Air humidity Gardening Houseplants

Shower With Your Plants

A quick shower can be very beneficial to indoor plants. Source: hnczcyw.com

Dust, dirt and cooking oils that accumulate on the leaves of houseplants significantly reduce the light that reaches their cells and also cuts back on their respiration. A monthly shower with tepid water, either in the sink for small plants or right in the shower stall for taller ones, helps clean the leaves …and may well remove a few insects that might be hiding among the leaves.

To keep the soil of your houseplants from washing down the drain while you rinse them, simply cover it with a piece of cloth.

It’s best to give plants their shower in the morning so the leaves will have time to dry out before night. This is especially true of hairy-leaved plants, as their leaves are slower to dry.

Garden writer and blogger, author of 65 gardening books, lecturer and communicator, the Laidback Gardener, Larry Hodgson, passed away in October 2022. Known for his great generosity, his thoroughness and his sense of humor, he reached several generations of amateur and professional gardeners over his 40-year career. Thanks to his son, Mathieu Hodgson, and a team of contributors, laidbackgardener.blog will continue its mission of demystifying gardening and making it more accessible to all.

2 comments on “Shower With Your Plants

  1. Jennifer Brawley

    Hello from a dull U.K. could you please write about staking trees. Do we really need to do this? The mountain ash that self seeded in my garden seem to do well without stakes.

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