Whether you have a single houseplant or a house full of plants, these 10 straightforward methods to improve humidity for houseplants are simple to set up and effective.
Group Your Plants
Transpiration is the mechanism through which plants shed water from their leaves through microscopic pores called stomata. The air around the plant becomes more humid as a result of this water vapor entering the atmosphere. Plants that are grouped together transpire more, which results in much higher humidity levels.
Have you ever entered a horticultural center and sensed the air’s humidity? Well, this is partly a result of all the nearby plants’ transpiration. a fantastic natural method to raise humidity.
The disadvantage of this is that you must concentrate many plants in one location. Frequently, this isn’t desired or practical. What if you only want one or two plants to add a little greenery to your kitchen rather than 20?
Mist Your Houseplants
Misting indoor plants is often the first solution that comes to mind when people want to enhance humidity for them. You can spray the area surrounding your houseplants and directly on the plants using a straightforward spray bottle.
The majority of the moisture will drop on the leaves of your plants and nearby surfaces, while some of it will instantly evaporate and increase humidity. For several hours, this moisture will slowly evaporate and raise the local humidity level.
Although it is quick and simple, this procedure only raises humidity levels for a few hours, so you will need to repeat it as necessary. In addition, a lot of the water will land up on the leaves of the plants, which might make sensitive plants more prone to bacterial and fungal diseases.
By misting in the morning, you can make sure that any extra moisture has enough time to dry out before the cool of the night. This reduces the possibility that your houseplants will get a bacterial or fungal disease.
Overall, misting frequently during the day is necessary to have any significant impact on humidity levels, which is generally not practical for most people.
Use A Humidifier
Investing in an electric humidifier is the easiest, most convenient way to raise the humidity level for your houseplants. To achieve the ideal humidity level in a room for you and your plants, they can be very small, unobtrusive devices that can be turned on or off.
You may also program certain humidifiers to run exclusively during specific hours of the day or to maintain a specific humidity level.
There are advantages to using a humidifier for you and your family as well as for the indoor plants in your home. In the winter, when my central heating drastically dries out the air in my house, I frequently experience extremely dry skin and hair.
My plants really enjoy it when I have a humidifier going since it makes everything so much more comfortable.
Put Houseplants In Your Bathroom
Most people will immediately think of their bathroom when asked which room in their home is the most damp. In general, bathrooms are wonderful locations for houseplants, and plants that require high humidity levels will flourish there.
Since sinks, baths, and showers produce a wet environment, your bathroom normally has a section that is drying during the day. Even damp towels contribute significantly to the amount of moisture in the air.
For your bathroom, Phalaenopsis orchids, Bromeliads, Ferns, and Peace Lilies are excellent selections. For additional information on how to take care of any of these indoor plants, click on the links.
Use A Pebble Tray
For one or a few plants in an otherwise dry area, a pebble tray is a relatively easy approach to improve local humidity. All you need is a drip tray that is ideally a little wider than twice as wide as the plant pot’s base.
To prevent the water from evaporating too quickly, it should be at least an inch deep. Place some fairly equal-sized pebbles on the tray’s base, and then fill the tray with water so that the water level is just below the stones.
Put your indoor plant pot on top of the stones so that it is securely in place and not submerged at the base. This will stop the roots from getting wet and the soil from absorbing the water.
While having little to no effect on the humidity level throughout the rest of your house, the water will gradually evaporate into the air around your plant, raising local humidity.
The biggest disadvantage of this strategy is that your indoor plant will always be surrounded by a pool of standing water. This can make your plants more susceptible to bacterial or fungal illness, and it might also occasionally draw pests.
However, it’s a terrific alternative for a quick, straightforward solution that requires little upkeep other from topping up the pebble tray when it gets low.
Give Them A Bath Or Shower
Put houseplants in your bath or shower and give them a rinse if you want to accomplish two tasks at once. Drenching the foliage and soil of your plants can boost evaporation and local humidity over the following few days in addition to cleaning the leaves, which is a wonderful thing to do to keep your houseplants in peak condition.
