n the winter, as we have the heating on and the windows shut, indoor plants need higher humidity than our homes can naturally provide. This can be a particularly problematic situation when indoor plants need high humidity levels. This article will demonstrate some great ways to increase humidity for indoor plants to provide them with a more comfortable environment.
Using a humidifier, misting your plants, grouping them together, or using a humidity tray are ways to increase humidity for your houseplants. Your plants can also benefit from being placed in a bathroom or grown in terrariums or indoor greenhouses.
Many ways can be used to increase humidity in an indoor environment. It will help your houseplants thrive and benefit you as well, as moderate humidity levels provide more comfort than low humidity. Here’s how to achieve increased humidity in your house and why it’s good for your houseplants.
What Is The Best Humidity Level For Plants?
The ideal humidity level for most houseplants is between 50-60%. If you can maintain these conditions, most plants will thrive and remain healthy.
Several houseplants are extremely sensitive to humidity levels, while a few, but not many, flourish in significantly drier conditions.
What Are The Signs Your Plants Need Higher Humidity?
In tropical areas, tropical plants thrive in lower temperatures and dim light conditions, making them ideal houseplants. These plants are adapted to warm temperatures and lower light levels, so they thrive indoors.
Plants taken from their natural environment and kept in arid indoor conditions can soon show signs of stress. This is due to the higher humidity levels that are prevalent in tropical climates.
Find out what signs your houseplants need higher humidity levels and adjust the temperature. Here are the eight most common signs they need more humidity.
Brown Leaf Tips And Edges
It is through the leaves that most moisture from a plant is lost. In arid conditions, transpiration and evaporation rates are higher. When the relative humidity falls below 50 percent, delicate edges of the leaves can suffer and become brown. Low humidity and underwatering are the two most common causes of brown leaf tips in houseplants.
Yellow Leaves
Seeing an increase in yellow leaves on your plant could indicate plant stress, which can be caused by a number of factors. Reevaluating your care and humidity levels is key when you see an influx of yellow leaves.
Crispy, Dry Leaves
Humidity levels that fall below 40 percent cause leaves to dry out excessively, and sometimes they cannot remain sufficiently hydrated until they turn crispy and dry. The problem needs to be resolved as soon as possible.
Buds Drop Before Opening
Especially when it comes to houseplants with flowering buds and blooms, certain plants are sensitive to low humidity levels. I find that seeing new buds and blooms to be the most rewarding part of the growth process. It is disappointing to see buds drop. Low humidity is often the cause, so it is important to consider this if it happens.
Buds Fail To Develop
Low humidity causes plants to become stressed, and high humidity can cause them not to bloom in the first place.
Although this is not always the case, some plants panic under stress, causing them to produce flowers when they wouldn’t otherwise. This can be nice but there have been sad stories where the health of an orchid took a major nosedive after it bloomed beautifully.
Flowers Wilt Soon After Opening
You may find that your blooms begin to wilt more quickly in low humidity because dry air causes greater evaporation and water loss.
Wilting Foliage
A general wilting of foliage is often due to dehydration, but can also result from low humidity alone, even if the soil is adequately moist.
Higher Water Requirements
You might notice your houseplants require more water if there is a low humidity level. Since transpiration and evaporation are higher in low humidity conditions, the plant needs more water to remain healthy.
10 Great Ways To Increase Humidity For Indoor Plants
Houseplants can benefit from these 10 easy ways to increase humidity whether they are in a single plant or a whole house full of plants.
Group Your Plants
As a result of transpiration, water vapor escapes from plant leaves through tiny pores known as stomata, resulting in higher levels of local humidity. Your humidity levels will improve significantly when you group your plants together, since transpiration will increase.
If you’ve ever walked into a garden center and felt the humidity in the air, that’s partly due to the plants evaporating. It’s a great, natural way of increasing humidity.
There is a downside to this approach, since it requires a lot of plants all in one place, usually not a practical or desirable situation. For example, what if you just want a few plants in your kitchen to add some greenery.
Mist Your Houseplants
Misting indoor plants is often recommended as the first option for increasing humidity for indoor plants. You can mist your plants directly with a spray bottle, but you can also mist the air around them.
Several hours later, it will gradually evaporate, increasing local humidity for several hours. Some of the moisture evaporates directly resulting in increased humidity, while the majority will land on your plants’ leaves and surrounding surfaces.
