Winter Houseplant Care: The 6 Things to Change in October

Here is the pattern. Everything looks great through summer. October comes, nothing changes about how you look after them, and by February half the collection is yellow, dropping leaves or already gone.

The plants did not get weaker. Their conditions changed completely and their care did not.

1. Water much less. This is the big one.

Less light means less photosynthesis, which means the plant uses less water, which means the soil stays wet far longer. A pot that dried out in five days in July can take three weeks in January.

Keep watering weekly through winter and you are slowly drowning it. Overwatering in winter is comfortably the leading cause of houseplant death, and it is almost always someone doing exactly what worked six months earlier.

Check the soil every time. Finger two inches down, or lift the pot and judge the weight. Water only when it is dry at that depth. For most foliage plants that means every two to three weeks. For snake plants, ZZ plants and succulents it can be every six weeks or more.

Use tepid water rather than cold from the tap, since cold water on warm roots is a shock.

2. Stop feeding

Most houseplants slow or stop growing between roughly October and March. A plant that is not growing cannot use fertiliser, and unused salts build up in the soil and burn the roots.

Stop feeding in autumn and start again in spring when you see new growth. If your plant is under a grow light and genuinely still growing, feed at quarter strength occasionally, but that is the exception.

3. Move them closer to the window

Winter light is weaker, lower and there is much less of it. A spot that was ideal in June can be too dark by December.

Move plants a foot or two closer to the glass. Plants that scorched in a south window in summer are usually happy right in it now. Clean the leaves and clean the window, because both cut a surprising amount of an already small supply.

The one thing to avoid is a plant pressed against cold glass overnight. Leaves touching a freezing pane get damaged. A few inches of gap is enough.

4. Watch out for radiators and draughts

This causes more mysterious brown edges than anything else.

Central heating drops indoor humidity dramatically, often to 20 or 30 percent, which is desert dry for tropical foliage. A plant directly above or beside a radiator is being baked and desiccated at once.

Move plants off radiator shelves. Keep them away from the blast of a heating vent, and away from draughty doors and single glazed windows. A cold draught and a hot draught both do damage, and plenty of plants sit in both across a single day.

5. Do something about humidity, but be realistic

Ferns, calathea, maranta, alocasia and most aroids want more humidity than a heated house provides in winter.

What actually works: group plants together so they share transpired moisture, stand pots on a tray of damp pebbles with the pot base above the water line, or run a small humidifier in the room with the fussiest plants.

What does not really work: misting. It raises humidity for a few minutes, and leaves water sitting on leaves overnight, which encourages fungal spotting. It is not a substitute for anything.

Meanwhile snake plants, ZZ plants, succulents and cacti do not care about humidity at all, so do not waste effort on them.

6. Expect some leaf drop, and do not panic

Losing a few of the oldest, lowest leaves in autumn is normal. The plant is shedding what it cannot run on the light available. It is not a signal to repot, feed, or move it again.

What is not normal is rapid loss of many leaves, mushy stems or sudden wilting with damp soil. That is overwatering or a cold draught.

A short checklist for October

1. Cut watering frequency by roughly half, and check the soil before every single watering.Water
2. Stop all fertiliser until spring growth appears.Feed
3. Move everything one to two feet closer to a window, but not touching cold glass.Light
4. Get plants off radiator shelves and out of heating vent airflow.Heat
5. Group the humidity lovers together, or add a pebble tray or humidifier.Humidity
6. Wipe the leaves and clean the windows.Light again
7. Check for spider mites, which explode in warm dry winter air. Look under leaves for webbing.Pests
8. Hold off repotting until spring unless you find root rot.Leave it alone

The one exception worth knowing

Not everything rests in winter. Christmas cactus, cyclamen, amaryllis and many orchids are doing their most active work right now, and treating them like a dormant pothos will ruin them.

Christmas cactus in particular needs a period of long dark nights and cool temperatures to set buds, which is why the one in a brightly lit hallway never flowers.

This is where knowing the actual species matters more than any general rule. Identium builds the care plan around the plant it identifies rather than a blanket schedule, which is exactly the gap that catches people out between October and March.