Use A Terrarium
It is no surprise that terrariums have gained a lot of popularity in recent years because they are so much fun to design and construct. They can be open or closed, offering levels of mild to extremely high humidity within their individual micro-climates.
Although not all houseplants will do well in closed terrariums, which give unusually high humidity levels, you won’t have to worry about low humidity in this environment because the air will be almost completely saturated with water vapor.
Contrarily, open terrariums have a wide entrance to allow air from the outside to easily flow with the inside of the terrarium. But since the glass walls will lessen airflow and trap some moisture in the air, humidity levels will rise. Find out more about terrarium operation here.
The Two Pot Method
The two-pot method is a subtle way to raise humidity levels for a single houseplant without sacrificing the plant’s appearance or placement.
In a pot with a diameter that is 1-2 inches larger than the inner pot, place your houseplant pot. Then, soak the spaghnum moss in water to fill the space. Over the course of a few days, the moss will progressively dry out while retaining the water, releasing water vapor into the air around your plants.
To avoid water accumulating at the base of the outer pot, which could potentially result in root rot for your plant, it is preferable to utilize this method with inner and outer pots that both have drainage holes.
Dry Clothes In The Same Room As Your Houseplants
I’m sure I’m not the only one who has trouble finding room in the house to dry things. However, your plants will appreciate the fantastic source of water vapor that comes from your wet laundry.
Just set up a drying rack near your houseplants or move your houseplants into the room you dry clothes in. Your plants will benefit from the increased air humidity brought on by the water evaporating from your clothing.
Cover Your Plants With Plastic
Even if it’s not the most appealing method, wrapping a houseplant with a clear plastic bag will produce a very humid climate for your plant. This might be especially helpful for supporting a delicate plant indoors during a dry winter.
To lift the plastic off the majority of the leaves, insert a few wooden spikes into the houseplant pot. If you see that the bag is condensing excessively, keep an eye out for it and periodically open it.
Additionally, if you leave your plant in direct sunlight, it may become extremely hot because this generates a climate similar to a miniature greenhouse. Be sure to keep your plant in indirect light to avoid dangerously high temperatures.
Do houseplants require humidity?
When the humidity for houseplants is outside that range, it stresses the plants, which need humidity levels between 40 and 60 percent. In the absence of a hygrometer, keep an eye out for stressed-out behaviors in your indoor plants.
When your indoor plants display these signs, think about increasing humidity levels:
- Brown borders appear on leaves.
- Plants start to wither.
- Before they open, flower buds deform improperly or fall off the plant.
- Flower buds quickly shrink after opening.
Does spraying vegetation raise humidity levels?
Misting plants is another prevalent practice. Misting does make the area surrounding the plant more humid. However, how long?
The mist settles as water droplets as it touches the plant. Similar to how the water from the pebble tray above travels throughout the entire room over time, this water eventually evaporates into vapor. So long as there is water on the plant, the surrounding humidity will only increase. The humidity soon returns to the level of the room once the water evaporates.
The length of time will depend on the size of the droplets and the humidity of your space. It evaporates more slowly at high humidity and more quickly at low humidity. It never dries out, even at 100 percent humidity, like you might find in certain tropical greenhouses.
You’ll be lucky if it lasts 15 minutes in a dry winter home. In order to maintain a high level of humidity, you must mist every 15 minutes. Who will carry that out?
Misting is a complete waste of time unless you are growing some unique plants, like air plants.
Without a humidifier, how can I increase the humidity?
Without a humidifier, Here Are 7 Easy Ways to Humidify a Room
- Put the water from your shower or tub to use.
- Purchase more plants.
- Make humidifiers out of vents or radiators.
- Decorate with fountains or vases.
- Dry your laundry with air.
- Water is boiled on the stove.
- employ the dishwasher.
