A lot of email comes in from folks who want to know what TO DO to their plants



....because their plant is dropping leaves, the plant is limping, plant leaves are turning yellow or turning brown, tree is not fruiting, shrub is not flowering and many others

DOING things to plants is a wrong notion

In the wild, who DOES anything to the plants?

Nature handles 100% of the care, automatically / NATURALLY is the word (as in the word NATURE)

In other words, plants CARE FOR themselves (via Nature's plan)

Plants don't need people to thrive / survive

All plants want is one main thing >>> proper conditions ....warmth, rain, nurtients in the soil

You provide the right conditions, Nature handles growing your plant to be happy, lovely and fruitful

More on this subject @ the main website ...click this page

The questions are coming in about wintering plants indoors

The shocking questions are the ones that ask about using the basement as a place to keep tropical plants over winter

Apparently, a lot folks think of plants as potatoes

A dark cold place (basement) somehow is logical ...NOT

Just think about it;  tropical plants have no "winter basement" ...imagine being in Brazil or Madagascar or even in Florida ...plants stay outdoors all year around, in the sun, in the warmth

True, a few lose their leaves in winter or most of their leaves and look kinda dead or sleeping, but the vast majority just slow down or some stop growing ...they don't "eat" much. if any, (fertilizer) in colder months either

For success, some pre-winter planning is the first step

Your main solution should be potted plants that are brought in to limp throught your cold months ...then again given their freedom outdoors come springtime

What do you need indoors?

1.  warmth

It's funny when folks write in and say something like "my plant room never gets to freezing" or "we keep the room over 50 degrees" etc

NEWS FLASH:  Temperatures below 65 are COLD temps

2.  sun/light/hours

Think about the number of hours of light in any window in your home versus outdoors in full sun ....there's a bunch of hours of difference, right?

light for 4 hours a day is going to be stressful on most every plant ...maybe you need lights, like commercial gro lights ...the differenece is the light spectrums which gro lights have ...they put out the kind of light waves that sun light does (compared to ordinary household light bulks)

the bad boys who grow marijuana indoors know all about gro lights

3.  water

The #1 killer of houseplants is (too much) water

The #2 killer of houseplants is (too much) water

The #3 killer of houseplants is (too much) water

especially in winter when plants are resting/semi-sleeping

read about watering here  http://mgonline.com/watering.html

4.  food

Do you eat in your sleep?

No you don't, and plants don't consume (much) food/fertilizer in cold months so skip feeding during all your cooler and cold months ...feeding is during all your warm and hot months (only)

have you read our houseplants articles series?

please read here for many more indoor plant care lessons

http://mgonline.com/articles.html

e.g.  #1  #2  #4  #6  #7  #9  #13

C Ya

I've written a new article about how to attract butterflies and hummingbirds to your garden.

It has dozens of photos of the plants you should select to create your own butterfly garden.

The pictures alone are worth the trip. Click here to see.