In summer, my houseplants spend at least a week or two on holiday. They bask in gentle breezes, marvel at a real shower and get a suntan: that is, I kick them out of the house so they can get some real living.
The joy of this is that I get to really wash my houseplants down, drenching them to remove house dust and any pests that have built up, and feed them with smelly foods – organic chicken manure pellets or comfrey juices – that are just too much for indoor life.
But those hot days are now long gone and the very last few – namely the lemons – have just been dragged back inside.
It is quite a shock, the transition from summer light to weak winter light, and it is inevitable that some of the leaves will fall off as the plants adjust to the lower light levels.
This also often happens when you first bring a plant home from a shop. Nearly all houseplants are grown with supplemented artificial light, so the plant has to adjust quickly to a domestic setting, and will drop excess leaves. It is not so much that the plant is unhappy or needs more water (it needs less), just that it is settling into life with you.
Low light levels can be supplemented with grow bulbs, but even the most efficient of these will be costly in an energy crisis. One cheaper solution is to put a mirror behind a plant, on the wall side.
I’m always on the hunt for well-worn antique mirrors that I can tuck behind a group of plants to create a subtle diffused light. The more scratched and battered the mirror, the more pleasing the light: it’s less jarring and, more importantly, less likely to scorch the plant on a brilliantly sunny day.
The inside of a non-dairy milk carton is just as effective. Its silvered interior reflects light perfectly and if you cut the top and bottom off, you can make a very good light diffuser to stick into the edge of the pot or line the windowsill with so light is bounced to the underside of leaves. This method is particularly good for keeping seedlings on a windowsill standing upright rather than bent over.
Finally, this is not really the time for repotting, because the reduction in light means a reduction in growth of both leaves and root. This is, coincidently, why you don’t feed over winter either. Anything repotted now would sit in a slump of cold wet soil that the roots are not ready to explore.
If you do need to repot, do not make a huge leap into a vastly bigger container, but go up to a pot just an inch wider in diameter. This will give anything that has become pot bound just enough room to breathe over winter, and in spring you can make that bigger move.
