WINTER PLANT CARE - All about houseplant care over winter!

I don't know if you have seen this plant in my videos, but I've had it for a long time. And one thing that I can say is that it has been a struggle. After having her losing leaves, I just didn't know what to do. And another thing that was really bad with it is that it was lacking a lot of light. What I did, I decided to cut the branches. It was a very sad moment for me, but I thought, OK, maybe I can cut it and see if I can restart again. I placed my cutting under the Plant Spectrum 32 grow light. And I can tell you, after one week of being there, I started seeing new grows. Guys, this light is amazing. And it is a full spectrum LED grow light that simulates the sunlight. And I am not kidding you guys, this light really looks like natural light. On top of that, one thing that I love about this grow light is that it is made with sustainability in mind. For example, the housing of the grow light is made of 100% recycled aluminum. And aluminum is a very good material for passive cooling, so this prevents your LED board from overheating over time, and it makes your light last longer. After 10 years of intense use, you can easily replace the LED board, so you don't have to replace the whole light module, you replace the LED board and you are good to go. The Plant Spectrum comes with sliders so you can easily mount it however you choose, or you can use a disc, also included, for vertical lighting. Or even mount it under a cabinet. So wherever you have your plants, you can mount your light. If you want to try this amazing grow light, make sure to follow the link in the description below and use the code PLANTSTLUCIA for 10 euros off any 150 euro purchase. And now, let's get to winter care. Talking about winter care, as I always say, plant care is actually also self care. So, the first thing that I do in my plant care routine in winter is something that helps my plants and also helps me. And this is to clean their leaves. I can tell you, for me, cleaning the leaves of my plants is really calming. You get to be with your plants and being present with them cleaning each one of their leaves. It is not only very good for me, but also for my plants. Cleaning the leaves will prevent pest infestations. As the windows in our homes are closed, dust is going to accumulate on the leaves and this is perfect for pests to hide. So I usually clean my leaves on the top, also on the bottom, and I also clean the stems of my plants. It will also keep the leaves clean of dust and it's going to be easier for your plants to receive the sunlight that, let's be real, is not so much during these times. Ok, let's talk about watering. In winter, we want to reduce the frequency of watering with our plants. This is because most of our plants are not growing or growing very slowly. So the water that we provide for them is going to be used slower. Now, to be honest, to make sure when to water my plants, I always check with my finger. I use this tip no matter what season we are in, and this is because it has proven to work for me. So all I do is every week I check the soil with my finger until the second knuckle, and once I feel that the soil is dry or drying out, depending on the plant, I water again. And I can tell you, in the winter, it takes longer. So I may be checking every week, but I water every two weeks or even every three weeks, depending on the plant. Checking the soil will help you understand your plant and exactly when she needs water, and this is great to prevent overwatering. As the temperatures go down outside, we want to bring our tropical plants inside. I brought my plants inside about one and a half months ago, and this was when the temperatures were getting below 10 degrees Celsius. Anyways, once we have our plants inside, we want to protect them from the cold weather outside. So make sure that your plants are not close to a window that you are going to be opening and closing, and cold drafts are going to come in. Another tip that I can give you is that if you place your plants close to the windows for a light, make sure that the leaves are not touching the window, because these tend to get really cold. And if the leaf is always touching the window, that's going to burn it and your plant is just not going to be happy there. So if you place it closer to the window for a light, just make sure that the leaves are not touching the window, and just don't put it too close to the window. Now, I get this question a lot because as we want our plants to be in a warmer space, some people tend to put them closer to the heating vents. And again, this is not a very good idea, because the air around the heating vents tends to get really dry. So for example, we placed this senescio right here because of light, but as you can see, the heating vent is right underneath it. So the leaves started to dry out. So again, in order to prevent this, try to avoid placing your plants very close to heating vents, because the air will be very dry for them there. Which brings me to humidity. If you have tropical plants like alessias, monsteras, alocasias, ferns, they like to be in very high humidity levels. Especially with my calatheas, I have to keep the humidity between 50 to 60% around them. If not, you will see that your calathea is going to start to get very brown and dry edges on the leaves. This is because these plants really like high humidity. You can increase