The way we heat our homes in the winter can cause air to become hot and dry and as a result the humidity is lowered making it tough not only on us but also houseplant.

Plants with delicate foliage like ferns are more susceptible to drying, than those with thick leathery leaves like jade or kalanchoe. It’s interesting how our homes have micro climates kitchens and bathrooms for instance are more humid than other parts of the house But it’s probably impractical to take all of your houseplants and move them into those areas. But there are something’s you can do, to make them happier where they are.

One of the easiest ways to raise the humidity temporarily is just to mist your plants. But this can be time consuming and you don’t want to spray plants that have fussy foliage like African violets. It can cause the leaves to spot.

And easier and more lasting solution is just to set your plants in a dish of gravel now you just add water to the saucer, now bring it up just to the top surface of the gravel. As it evaporates it will bay the underside of the leaves with moisture.

There are couples of things you want to keep in mind here you may want to use a plastic saucer so that moisture doesn’t stay in top of your table or floor; and secondly, the larger the saucer the better. You see this one could actually be a little bit larger because you want to the saucer to be at least as wide as the outer edge of the foliage.

Another solution is to use one of this little home humidifiers, they’re ideal if you have a lot of plant you’re taking care of or you want to raise the humidity in a large room. From the garden, I’m Allen Smith.

Now if you’d like more information on this topic or other information just checkout my website p.AllenSmith.com.