Guide to Temperature for your Plants to Ensure Proper Growth

Plant Care / By /
Know the right temperatures for your plants, else they may suffer due to extreme hot or cold temperatures.
  • How Does Temperature Affect Plant Growth?
  • Providing optimal temperature for your plants.
  • Where To Place Houseplants In Your Home.
  • Know about Normal Temperature changes.
Whether you want to start growing plants indoors or you already have an indoor garden, there are a couple of things you should know about plant care. Even if you have a watering schedule or the perfect soil, you may not know the ideal temperature for indoor plants. It is an often overlooked factor that could keep your plants from flourishing or keep them from surviving.
If you grow indoors, it is vital to keep an eye on the temperature in your grow room. Temperature has a good influence on the photosynthesis of the plant. A plant uses photosynthesis to create oxygen and glucose for itself. These building blocks are required for a plant’s growth.
Indoor environments, like homes and offices, are usually good, temperate climates for houseplants. Houseplants like constant temperatures, and any spot that gets very hot or cold, or changes temperature rapidly, is not a good place for a houseplant.

How Does Temperature Affect Plant Growth?

Temperature influences most plant processes such as photosynthesis, transpiration, respiration, germination, flowering. As temperature increases (up to a point), photosynthesis, transpiration, and respiration increases. When combined with day-length, temperature also affects the change from vegetative to reproductive growth. Depending on the situation and the specific plant, the effect of temperature can either speed up or slow down this transition.

Providing optimal temperature for your plants

While many houseplants will survive with a relatively wide temperature range, always check your plant’s specific needs for its proper growth. As many house plants come from tropical areas, few will be able to deal with long periods of very low temperatures. Similarly, extended hot weather could cause some plants to dehydrate quickly and wither.

Some signs that temperature is incorrect:
  • Flowers die quickly.
  • Yellowing leaves and falling.
  • Lower leaves falling, leaves wilting, and edges turning brown.
Let us also understandthe effects of too heat or cold on the plants:
  1. The effects of too much heat
    • Wilting leaves.
    • Flowers fade rapidly.
    • Edges of leaves dry up and become crispy.
    • Constantly needing water.
    • Active growth in winter becomes different from what you see at other times of the year.
  2. The effects of too little heat
    • Curling of leaves.
    • Leaves fall off.
    • Rarely need to water the plant but the soil is constantly damp and develops mold or fungus.
    • Very little growth.

Always research or check out the basic growth conditions including the temperature requirements of plants that you plan to buy. If you have a plant that you cannot identify, the safest range is between 12-24 degrees Celsius, which suits the majority of houseplants.

Where To Place Houseplants In Your Home

There are so great reasons for growing indoor plants, but figuring out exactly where to put plants in your home can get tricky and even confusing.
If you want healthy, beautiful, long-lived plants, growing conditions must be considered before placing plants.

1. Cold Drafts

It will suit a few woodland plants such as the button fern and tough types like devil’s ivy and the umbrella plant. Other plants, including most tropical varieties, should be kept elsewhere, in areas where temperature is comparatively warmer.

2. Away from a window

Temperature at this location will be more even throughout the day, which will suit plants that also prefer lower light conditions.

3. Window sills

This place can fluctuate a lot in temperature. They can be extremely warm in summer and cold during winter. On hot days, open windows or turn on the air conditioning to keep the room cool. Do not trap plants between the window and curtains at night in winter.

4. Hot & dry areas

Hot & dry areas of a home near open fires or heaters in cold climate regions are not suitable for any houseplants. It is better to keep them at a safe distance.

5. The ideal spot: Short distance away from sunny windows

The ideal placement for most houseplants is an area a short distance from sunny windows and away from heaters and other heat-emitting equipment, if any present.
Apart from this, during heat rises, room will be warmer closer to the ceiling. Water and mist hanging plants.
Temperature is just as important. If you give a plant the correct lighting, generally they are also getting the necessary temperature. The problem with temperature is that in rooms in the winter the temperature can drop too much for your plants.
Kitchens are often overlooked as a proper place to keep plants. But constant temperature and higher humidity often cause plants placed here to simply grow. You can put herbs on the windowsill and blossoming summer plants and hanging planters can also be placed. In a bathroom with good natural light, ferns do especially well.

