Moving Indoor Plants Around: Okay or Not Okay?
Unlike some people, I’ve never been one to follow Feng Shui, preferring instead the flexibility of rearrangement every couple of months. I enjoy adding a little excitement to a home that would otherwise be boring, so the colors make it feel like a new space with fresh energy. Even though they are indoor plants, I started wondering if this could be a problem. I pondered if moving them might hurt them or even kill them.
Moving indoor plants is okay as long as the plant continues to receive the proper care. Even though plants aren’t concerned with the view, they are concerned about the light, heat, and water they’re getting. It’s not possible to put a plant that needs a lot of light into a bathroom that has very little.
Some people, like myself, prefer to rearrange things on a regular basis, despite Feng Shui’s goal to balance the energy in a room. Moving plants can be fine as long as you are sensitive to the plant’s needs. A number of concerns should be considered, including:
- Lighting
- Accessibility
- Room
Before You Start Moving Your Plants
It is important to remember that some plants don’t like being moved around all the time, so when I get into the mood to reorganize, I need to take this into consideration. All of the plants, each individual species, had to be considered. Lighting is not the only factor they should consider, but also things like temperature.
Some hardier plants can handle the motion required to be moved regularly, but for more delicate plants, such a move could be too much of a shock for their system and it could kill the plant. Typically, plants do not move around in nature, so they expect to maintain the same pattern indoors. Therefore, taking into account the delicate nature of a plant may save you some heartache.
Repotting your plants is a good idea when you’re moving them, so I wanted to be sure I had some larger pots on hand as well if I was planning on moving plants. This would also be the right time to introduce them to things like fertilizer to help them adjust to the move. I needed to check for drafts because a sensitive plant would suffer if there were drafts.
Every time I moved a plant, I checked the roots, making sure they were healthy and could withstand the move. For this reason, I wanted to make sure that it would have enough space in the pot I was using, as well as be able to provide more space if it did.
The fact that I went around, checking temperatures in different parts of my house and in different areas of the same room may have made me seem like a goofball, but I wanted to protect those plants that are more delicate from heat shock. It helps my plants survive better a move by taking the extra time necessary to prevent shock.
Check the Lighting
A plant needs light to make energy, which explains why it is as essential to them as food is to us. Photosynthesis is the process of using sunlight to transform carbon dioxide into energy or carbohydrates and oxygen. In darkness, plants use carbohydrates to power up and breathe oxygen.
It is common for plants to require more energy, therefore, they require more light. A plant can survive for a couple of weeks in lower light, but not for long. In other words, if you are using natural light for your plants, they do need to maintain that light source. However, if you supplement that light with artificial light, they will still be able to adapt as long as the lights are still on.
Placing plants near empty windows and sliding glass doors is always a good idea. A wide selection of hanging planters is also available to help your home take full advantage of the natural light that enters it.
The areas where I intended to leave plants for more than a week and didn’t have the right lighting, I would supplement it with full spectrum grow lights. In some cases, this meant installing a new light, but in most instances, they just had to change a light bulb close by that gave them what they needed.
Can You Easily Access Your Plants?
To make sure that indoor plants are healthy and thriving, you need to check them regularly. They also need to be watered regularly, which you can’t do if you can’t reach them. It is likely that your plants do not get the amount of water and care they need if you have to reach over things and do your best contortionist impression to water them.
If you are deciding where to move your plant, then this is an important consideration. While a spider plant may look nice placed atop an eight-foot bookshelf, if you have to get a step ladder out just for the purpose of watering it, then perhaps that would not be the best facility for it. Choosing a new location for your plants requires that they be easily accessible.
In the opposite corner of the accessibility scale are house pets. I myself have owned several dogs that were destructive toward plants that they came into contact with. In fact, they did not dig in the plants because they desired to eat them, but because they loved to dig in their dirt, and they had no problem digging in my dirt as well.
You should take into consideration where you need to place a plant to ensure it’s easily accessible and where digging animals cannot reach it, no matter whether you’re bringing a new plant home or just rearranging existing plants. If claws are placed against the roots of a plant, even an animal not intending to cause damage can inflict irreparable damage to them.
Is There Enough Space?
There are two things that a room for a plant entails not just the space for the plant to rest in a pot, but also the pot itself. In case you want to move a perennial plant that has remained in the same place for some time, it might be a good idea to check if the plant needs a larger pot. The growth of your plant will be stunted if you have it in a too small pot, which is unhealthy.
If you plan to move a plant, you may wish to repot it as necessary at the same time so the plant has more space to grow and thrive. If this is the case, you will have to ensure that wherever you are planning to move the plant next will have space for its new container rather than the existing one.
When you repot the plant, this would also give you the opportunity to check the roots, ensuring that they are healthy and are not being stunted. Even though this should be done regularly because most plants are constantly growing, it’s always a good idea to see to it that you examine the roots every time you move your plants.
You might need to consider relocating the plant to another home if you do not have the space you initially thought.
Get Moving!
Do you need to update your living space? Rearranging your space can rejuvenate your space and make it feel brand new- without breaking the bank! Moving your decor and indoor plants around is a great way to refresh a space. Whether you’re switching up your decor or plants to bring in a fun change, you can create a fresh look!