SECRETS OF WINTER GROWING
Avoid critical mistakes - water properly!

The most challenging time for tropical plants is winter, especially if they are grown outside of tropics or indoors. A true tropical plant keeps growing year around in its natural environment, while temperate climate plants go dormant during the winter: they “know”, it's time to get prepared for the cold: reduce water intake, get rid of extra water, harden the trunk, drop useless in winter leaves. Tropical plants don't know about all that. They don't prepare for winter and rather want to keep going year around.

Let's see what happens to a tropical plant during winter outside of tropics. Temperature drops in winter. 70-75F inside your house may be already cold for it. Light level is low. All processes inside the plant slow down. In the meantime, you continue to water the plant as you would do during the summer. Poor plant can't “process” so much water. The soil gets cold, especially the plant is placed on a windowsill. Root system is not dormant, but it works low-power. It doesn't deliver oxygen around the rootball fast enough. It may result inroot rot. If root system, or a part of it, dies - the plant doesn't get water delivered to its organs – leaves, stems; but you don't know about that and keep watering week roots. Then you see drooped leaves and continue watering even more, thinking about poor plant not having enough water. Here comes the moment when the plant collapses: leaves drop, the trunk dries up. Same symptoms as underwatering!

Here are simple rules, which will help you to successfully maintain a tropical plant during the winter.

There are two ways to succeed. You can either keep plant in tropical environment: bright light and warmth; in this case you can continue to water abundantly and the plant will grow and flower. Or - you can let plant go into “sleep mode”:

1. Water only when soil gets dry. You can wait even more. We water sun-room plants during winter once in 2-3 weeks, while during summer they get water almost every day. We never saw a plant dead from under-watering during winter!

2. Water only with warm water. Cold water will “shut down” the root system

3. Make sure a pot is not cold from the bottom. Use piece of wood or Styrofoam to insulate the pot from a cold windowsill.

4. If air is too dry, then mist the plant frequently.

5. Don't worry if a plant drops some leaves. As long as the root system is not overwatered, and the trunk stays green - it'll produce new foliage as soon as temperature and light levels go up.

6. Do not report a plant during late fall or winter. Even if you see roots sticking out of pot, wait utill spring. It won't develop much growth during winter anyway.

7. Do not fertilize a plant until spring.

All this will help you to overwinter tropical plants and have them start growing again in spring.

HAPPY GARDENING!