Refresh your scene with green

METRO DETROIT — The winter months of the year often get gloomy with the lack of sun and greenery outside, which leads people to sprucing up the insides of their homes to make them lively.

One way homeowners do this is by purchasing house plants, but for those who are new to taking care of plants, they might be wondering what kinds are the best fit for inside their houses and how to take care of them.

Michigan State University Extension Consumer Horticulture Educator Melanie Fuhrmann said that most house plants can survive indoors through the winter season, but that it depends on if they’re being taken care of properly.

Fuhrmann said plants that need low light often are the best to have inside the home, such as snake plants, ZZ plants, pothos, philodendrons, peace lilies and spider plants.

“A lot of those are plants you also will see in an office, and that’s because they can tolerate some low light,” she said. “They can tolerate some kind of avoidance if you forget about them for a little while. They’ll be OK and they’ll survive.”

Telly’s Greenhouse & Garden Center owner George Papadelis also stated that pachira, hoya and monstera plants would be good house plants as well.

On how to water the plants, Papadelis said to water them when the top of the soil feels dry.

“Not when you think it’s dry, not when it looks dry, not when you’ve got to dig your finger into the soil,” he said. “And if you feel any moisture, you walk away. And I personally am not a big fan of moisture meters. … Some people will buy one and learn to live with it, and it works great, but most people put too much faith in them and then they kill plants by over watering.”

Fuhrmann suggested supplementing with some type of light for the plants, such as a full spectrum light to give them just a little extra light to live.

As for where to put the plants in the home, Fuhrmann said it depends on the layout, as she would be cautious about putting them in south-facing windows or light because they could get too warm or hot for these types of spruces, but they still can go anywhere.

Papadelis concurred, adding that low-light plants would be good on the north side of the house and away from a window in any other part of the house.

“If you have brighter light, like up right in front of a south or a west window, maybe even an east window, then you could consider some other types of plants, including succulents and cacti, which should be watered even more sparingly,” he said. “Like, you got to wait till the soil is dry pretty much all the way down to the bottom of the pot.”

House plants also live best in homes with higher humidity, so both Papadelis and Fuhrmann cautioned to have some humidity in the house for these plants to survive.

“So many people have humidifiers in the winter, but our house plants are tropical plants, and so they can also go through stress if they have really low humidity,” Fuhrmann said. “If you don’t have a humidifier, you can put them into your bathroom like when you’re showering or something like that, and that will also help them with the dry air. It’s a good, easy, cheap fix.”

A major caution, Fuhrmann said, in the winter is putting them directly in a windowsill, because if plant leaves are against the window, they can freeze and get damaged from the cold draft from the window or glass pane being cold.

“If you have a plant stand in front of a window, it’s suggested to pull them out by a foot so that they’re not right against the cold glass and that draft,” she said. “But really, you can put them anywhere as long as they’re getting some form of light and they’re not next to a really cold draft.”

Since these plants are so low maintenance, both Papadelis and Fuhrmann stated that often the biggest mistake homeowners make is they’re doing too much in trying to take care of the plants — providing too much light or overwatering.

“These plants need to be watered when they need it, and as long as they figure out the ‘when they need it’ part, they’re very, very easy to keep alive,” Papadelis said.

“Because they’re not in an actively growing state, in the winter they tend to go a little dormant,” Fuhrmann said. “People tend to overwater them, and so you don’t need to water them very much. So, we actually tell people to decrease the amount they’re watering and really make sure you’re checking the soil to make sure it’s dried out completely before you’re watering them.”