Moving maids to the balcony in the spring can save their lives after a difficult winter in overheated apartments. Morning dew, fresh air and natural light are the best fertilizer for them. If we manage to time it right, we will be rewarded with a jungle of healthy leaves and flowers.
Your houseplants share the same enthusiasm that we humans feel when the first really warm days arrive. For most of them, the spring move to the balcony or terrace can literally be a life-booster after a long and demanding winter in overheated interiors. Being outside offers maids much more intense light and natural air flow, which is difficult to offer them in an ordinary living room. Such a change will encourage new growth, strengthen their stems and bring out the color of the leaves, which may have faded a little during the dark months.
You can find more information about maids, for example, in the YouTube video on the channel Královny prádky | About the home:
Many advantages in one
One of the greatest benefits that the outdoors offers is the morning humidity associated with dew. While in apartments we struggle with dry air, which is not good for plants, relaxing in the morning on the balcony will allow them to absorb liquid directly through the leaves, which is the most natural way for them to supply water. The morning hours, when the air is still cool and saturated with moisture, are ideal for maids to regenerate and also to restore respiratory processes. If we expose them outside in time, they will use it to prepare for the drier and warmer part of the day. In addition, the gentle acts on the plants as a gentle gym, thanks to which, among other things, they become more resistant to pests.
Slowly and gradually
The transition from an indoor environment to an outdoor environment must not be hasty, however, because indoor plants are used to stable, in some cases even sterile, conditions. The biggest risk when moving outside in the spring is the intense sun, which can irreversibly burn the leaves within a few tens of minutes, which are not yet used to direct UV radiation this year. Even light-loving plants should spend the first days in complete shade – preferably in a place protected from strong winds. This is important so that they gradually get used to higher doses of lighting and natural temperature fluctuations, which they practically do not experience at home. It is therefore ideal to start in the morning and with the coming midday heat, hide the plants, or place them under a canopy or a larger resistant outdoor plant that will provide them with scattered shade.
Watch the weather forecast
In addition to the light, it is also necessary to monitor the temperature, because spring nights can still be very treacherous and sometimes even freezing. Most indoor plants come from tropical regions and their safe stay outside is only possible when night temperatures do not drop below ten to fifteen degrees Celsius. If we are going to relocate our green wards even overnight, it is always necessary to monitor the weather forecast and at the slightest sign of ground frost, it is better to return them to the safety of their home. If we wanted to ask which plants would benefit the most from such treatment, we should not forget ficuses, green plants, succulents, wax plant, dracaena, but also palm trees and their other “friends”.
Monitor conditions and plants
The higher humidity outside also means that potting soil can behave differently than at home; sometimes it dries faster because of the wind, sometimes it stays wet longer because of the morning dew, so checking with your finger in the ground is a must. This is also a big change not only for the plants themselves, but also for us, their growers and caretakers. Even though we allow the maids more freedom and naturalness, we have to literally watch them with a sharp eye so that their newly acquired “freedom” really only benefits them and does not harm them.
Take the plants outside with you
Investing ten minutes of time in moving flower pots in the morning will return to us in the form of a jungle that will seethe with health. Plants that have the opportunity to spend at least part of the spring and summer outside tend to be much more vital, have denser and larger leaves and more often reward their owners with flowers. So the next time you go out to the balcony with your coffee in the morning, take a few of your favorite maids with you and you will see the difference in their appearance after just a few days.
