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Brown leaf tips, yellow edged wilting leaves, leaf drop, flowers shriveling?
If
so your interior plant is suffering from dry air. Some are better than
others in a dry enviroment (e.g. Sanseveria, Beucarnea, Ficus elastica
and most palms) but as a rule increasing the humidity around a plant
will improve its vigour tremendously.
How
humid is it?
All rooms in the house can differ massively in thier humidity levels,
Bathrooms and kitchens are generally the most humid rooms with living
rooms and bedrooms being drier. In our experience hallways are the driest.
Simply put warm air can hold more water than cold air so more moisture
is needed over the winter in a heated room to increase the relative
humidity(between leaf and air) this is why steam rises from water when
the temperature rises by a few degrees on a cold morning. On a cold
winters day in Britain in a centraly heated room the humidity levels
can drop to the same leval as the sahara, no wonder the plants get a
little upset! Spring and summer are no exception where dry conditions
can lead to water being sucked out of your plants (and compost) at a
terrific rate. How quickly the compost dries out is a good measure of
how dry the air is.
How
do I increase humidity?
There
are three main ways to help your house plants with this-
- Misting
- This is best done with tepid water in the morning. Rain water or
water that has been boiled is best as it will not leave white deposits
over your plants leaves. Remember to mist the upper and lower sides.
The benifits of misting is that it cools the whole plant down in the
summer, it cleans the leaves and it will deter red spider mite
- Grouping
- Pot up your interior plants together or place the pots in a group.
This will increase the humidity around the group as moisture is evaporated
from the compost and transpired from the leaves. Watch for fungal
attacks in the centre of the group especially over winter as ventalation
may be limited.
- Pebble
Tray
- This is a great way to allow you to grow high humidity tropical
houseplants (e.g. Alocasia, Philodendron, Anthurium) in a dry enviroment.
The trick is to have a resevoir of water or damp compost/sand at the
base of the plant without the pot touching it. Pebbles, marbles or
anything non soluble! placed in a tray with the plant pot on top and
water below the base level will work a treat with all those hard to
grow interior tropicals.
Remember
that having plants in a room will craete a much healthier enviroment
for you by increasing the humidity and using the methods above will
increase this effect.
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