Houseplants, Micro Climates and Plant Selection

Everyone has “microclimates” in their home. Do you know the microclmates in your rooms?

Over times we’ve looked at microclimate elements:

• Analyzing Your Homes Environment
• Lighting in a Room
• Room Temperature
• Humidity

Now it’s time to bring them all together.

Let’s first define what a “mircoclimate” is! Basically a microclimate is a “mini-climate” which can vary from the overall big climate which surrounds it.

I find San Francisco as great example of an outdoor microclimate. Some places you need a light sweater and other times a t-shirt is fine.

A room in your house is much the same… at least for houseplants. Some areas have a mircoclimate which we can define as hotter, cooler, sunnier, shadier, wetter, or dryer than other parts of the room, plus this microclimate can change during the day depending on room color (light colors reflect more light), windows and the direction of the sun.

Grouping plants together can create a microclimate for example. Grouping the plants can create more humidity than in other parts of the room.

A bright room for example will have some darker areas, these will usually be on the otherside of the room away from the window or on either side of the window. Areas which are directly in front of or above a heater will be hotter and drier than other parts of a room. All these climatic conditions have an affect on the care of your houseplants.

When buying plants for your home which require lots of light they will most likely need to be placed in front of a window where the light is the brightest.

You use dish soap for dishes and a different soap for your laundry. Why? Because the soaps were made or work better in the “conditions” they need to do the job.

Remember caring for houseplants is not hard if you take some time to understand the needs of the plant and put the right plants in the right place.

Don’t put a plant like an Aglaonema (chinese evergreen) which will do l well in a lower light level is direct sun. On the Flip side do not try to put a Ficus tree in a low light area … even if it looks like the perfect place! And expect the tree to do well. Take your time with plant selection. Stay tuned we’ll be getting into selection next.