You may need to repeat this process as often as needed, as it will improve humidity levels only for a few hours. It is also likely that much of the water will end up on the foliage, where it can promote bacterial and fungal diseases, especially among plants susceptible to them.
When misted in the morning, your houseplants have enough time to evaporate any excess moisture before the evening cool. This greatly reduces the risk of diseases like fungus or bacteria.
In general, to have any significant effect on humidity levels, you have to mist several times per day, which is very impractical for most people.
Use A Humidifier
Houseplants can easily be humidified with humidifiers, which are a convenient solution.
If you want to increase humidity for your houseplants, the easiest option is to use an electric humidifier. There are a variety of small and smart humidifiers that are available that can be turned on or off to create the perfect amount of humidity for your plants.
Some humidifiers even allow you to set the humidity level it should maintain or schedule them only to run at certain times of the day.
Put Houseplants In Your Bathroom
It’s likely that when you think of the most humid room in your house, you’ll think of your bathroom. Bathrooms are great places for houseplants generally, and plants that benefit from high humidity levels will thrive there.
Regardless of what type of bathtub, sink or shower you have, there is usually some area of your bathroom that is still wet during the day. Wet towels can also be significant sources of moisture.
Use A Pebble Tray
This is a really easy way to enhance humidity for a single or a small number of plants located in an otherwise arid environment. You just need a drip tray that is roughly twice the diameter of the base of the plant pot or slightly larger.
You should ensure that it is at least an inch deep in order for the water to not evaporate too quickly. Arrange some pebbles of approximately equal size on the bottom of the tray and fill it with water so it runs just below the pebbles’ tops.
Stack pebbles on top of your houseplant container so that it sits securely without the base getting wet. This will prevent the soil from absorbing water and prevent the roots from getting waterlogged.
Throughout your house, the humidity level will not be significantly impacted by the humidity from your plant, but rather will gradually increase as the water evaporates into the air around your plant.
As a result of this method, you will have a pool of standing water surrounding your houseplant. This will increase the possibility of a fungus or bacteria occurring in your plants, and may sometimes attract insects.
Although low maintenance, other than topping the pebble tray as needed when it runs low, it’s an excellent solution for quick needs.
Give Them A Bath Or Shower
It is possible for you to accomplish two tasks in one go by rinsing your houseplants in the shower or bath. In addition to healthy leaves, this invigorates the soil and increases evaporation, which makes the air in your home more humid.
Use a Terrarium
The pleasure of designing and building terrariums has made them so popular in recent years. Whether open or closed, they maintain moderate to high levels of humidity within their respective micro-climates.
You cannot place all houseplants in closed terrariums because of the extraordinarily high humidity levels, but you won’t have to worry about insufficient humidity as the air will be saturated with water vapor in this environment.
However, the glass walls of a closed terrarium will trap moisture in the air and reduce ventilation, resulting in high humidity levels. Open terrariums, on the other hand, have a large opening to allow air from the outside to circulate freely inside.
The Two Pot Method
By using two pots, you can increase the humidity levels in a houseplant without having to compromise its aesthetics or location.
Make sure your houseplant pot is placed in a pot with a diameter of 1-2 inches larger than the inner pot and fill the gap with sphagnum moss. Soak it in water. Water will be trapped in the moss of your plants, which slowly dries out over the course of a few days, releasing water vapor into the air around your plants.
In this method, it is important to make sure both the inner and outer pots have drainage holes in order to prevent water from pooling at the bottom of the outer pot. In the long run, this could lead to root rot in your plant.
Dry Clothes In The Same Room As Your Houseplants
We all have trouble finding space to dry our clothes at home. However, your wet laundry provides wonderful water vapor to your plants you’ll love for.
You can place a drying rack near your houseplants or move the plants into the room you dry your clothes in. Evaporating moisture from your clothes will increase the humidity in the air, which is beneficial to your plants.
Cover Your Plants With Plastic
Although it may not sound appealing, covering a houseplant with a transparent plastic bag can make it very humid in your home, especially for a very sensitive plant going through an arid winter.
Make sure the plant pot is propped up with several wooden stakes if the plastic is too close to the foliage. Unroll the bag periodically to clear away any excessive condensation.
It can also get extremely hot in a small greenhouse-like environment so make sure you keep your plants out of direct sunlight to prevent excessively high temperatures.