Every person that loves plants, or even dabbles in them from time to time, LOVES Springtime! The number of people that have houseplants has increased over the years and, like most, will tend to bring them inside during the colder months of the year. So, what do you do to get them ready to go back outside for the springtime? To keep them healthy, you need to do more than just throw them out the door!

Give them some room

More than likely your plants will need to be repotted. This is especially true if you didn’t before you brought them in last Winter. The easiest way to tell is, gently pull the soil ball and plant out of the current pot. If you see a tangled mass of roots, then repot.

Gently tickle the roots to free them up and put them into a larger pot with your favorite, fresh, potting soil. If you cannot or do not want to put them into a bigger pot, then it will be time to do what is called root pruning. It is not as hard or as drastic as it sounds. Basically, you will want to cut about one-third of the roots off all around the root ball. The biggest key to remember is, estimating how much of the roots you have cut off, you will also need to cut about the same amount off the top of foliage. The reason being is, you have cut the food supply down, now you need to cut the demand for the food down. Then, it is just a matter of repotting in your favorite media, such as Miracle-Gro potting soil.

This is a great time to make sure that your pot isn’t cracked, the drainage holes aren’t clogged, and you do not have any salt buildup. The first two are easy. The salt buildup will look like a brown crust, usually around the drainage holes, the soil line around the top of the pot, and even on the top of the soil itself. This crust is a good indication that you are not watering the fertilizer in well enough or that you might be using too much. Scrub the pot clean while it is empty, replace the plant and adjust your feeding as needed.

Check for critters

Hopefully, this will not be a problem if you did your due diligence last Winter when you brought the houseplants in. The biggest issue will be spider mites. They LOVE the dry conditions of a house during the cold months, and they can multiply very rapidly. If you see small webbing-like material among the tips of the stems and leaves with very tiny specs in them, you have spider mites. You can resort to a chemical control, but a spray of moderate strength water will usually be all that is needed.

Another pest to look for that enjoys your house are mealy bugs. They look like little pieces of cotton on the underside of leaves and in the crevices of stems. You can dab them off with a Q-tip dipped in alcohol or use some insecticidal soap. Make sure you make contact with the pest with whatever you use to get rid of it.

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