Successful gardening, like many things in life, starts with a moment of thought. When you bring a new plant home, it helps to pause and ask three key questions:
1. What kind of plant is it?
When you buy a new plant, you first want to identify what kind of plant it is. If it has a tag on it, that’s good, but if it doesn’t, then it would be best for you to do a little homework and find out what it is. If you’re buying it at a store, then ask someone who works there if they can identify it. If they can’t, then maybe your cell phone can. There are several plant identification apps out there.
2. Where is it naturally from?
Understanding your plant’s native environment is essential. For example, a Ficus Elastica thrives in USDA zones 10–12, think India, Indonesia, or southern Florida. Here in Virginia (mostly zone 7), it won’t survive outdoors year-round. Tropical plants like orchids, palms, and ferns may enjoy Virginia’s humid summers, but indoor winter conditions are much drier than their rainforest homes.
3. How can you replicate that environment?
Once you know your plant’s needs, you can mimic its natural environment as much as possible. For humidity-loving plants, try placing them in the sunniest room and using a humidifier. For smaller collections, pebble trays with water can create a mini-humid microclimate. Don’t forget light. Virginia winters are shorter and less bright, so you may need to adjust blinds or add grow lights.
For my humidity-loving plants (like my orchids and citrus), I put them into the sunniest room I have and put a humidifier in there with them. If I only had a few plants that are humidity lovers, I would set them on pebble trays, a larger saucer filled with rocks, with water added, and make sure the plants sit on the rocks but NEVER sit in water. As the water evaporates, it provides humidity right around the plant. This is also a good time to notice the light levels. Remember, in winter, our days are several hours shorter and the sunlight much less intense, so you might need to play with either blinds or grow lights a bit.
So again, if you have a plant or two or three that do great outside for the summer but don’t do so well when you bring them inside, stop and consider their native environment. Much of what we do requires us to stop for a minute and think about the situation. Excellent advice for life and for your plants.
By pausing to identify your plant, understand its origins, and recreate its ideal conditions, you’ll help it thrive both indoors and outdoors. Much of gardening and life benefits from a thoughtful approach.