Other tidying up

Of course, there is always the, cutting off dead leaves, dusting the plant with a strong stream of water, and shaping of the plant. Many times, when a plant has been inside it will tend to grow more towards the light, or rather lanky, unless you turn the plant on a regular basis. Here, there are two trains of thought as to the action required, one is to just leave it and see if the plant itself rights itself and fills in the weaker side. The other is to prune it back to a symmetrical shape and then it will keep going that way. Personally, I just let the plant go about its business and it usually rights itself.

Feed me

Okay, time to be honest. Have you fed the plant at all over the winter? If you have, you should have been using a 50% dilution rate, just enough to keep the slower rate of growth happy. Well, your houseplant is about to go into overdrive and will need nutrients. Go ahead and feed them with your favorite plant food or apply a dose of Osmacote before you take them out. Make sure you follow the directions and water the plant well after applying.

While I am on the topic of water, beware of the notion that if the water is flowing out of the drain holes, it is watered. That can possibly be the farthest from the truth! If your soil mix has a lot of peat in its composition that root ball can become aquaphobic. Which is just a big word for afraid of water and it will not absorb it. When dry, peat moss can be hard to rehydrate, and you may need to soak the entire root ball in a bucket of water to saturate it completely. Use room temperature water, in this case. Allow the plant to soak until no more air bubbles rise from the pot. I have seen cases where the ball is so dry that it just floats. You will need to either push down on it or anchor it down somehow until moist.

Don’t burn the baby!

If you skip over everything else in this article, do NOT skip over this part! Just like humans, when we have been covered up, in the house and not getting as much sunlight during the Winter, Spring hits and we jump into our shorts and t-shirts rush outside and enjoy all that warmth and sun. That is how we can get a nasty sunburn. Houseplants can too!

Start out with short visits. Bring your plants out to the sun for brief periods of time, maybe 10-15 minutes a day for three or four days. Then lengthen that to 30-45 minutes a day for a couple of days. After that first week is over, you can go to a couple of hours a day. Eventually you’ll build up to that full glorious day they are looking for.

I know what you are saying. You do not have time to be running them out for short periods of time each day! There are just too many houseplants to do that with! Okay, no problem. Use different places of your yard that have shade for part of the day. An example would be a shed or garage that has early morning sun but cast shade in the afternoon. After a week or so, start moving the plants to the part that gets more sun longer in the day. Another possibility is utilizing a northern side of a building. As we get farther into the spring season, the sun is getting higher and higher into the northern sky, increasing the light each day by small proportions.

In conclusion

Your plants brought you comfort and joy during the dark winter months, now it is your turn to do the same for them. Bring them back outside to enjoy fresh air and sunshine from being cooped up indoors. Just follow the above steps and they will respond with flowers, color, or foliage. Again, like most life, plants enjoy the outdoors. That IS where they came from to begin with!