Your houseplants may be enjoying their summer outdoors, but at some point you need to consider bringing them back in! Photo: Pilea, www.pinterest.ca
What goes out must come in. That’s the rule with houseplants you’ve put outside for the summer. Hibiscus, palms, cactus, ferns: they all enjoy a summer outdoors, but eventually you have to bring them indoors, usually long before fall frosts occur.
But when, exactly?
Here’s a simple tip on that subject. Bring them in while you’re still opening your windows at night.
Once you start finding evenings getting too chilly and closing the windows at night, that’s a sign it’s also becoming too cold outdoors for your houseplants. So, give them a thorough cleanup (read Bring Your Plants Indoors Without the Bugs for more information on that subject) and bring them back indoors!
You don’t open your windows? Here’s another way to look at the subject: if you find you need to put on a jacket in the evening when you step outside, then it’s becoming too cold for tropical plants to be outdoors.
It’s the same tip, really, but just a different way of looking at the subject.
Jacket? Closed windows? Gardening so near to the Central Coast of California can be so complicated.
I don’t keep windows open at night. I am in zone 6. When to bring inside?
Outside:
Sanseveiria
Bird of paradise (white)
Poinsettia
Croton
Aloe
When you start to need to wear a jacket at night, bring them in.
Right now we have Orchids and Christmas Cactus outside. We definitely will abide by this guideline!