. They hold air pockets and they just let the roots kind of get what
Ensuring Plant Safety for Pets and Children
00:47:19
Speaker
they need to do. But anyways, if you are growing in a pure water situation, you probably do need to have just the smallest amount. I mean, it's so diluted that you almost don't even notice it, um, added to your water.
00:47:33
Speaker
in that case, but that's kind of a special, special scenario. Whoever's getting into that should hopefully know that. Tally's specialized. I just bought some, I just bought some liquid fertilizer. Cause I, I like the slow release, but I just bought some liquid. Even I go very loud on it, but it's based on watering. So if you're watering less, you're also releasing that slower. So it's sort of balances out in some cases, if it's a good hot, more user friendly. Yes.
00:48:02
Speaker
And it is buffered, so it's not as hot. It's not such a splash effect. You're not going to burn your roots. Yeah. Yeah. One other thing for those, maybe we should mention is if you're newer to bringing plants in from the outside, if you have small children or pets, any concerns there? I know Alexis, you have some little fur babies. I mean,
00:48:26
Speaker
Do they eat your plants? No. Do they not chew around with your plants? Good. Good. But I know cats that do and I've had a cat like who does it when she's angry at me. She doesn't do it any other time. So stay on good terms with your cat. Be on good terms with your cat and you be fine. But I do know there's some out there and they like to nom. I would say that you should go to the ASPCA.org website and they will tell you what plants
00:48:54
Speaker
are bad for pets and usually if they're bad for your pet, they're bad for your small child. I will also tell you that there will be so many plants on there that you're like, how will I ever have a house plant because they're all poisonous. And usually, and again, I'm not a veterinarian. I'm a horticulturist.
00:49:11
Speaker
Usually the answer is yes, this is poisonous, but you have to eat three whole plants in order to even vomit from it kind of thing. You know, poinsettias are a good example. Everybody knows poinsettias have, you know, are poisonous tendencies, I should say. But if your cat chews on one leaf,
00:49:31
Speaker
Number one, they're not going to chew on it for long because it's gross and it's going to make them feel gross. And so they're, they might throw up, but usually as long as you don't have a chronically ill cat, you have a healthy, you know, cat or child, mentally stable or any cast, truly mentally stable. I don't know. They're going to be fine. So yeah, don't let your, your animal eat your entire plant.
00:49:57
Speaker
watch them, make sure, but if we didn't have any houseplants that were, if we only had houseplants that were safe for our pets, we would pretty much have no houseplants, so.
00:50:09
Speaker
You should be like growing wheat. Yeah. I mean, grow cat grass if you're half of that. You can grow, it's really easy to grow. Have you ever grown like catmint indoors with a cat? I haven't even thought of doing that. Catmint, no, cat grass, yes. And it's fun because it's essentially like a wheat and I think it's a rye technically. I don't remember, but it germinates in like 10 days and then they nom it down and then you just put another one down and every 10 days you're going to fresh cat grass.
00:50:39
Speaker
What about catnip? I have not grown catnip balls. And if they react to catnip in the same way as they do the dry to catnip balls, then that won't last. It's probably not even safe. You have to be everywhere. Yeah, all over. So that's a consideration sometimes if people bring these, because it's sometimes, especially for like cats and children, it's a curiosity. It's something that aren't used to seeing. So there's this natural curiousness.
00:51:04
Speaker
And so they wander over into that area where there's all of these green things. So that's just a consideration. Well, and like plants that are poisonous taste bad. So even if they get a little bit of it, they're not going to keep eating it.
Seeking Help and Engagement with Listeners
00:51:20
Speaker
So that's where it benefits you. But again, I am not a doctor. So just good to be aware of that. And plant stands, if you have a plant that let's say,
00:51:30
Speaker
Uh, gets bothered by kids or pets. Uh, maybe that's a good one for the top. Yeah. You know what? Maybe your plant doesn't like your kid. Okay. Did you ever think of that? Then poisoning your kid is a defense mechanism. We've talked about everything we've talked about cats and kids and water and fertilizer. What have we missed today? I think we got it. Like if you have questions, like if you have a plant specifically, but you can't seem to make happy, you're welcome to, you know, shoot us an email.
00:52:01
Speaker
or have an insect problem. I mean, that's a big issue for insect identification. All of our offices can provide those services. That's a big one because there are, you have limited options in the wintertime if you're going to go insecticides. I mean, there's always insecticidal soaps, horticultural oils, and like neem oil. There's some good options, but if you need to identify the critters,
00:52:23
Speaker
that are bothering those plants, definitely give your local extension office a call. Or if you just want to know if you have critters in general, like don't go spraying in a bunch of stuff. Don't go watering like crazy. Figure out what's wrong with it first because you could be over watering or over humidifying. I think you missed it earlier. Identify your problem before you try to solve it. Yes, that would be great.
00:52:46
Speaker
absolutely go to your county extension office if you're in Kentucky you have there's one in every county there's 120 actually there's over 120 because Kenton County has two offices oh well so there are
00:52:58
Speaker
There is one in every county. If you are outside of Kentucky, you do have an extension service because there is one in every state. If you are outside of the US, I am not sure, but I am positive that there is some help relatively locally. Or if you are like, I cannot find those people and I don't trust them, that's fine. You can shoot us an email, horticulturepodcastatl.uky.edu.
00:53:24
Speaker
And that's an email that we all get. So all of us will see it and kind of can brainstorm on that if that's something. And Josh won't just willy-nilly start telling you about houseplants without me seeing it first. Okay. But you can also shoot us a direct message, a DM if you will, on Instagram, horticulturepod,
00:53:46
Speaker
and check that out. Contact us either way if you want to know something else that sounds interesting or you want us to go into further depth. We need to do a bonsai episode for Brett. Brett is the expert and I would love to learn. I've been getting a lot of videos on tiny bonsai come up on my social media and oh my God, they're so cute.
00:54:08
Speaker
I digress. Anyways, we'd love that if you would leave us a review, if you liked this episode, if you're like, hey, my pothos didn't die this year because I listened to this. That would be great if you just let us know that via a review because it pleases the algorithm gods and people find the podcast and hopefully they will like it and also not kill their pothos.
00:54:26
Speaker
That would be great. Contact us. We love to hear from you all. We appreciate you listening every week and we hope that as we grow this podcast, you will grow with us. Join us next time. We're going to tell you about a lot of cool upcoming things that are going on in the conference world. Thanks.