humidity around your plant by placing it on a humidity tray, or place all of your tropical plants together, because they will help each other with humidity levels through the process of transpiration. You can also move them to more humid spaces like your bathroom, but if you do this, make sure that they have enough light there. And if this is not enough, you can also place them in a room with a humidifier. For example, with my calatheas, I have to do this, because they really need lots of humidity and the humidifier provides this for them. Now, a very important topic when it comes to plant care in the winter, especially if you live in a place like myself, like Berlin, is sunlight. I can tell you, here in Berlin, we have sunlight maybe until 3.30 in the afternoon. And on top of that, the majority of the days are very cloudy, so the sunlight that we get is very little. So for sure, we want to increase the light that our plants get. You can do this in various ways. First, you can place your plants a little bit closer to the windows. The closer you get to the windows, the more light they will receive. The other day, I was measuring the light that my plants receive right in front of the window, and then I compared it to one meter away, and guys, it made such a big difference. So placement is very important. If you have lots of sunlight coming in, depending on where you are in the world, make sure to check your plants and observe how they react to the new placement. If the leaves are getting drier or losing color, maybe move them away from the window. But if you live in a place like me, being closer to the window will be very beneficial. Another thing to increase the light that your plants receive is to clean your windows. You want to make sure to get rid of all of the obstructions to the light. So we want to clean the windows, we want to clean the leaves, that way the dust is not going to be obstructing the light from getting to your plant. Now, as I said, here in Berlin, even if I place my plants closer to the windows, they will still be lacking sunlight, because we don't get so much sunlight in the winter. And this is when grow lights come in hand. If you're like me, you may want to invest in a good quality LED grow light. This is because this is going to last longer, and it's just better for your plants because you make sure that they're getting the full spectrum that they need. This is the reason why I love my plant spectrum LED grow light, because I know that the spectrum that it provides is the full power spectrum, so I know my plants will thrive with this light. Some grow light companies will explain to you how to use their grow light with different plants. For example, Mother has an app where you can actually check out your plant and see how to use your grow light with that specific plant. So they tell you how many hours you should have it on, as well as how far you should have your grow light from your plant. This has been incredibly useful for me when I use my plant spectrum with other of my plants, for example my Strelitzia or my Calafsias. That way I know exactly how much light to provide and how to use this grow light, which is really great for plant beginners like us. As you may know, grow lights can be a very complex topic, so I really like that Mother made it a little bit easier for us, so our plants can thrive. Now, the last topic on this video is a little bit annoying, but it's also very important. And this is pest prevention and pest management. Unfortunately, the winter has proven to be the time when pests come in and attack my plants, but you know what? I've tried to tell myself that pest prevention and management is part of plant care. And once you accept it, it becomes a little bit better. But I can tell you that there are many ways that you can prevent pests from just becoming a very big problem. The first, again, is to always clean your plants. Seriously, I cannot repeat this enough, this has helped me so much preventing pests, because I'm checking my plants almost every week, or you can check them every two weeks, whenever is best for you, and just clean them really well. This is going to be very good to prevent pests from really hiding there. If you do have some pests, I also have a playlist with all of the pests that I have encountered in my life with plants, and how I have dealt with them. So if you want to learn more about it, make sure to check out that playlist. Also, if you would like to support me and the work that I do here, we do have a Patreon page where we actually meet every month and we talk about our plants. So we talk about issues that we may be dealing with, or any gains that we have with our plants, so do we have any leaves, or we just saved a plant. They're very nice conversations, so if you would like to support this community and get to know other people in the community, make sure to check out the link in the description, and yeah, I hope to see you there. Again, thank you so much to Mother for sponsoring this video. I can tell you I'm very happy working with them, because you can see that this is a company that really cares about bringing sustainability to plant care, and also making it more accessible to plant beginners like us. So I'm just very happy to be working with them, and thank you so much. And yeah, if you have any questions, any comments, make sure to comment down below. And as always, I will see you in the next one. Okay, adios!