The Influence Of Temperature On The Life Of Indoor Plants, The Alphabet Of A Home Garden - 5

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

We examined in detail many aspects of the influence of light and moisture on the life of indoor plants. Now let's talk about the effect of temperature on the life and well-being of our beloved pets. To objectively judge the temperature of the air on the windowsill or the soil in the pot, you must, of course, have a thermometer.

There are special soil thermometers for measuring soil temperature; they are especially needed in a winter garden, where plants are planted directly in the ground. In summer, everything is quite simple - the air temperature is the same as the weather, the local climate.

How can we change it? Shade flowers with an openwork curtain, rearrange flower pots from the direct sun to reduce too high a temperature, ventilate the room in the evening and at night, including to cool the air. In the spring-summer period for most of our indoor plants, the optimum temperature is + 20 … + 23 ° С. A higher temperature, especially for those who love a cool climate, can cause leaves to sag, yellowing and dropping; drying out and dropping of buds, drying of the tops of the stems, but this is most likely due to a decrease in air humidity at an increased temperature. That is, it should be understood that all environmental parameters - moisture, light, temperature - are interrelated and affect the plants in the complex. A change in one of the parameters will certainly lead to a change in others and a change in the microclimate in general.

The use of air conditioners to cool air in residential and work spaces has become common practice, but there are two aspects of their side effects to consider. First, during the cooling process, they dry the air, and in order to maintain optimal conditions, we will have to spray the plants more often. Secondly, it is not useful for people or plants to find themselves in the immediate zone of the exit of cold air from the air conditioner: we easily catch cold, the plants too - their leaves shrivel, the roots overcool, decorativeness and health in general are lost. In addition, a draft may form that no plant can tolerate.

We often take out some indoor flowers to the balcony, where temperature fluctuations can be significant, but even there you need to monitor the illumination no less carefully than in the house. Plants with delicate foliage cannot stand the direct rays of the midday sun, constant wind. Therefore, we choose sheltered corners from the wind, arrange sheds and awnings on the southern balconies for our own and floral comfort. At the end of summer, it is important to know the minimum temperatures that are safe for different types of indoor flowers in order to bring them into the house on time without damage.

One of the most important conditions for the successful cultivation of indoor flowers is the knowledge of their temperature "predilections" precisely in the dark autumn-winter period, since almost all of our house flowers are from southern countries, where both the illumination and the temperature of the air, the soil are radically different from our conditions … Nevertheless, over the centuries of domesticating wild-growing species, gardeners and flower lovers have been able to research their needs and have learned to create conditions for each species necessary for it. We will try to present this information in the most condensed form for the most common flower plants in everyday life.

Visitors to winter gardens, greenhouses, botanical gardens must have noticed that all plants are placed there according to their origin and are kept at different temperatures and humidity.

Tropical species need an even average temperature throughout the season + 23 … + 25 ° С, while the daytime and nighttime temperatures should differ by no more than 5 ° С. In winter, it is usually + 18 … 20 ° С for species that do not have a distinct dormant period. Flowers that require a pronounced rest period (cineraria, azaleas, cyclamens, hydrangeas, primroses, heathers and others) successfully winter at a lower temperature (+ 8 … + 12 ° С). Higher temperatures are often the cause of poor health and even plant death.

Species of subtropical and desert origin need a cool winter, as at home, but here the temperature range is wider: from 0 … + 5 ° С to + 15 … 17 ° С. This group of plants includes Mediterranean species: citrus, bougainvillea, plumbago, some palms, pomegranate, strelitzia, cycad, datura, resin seed, jasmine, mimosa, succulents, passionflower, sparmannia, nertera and other species.

For the correct maintenance and "education" of their pets, as gardeners used to say in the old days, you need to understand in more detail which of the plants they prefer, and even more importantly, they safely tolerate this or that air temperature.

A rather large group of plants belongs to those who like cool wintering.

Wintering temperature 0 … + 5 ° С:

American agave, small-flowered; calamus, indoor acacia, ivy budra, vineyard, gastria, hyacinth, hydrangea, dazilion, darlingtonia, jasmine, tubular kalanchoe, calceolaria, erect cypress, southern cordilina, oleander, prickly pear, pittosporum, phytosporum (smolosemyanik), feijoa, canary date, hamerops, chamecereus, eukomis.

From among the above plants, you can safely make flower arrangements in cool halls, on stairwells with sufficient lighting, on northern windows, on glazed and slightly insulated loggias (but there you need to carefully monitor the day and night temperatures, which will be a separate story about). The need for many types of beloved and widely known flowers for the lowest temperatures in winter and autumn explains why in a hot room and in dry air they lose their decorativeness, health, and often die, although they are diligently looked after, but unknowingly they are not offered at all the mode that is needed.

The ability to endure cold wintering and even need it has its own definite plus: you do not need to waste extra heat on heating the room where these plants are kept. In Western books on floriculture, you can often find such a recommendation. Unfortunately, most of us live quite closely, and we can only allocate for plants a glazed loggia with a certain degree of insulation.

There is also a cold wintering option: a window sill on the staircase or even a hall with artificial lighting on the ground floor of some buildings, on elevator platforms. For example, I took part with pleasure in the creation of such "staircase" gardens, and I also met refined halls and corridors near the elevators. Residents of houses, who love their home and plants, with great ingenuity arrange flower arrangements using whatnots, shelves, stands of various kinds from various natural materials - tree trunks, branches for hanging ampel species, tree cuts as pallets for plants and compositions from them. Finally, the flowers on the stairs often winter more successfully precisely because of the coolness that cannot be created in the room, and in the summer, some of them “move” to the balcony.

Temperature + 5 … + 8 ° С:

Hybrid abutilon, obese adenium, aloe, orange, aporocactus, araucaria, ardisia, aspidistra, astrophytum, dwarf banana, brovallia, brugmansia, bouvardia, washingtonia, venus flytrap, heather, pomegranate, dixonia, kalistokalomonthu, klaryopteris bell, cotyledon, crassula, kumquat, kufeya, lantana, lily, lemon, lobelia, mammilaria, myrtle, sedge, ophiopogon, sedum (sedum), passionflower, pachyphytum, pelargonium, ivy, rapis, rebutia, rhodochiton, sagweed, sundew, sparmannia, trichocereus, faucaria, ferocactus, ficus dwarf, fuchsia, chlorophytum, cereus, cestrum, cymbidium, cytomium, cissus antarctic, aeonium, echeveria, echinocactus, yucca.

The specified temperature is desirable and at the same time the minimum allowable. It can be achieved by placing flowers on the windowsill closer to the glass, sometimes in two tiers on special shelves made of thin slats, plexiglass, metal strong nets on the frame, on hanging shelves. One of the ways to reduce the air temperature on the windowsill is to build up the windowsill on the consoles to cover the hot air flow from the batteries. This method of increasing the usable area of window sills is often used during the period of growing seedlings. In addition, you can make a film "screen", with which plants on the windowsill are fenced off from excessively hot room conditions. At the same time, it is worth paying attention to the temperature of the window sill itself: on frosty days even a wooden window sill can have a temperature below + 5 ° C, not to mention reinforced concrete ones,and these are available in many series of houses in St. Petersburg. It is useful to cover the window sill with a sheet of foam plastic, a wooden lattice, put pallets with expanded clay on them, and only then - pots with flowers. By the way, ceramic pots are cooled more strongly than plastic ones, and this can be dangerous for plant roots with excessive winter watering.