Know about Normal Temperature variations

Almost all plants are adapted to deal with some changes in temperature, but these should not fall below or exceed their minimum or maximum temperature requirements for long durations, as this could harm the plant.
  1. Day tonight temperature: Changes of about 5-10 °C are normal for most plants,as that is what they would experience in nature.
  2. Seasonal temperature variations: It can be experienced by most plants, even inside our hot summer homes; in winter, this often leads to a reduction in growth. Some plants adapt to cold climates by becoming dormant in winter, these will need to be moved to an unheated area at this time of year.

The Final Words

The effect of temperature on the growth and development of plants varies as per plant species. Every plant has a minimum, maximum, and optimum temperature for its growth. So whether it is extreme heat or cold, the temperature does affect plants and their growth. This is one of the reasons why it is important to check a plant’s hardiness and see if it is compatible with the particular growing zone.

Reference links used:
1. – Practical Houseplant Book (RHS, Fran Bailey & Zia Allaway)

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Know Your Home Air

Gas heating systems, leaking chimneys, fire places emits carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide and other harmful pollutants. Plastics and common household cleaners, paints, paint thinner often placed under the kitchen sink, release Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs), when used and stored. Overheating of non-stick cookware releases toxic fumes. Pesticides we use in and around the home also release various chemical and semi-volatile compounds.

Kitchen

Harmful effects
Carbon monoxide causes headache, dizziness and fatigue. These often cause eye, nose, and throat irritation, nausea, and can also damage the liver, kidney, and central nervous system. Fine particles are produced during all kinds of combustion which lead to acute and chronic effects to respiratory and cardiovascular systems.

Pet dander and hair, carpet, rugs, upholstery furniture are main source of dust mites, fungus, and bacteria. A dirty filter of air conditioners acts as a reservoir for dirt, dust and other airborne contaminants that are continuously circulated back into your breathing air. Secondhand smoke from cigarettes, other tobacco products and mosquito coil emits VOC’s and formaldehyde and various particulate matters. CO2 released from our lungs is exhaled in the air which pollutes the air if the place is too crowded or there is less ventilation.

Livingroom

Harmful effects
All these can trigger coughing, nosebleeds, shortness of breath, dry mouth, vomiting,
digestive tract problems, depression, allergy and asthma attacks, and other respiratory illness.

Shower, faucets and other water sources are main cause of humidity and mold. Bathroom cleaners and personal care products like toothpaste, soaps, facial tissues, detergent, fabric softeners, air fresheners, deodorizers, hair sprays, disinfectants, are full of VOC’s and chemicals which emits harmful pollutants.

Bathroom

Harmful effects
Mold can cause allergic reactions, asthma and other respiratory ailments. VOC’s and toxic chemicals released in the bathroom can causes eye, nose, and throat irritation, nausea and respiratory problems. All these products release harmful pollutants while they are used also when they are stored.

A bedroom contains many sources of indoor air pollution. Mattress, pillow and blankets, soft toys, are the reservoirs of dust mites, fungi and bacteria. Furniture, carpets, paints and beauty product like hairspray, nail polishes, perfumes, deodorants etc off gas VOC, formaldehyde and toxic gases into the air.

Bedroom

Harmful effects
These pollutants make the air unhealthy which leads to allergy, asthma attacks, dizziness, headache, fatigue and other respiratory ailments.

Second-hand smoke
Second hand Smoke is a mixture of the smoke given off by the burning of tobacco products, such as cigarettes, cigars or pipes and the smoke exhaled by smokers. Secondhand smoke is also called environmental tobacco smoke (ETS). Passive smoking can lead to coughing, excess phlegm, and chest discomfort. NCI (National Cancer Institute) also notes that spontaneous abortion (miscarriage), cervical cancer, sudden infant death syndrome, low birth weight, nasal sinus cancer, decreased lung function, exacerbation of cystic fibrosis, and negative cognitive and behavioral effects in children have been linked to ETS. Secondhand smoke exposure commonly occurs indoors, particularly in homes and cars. Secondhand smoke can move between rooms of a home and between apartment units.

Guest Bathroom

Central heating and cooling systems and humidification devices
The air filter in your HVAC system is the front line of defense against poor indoor air quality. A typical central heating and cooling system circulates over 1,000 cubic feet per minute of air through the filter. This means the entire air volume in your house passes through the filter multiple times every day. A dirty filter, however, can actually make indoor air quality worse by acting as a reservoir for dirt, dust and other airborne contaminants that are continuously circulated back into your breathing air. In addition to driving up your utility bill, a clogged air filter will allow all that dust and debris that should be filtered out to be re-circulated back into your home. This can cause chronic allergies and especially be dangerous for people with asthma or other respiratory conditions.

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