How to Create a Plant-Friendly Microclimate Indoors
Not all growing spaces in your home are the same. Understanding microclimates will help you decide where plants will thrive and what spaces to modify for better indoor growing.
Indoor plants add plenty of benefits to your home. Not only do they bring beauty to your space, they can also boost your mood.
However, keeping indoor plants looking their best can be a challenge. You might move a favorite potted plant to a new corner of the house, only to find it’s starting to wilt. Why does this happen? The microclimates in your home affect plant health more than you might realize.
Here’s how to create plant-friendly microclimates inside your home or office.
A microclimate is a growing zone that has similar conditions throughout, no matter how small it is.
Each microclimate might be hotter, cooler, shadier, sunnier, or more or less humid than the regions around it. One corner of a room may have a different microclimate than another, depending on the doors, windows, and air vents.
We all experience microclimates in nature. They are the reason you might take a sweater on and off throughout a day of hiking, even if you don’t change how hard you’re working.
Indoor plants placed in the wrong microclimate for their growing needs will struggle to thrive. It’s essential to understand the factors that affect a microclimate so you can give each indoor plant the optimal conditions for healthy growth.
A change in microclimate can be as simple as moving a plant higher on a shelf, putting it closer to a window, or misting its leaves more regularly. Placing multiple plants together can also affect the microclimate by making the space more humid. But without knowing what parts of the environment are a problem, you might change the wrong variable and cause more harm than good.
Here’s what to know about the four primary factors that affect an indoor microclimate.
Every indoor microclimate is a combination of four factors: lighting, airflow, humidity, and temperature.
All indoor plants need access to light, and the amount they get will affect their microclimate.
You can perform a “light test” to determine how much light your plants are really getting. On a sunny day, take a plain sheet of paper and place it where your plant goes. Hold your hand about 30 cm above the paper, so it casts a shadow on it.
If the shadow is clear and crisp, this spot gets bright light. If the shadow looks fuzzy but still recognizable as a hand, the area gets medium light. When the shadow is too fuzzy to define, the space is defined as low light. Perform this test around the house to identify different microclimates.
Sunlight intensity also varies by season, so you may want to repeat this test over the year to see how the results change.
For example, the sun sits lower in the sky in the winter, which means it can penetrate windows more deeply than the overhead summer sun. You may need to move light-sensitive plants in the winter to ensure they aren’t getting fried by the extra winter sun exposure.
Air circulation is essential for healthy plants. Without it, leaves stay overly wet after watering, and you’re creating space for mold and fungal diseases to get established. An open window or ceiling fan keeps things moving and can prevent these problems.
Regular watering matters, but the amount of moisture around a plant’s leaves makes a big difference in whether the microclimate will support its growth.
Some species, like the ferns found in the tropics, prefer to live in high humidity. Others, like cacti and succulents, want conditions as arid as possible.
Most homes are much drier than what a plant experiences outdoors. Bathrooms, basements, and occasionally laundry rooms tend to be exceptions.
You can monitor the humidity level of different rooms with a hygrometer. A low-tech alternative is to take a glass of water and set about five ice cubes within it. Leave it untouched in the room you’re testing for 10 minutes. Inspect the glass after the time has passed. If there’s lots of condensation on the outside, the room has high humidity, while no condensation means there’s low humidity.
When the moisture level needs to be tweaked for the whole room or floor of your house, a humidifier or dehumidifier should do the job. If you only want to make a minor change to your plant’s microclimate, you can make a humidity tray.
Take a large shallow saucer without drainage holes, and fill it with pea gravel. Pour in water to just below the gravel, and place your potted plant in the tray. As the water evaporates, it will raise the relative humidity around it.
Thermostats can be deceiving, as they make you assume your whole house is one temperature. In reality, they are only accurate for the spot they test, and the rest of your house can vary by several degrees. Even the different shelves on one display unit can be varying temperatures, as hot air will rise to the ceiling, and cool air collects on the floor.
While plants can handle some temperature fluctuations, most will struggle if their temperature goes too high or low beyond their average.
A maximum/minimum thermometer can help you gauge the temperature range within a plant’s microclimate. Leave it next to your plant for 24 hours, and it will record the highest and lowest temps during that timeframe. This helps you determine if a heat-loving plant is getting a little too chilled at night or whether the direct sun from a south-facing window is roasting a pot beyond what the plant can handle.
Small changes, like pulling the blinds down to block the sun, can make a big difference in the ambient air temperature in a plant’s microclimate.
Improving the microclimates in your home comes down to careful observation and a willingness to tweak details when necessary. Take the time to learn about the optimal growing conditions for your indoor plants, and you can make the right changes to ensure your home keeps them as healthy as possible.