- Health Effects of Humidity.
How is a plant humidifier made?
My house is extremely, extremely dry, especially in the winter. When it kicks on intermittently, my ancient Modine Hawt Dog heater, commonly known as “The Monster,” which you might find in a garage, successfully heats up the house but also completely dries it out. Your skin may be dry because of the low humidity in your home, so imagine how our plant buddies must be feeling!
A plant’s leaves will lose moisture more readily in dry heat and low humidity, and you might notice the edges of the leaves beginning to turn crisp and brown. This implies that the plant will probably require more moisture and a humid atmosphere. Here are several easy methods for raising indoor humidity, especially during the winter:
vapor plant Misting the plant’s leaves with filtered or distilled water is one of the simplest ways to add at least a little humidity to the area around it. As a result, the area around the plant becomes more moist. Depending on the type of plant and how dry it is, you might need to mist it several times per day. However, if you really want to increase the humidity, you’d need to mist it more frequently than that, at which point it’s probably best to purchase a humidifier.
Build a few pebble trays. Another simple do-it-yourself method to raise the humidity surrounding a plant is to use pebble trays. Typically, you don’t want a plant’s roots to be submerged in water; to avoid this, add clean stones to a shallow tray of water. Put the plant on the tray’s top. Around the plant, the water will gradually evaporate, increasing the humidity.
Purchase a humidifier In the summer, I seldom ever use my humidifier, but in the winter, I do, especially in a room of my house where I have many of humid-loving plants like Calatheas, Marantas, Tillandsia, ferns, and mosses. People frequently express concern about water damage to the house or the development of mold, and you should definitely keep a watch out for that. However, one method I attempt to prevent damage to the house is by placing my humidifier higher above the floor rather than right on it.
Stack your plants. The presence of adequate plants in a corner of your home or room can frequently make that area a little bit more humid. This benefits not only those of us who live in houses as humans but also some plant species that like a little bit more dampness.
Get your plants some water (or shower) The room in the house with the most humidity is usually the bathroom. Since my bathroom is relatively small, having a washer/dryer, a water heater, and a shower creates the ideal habitat for plants. My Staghorn fern (Platycerium superbum) is frequently taken down from the kitchen wall and put in the shower with me. In addition, I frequently give a few of my high humidity plants a brief, lukewarm shower on Sundays. That has been the only thing that has helped my plants over the winter.
Establish a terrarium setting Certain plants, especially those that want more moisture, tend to thrive in terrariums, which are often closed or semi-open glass settings. In addition to being aesthetically pleasing, Tillandsia or air plants are sometimes housed in glass globes because the enclosed space increases the humidity around the plant when evapotranspiration from the leaves transpires. When I was rerooting some of my angel wing begonias, I built a simple, handmade terrarium by enclosing the plant in a clear plastic bag (Begonia aconitifolia).
Do you have any further fantastic humidity-indoors solutions? Tell us in the comments section.
Can humidity trays be used?
No and yes. For indoor plants, pebble trays can only go so far in raising the humidity level. Since your plant’s pot is on top of the tray, the water from the tray should evaporate upward, providing your plants with additional hydration.
Due to the fact that your plant is not resting in a water puddle, this strategy prevents root rot. Instead, it is perched a little higher than your pebble tray. The humidity level can always be checked using a hygrometer to see if the pebble tray is effective.
A humidity tray won’t normally help your houseplants much if your home is frequently drier than average. It would hardly provide the air with enough moisture to make your plants happy, much less your tropical plants, which need a medium to high level of humidity.
Personally, I prefer to use these trays primarily as decoration. Pebbles really make potted plants look so much more elegant. When you need a little more humidity but not enough to purchase a humidifier, pebble trays perform much better.
Your tropical plants will benefit from making a tray once the temperature begins to drop. The humidity levels will alter little, but if the weather continues to become colder, buying a humidifier might be a smart move (this one does an incredible job).