Lawn Care For Outdoor Plants During The Fall and Winter
Lawn care is essential year round – keeping the grass cut, hedges trimmed, flower beds groomed – but lawn care doesn’t stop when it gets colder outside. Your patio and porch plants cannot survive outside and must be brought in during the winter. Landworks, Inc. specializes in all types of lawn care and wants to help you keep all your plants healthy and looking fabulous, whether they’re outside or inside. Transitioning your potted plants to the inside in the fall requires a little extra time and effort but you’ll be glad you did.
In order to ensure you have beautiful potted shrubbery and flowering plants when springtime rolls around again, it’s important to bring your plants in from outdoors during the cold, winter months. But simply picking the pots up and moving them from the outside to the inside is not all there is to it. Acclimating your plants to the inside requires a few precautions, since you don’t want to shock the plants or cause them to wilt or lose their leaves.
Before bringing them inside, you should first check your plants thoroughly to make sure there are no aphids, mealy bugs, spider mites or other insects living in them; they could infest your other houseplants. Use the garden hose to rinse off the outdoor plants after you’ve inspected them and picked off any dead leaves or insects that you find. It’s also recommended that you prune the plants, or even repot them if they’ve grown a lot over the past months. Make sure you don’t prune too much – about a third of the plant is enough, and make sure you prune off the roots as much as you do the foliage. When repotting, use a container that is at least two inches larger than the current one.
Since light sources and temperature changes from outdoors to indoors can be dramatically different, you should take a couple of weeks to fully acclimate them. Bring the plants inside in the evening then take them back out in the morning, gradually increasing the time indoors each day until finally bringing them in full time. It may seem like a lot of extra bother and work, but you’re protecting your investment in lawn care expenses for the coming spring by not having to buy all new plants and flowers. Take the time; it’s worth it!
Once plants are in the house full time you will need to decrease the amount of water as they don’t require as much as when outdoors. Only water your plants when the soil is dry to the touch. In order to maximize the amount of light your plants need to thrive through the winter, it’s important to place them near large glass doors or windows, just don’t leave them in direct sunlight so long they get leaf burn. All of these steps to protect and nurture your potted plants will ensure you have lovely, healthy plants to place back on the deck or patio when warmer weather arrives.
Landworks, Inc. specializes in all types of lawn care including the care of potted plants and flowers. Give us a call today at 913-422-9300 or visit https://landworks-inc.com/ for more information.