Give Your Houseplants a Summer Break Outdoors
CONTAINED
BRILLIANCE
Houseplants Outdoors? You bet!
Summer offers the perfect opportunity to give your favorite houseplants a rejuvenating vacation while simultaneously creating a beautiful outdoor oasis. By moving these indoor favorites outside, they can easily transform into stunning shade container beauties. This shift allows you to think beyond traditional seasonal choices and create a lush, relaxing scene on your back patio. Transforming your outdoor living space into a tropical retreat with a few favorite houseplants is easier than you might think. Here’s how to do it.
Red Bromeliads add a pop of color and texture to this shade planting.
Preparing your Houseplants for the Outdoors
Monitor the Weather for Optimal Timing:
Wait until the nighttime temperatures are consistently above 50F before moving your houseplants outdoors. This helps to prevent shock from sudden temperature changes which can often occur in late spring or early summer. Most houseplants are native to tropical climates or hot deserts, so it’s best to wait until the weather has settled and temperatures are consistently high. Typically, mid-June is a safe time.
Gradual Acclimatization:
Slowly transition your houseplants to the outdoors. Even sun-loving indoor plants need to spend time in the shade until they acclimate. There are two good methods for this acclimation: place your plants in a shaded area for a few hours each day, or leave them outside all day on a warm, overcast day to help them adjust to the higher light levels compared to indoors. Bring them back in at night, and repeat this process over a few days, each time leaving them outside a little longer. This process is called hardening off – think of it as an adjustment period for your plants.
Choose the Right Spot:
Because many houseplants are native to shady, humid, forest floors in warm parts of the world, they are often tropical and prefer filtered light. This is why they enjoy the inside warmth and dim lighting of our homes. Indoor light is significantly weaker than outdoor sunlight, so to prevent sunburn avoid direct sunlight and seek out shaded or partially shaded planters for your houseplant’s “vacation spot”.
Provide Extra Root Room:
Check to see if your plant needs a larger pot. Moving it to its outdoor adventure can be the perfect time to repot it, taking advantage of the outdoors and warm growing season. This can be accomplished in one of two ways: by increasing the pot size by a few inches to grow as a specimen plant, or by combining it with other unpotted plants in a much roomier pot. Either way, make sure to use quality potting soil and a container with good drainage.
Designing Container Gardens with Houseplants
Foliage and Color:
Many houseplants are tropical and have bold and beautiful patterned foliage, making them perfect choices for creating eye-catching container plantings. A serene and beautiful outdoor space can be created by incorporating these lovely plants. I particularly like incorporating, rex begonias, crotons and anthuriums into my summer containers. For example, a planter combining Croton with traditional annuals can provide additional pops of color and unexpected textures.
The patterned foliage of Croton 'Zanzibar' creates a firework affect
Use the ‘Thriller, Filler, Spiller' Approach:
This tried-and-true approach will help create a combination that gives depth and interest to your planting.
- Thriller: Choose a tall, focal point plant to add height and drama. Croton, Ficus, or Sansevieria can be excellent choices.
- Filler: Add medium-height plants to fill in the space around the thriller and tie the thriller and spiller together. Anthuriums, Rex Begonias, Bromeliads, and Hypoestes, are good considerations. Bromeliads, Anthuriums, and Dracaena are a few of my favorite choices because they provide unmatched structure, which you can nicely complement with more conventional container garden plants such as Verbena, Impatiens, Begonias, and Carex.
- Spiller: Select trailing plants that will spill over the edges of the containers, like Pothos, Philodendron, and the Epipremnum (the money plant).
Ficus elasitica with its shiny bold leaves takes on the thriller role in this planting
Larger plants for Impact:
Use large indoor plants as dramatic anchors in your outdoor planters. Colocasia, ficus, and monstera are a few of my favorites. They are large enough to offer a feeling of intimacy and privacy, compliment seating areas, and create a sense of enclosure while also tolerating full sun.
Colocasia 'Black Magic' provides drama.
Nestle Plants in Containers:
For an easy transition back indoors come fall, don’t remove the larger specimen plants, such as Colocasia from its nursery pot. Instead, nestle it into a decorative outdoor planter. This makes it easy to lift and move back into a decorative indoor planter at the end of the season.
Caring for Houseplants on Staycation
Regular Watering: Adjusting to Outdoor Conditions:
Your houseplants will have different watering needs outdoors than they do indoors. Summer weather can dry out the soil faster, so use the finger test to check soil moisture regularly and water as needed, especially during hot spells.
Pest Checks:
Check your plants regularly for pests. Outdoor conditions can sometimes attract different insects.
Houseplant Outdoor Excursion Perks
Enhanced light exposure:
Natural sunlight provides houseplants with a broader spectrum of light for photosynthesis and growth compared to indoor lighting giving them opportunity to thrive. The happy result is often an abundance of new flowers, and glossy green new growth.
Improved Air Circulation:
Houseplants benefit from better air circulation outdoors, reducing the risk of fungal disease and insect infestations that can be common indoors.
Increased Humidity:
Many houseplants, especially tropical varieties, thrive in humid environments. Outdoor humidity helps these plants flourish. Insects such as mealy bugs and spider mites, common problems of houseplants, hate wet, humid conditions.
Personal Wellness:
Creating your own garden oasis and being surrounded by greenery can be regenerative, reduce stress, lower blood pressure, and enhance our overall well-being. It’s widely known that spending time in nature and taking mini vacations soothes our souls, and rest and relaxation make everyone happier. Last but not least, plants also cool the environment through transpiration, making your outdoor space more comfortable during hot summer days.
Giving your plants a summer vacation and creating a destination staycation spot on your porch or patio will leave both you and your plants happier and healthier. The occasional rain and warm summer breezes can refresh you both, and when the cold weather moves in during the fall, you’ll return indoors feeling and looking lush and refreshed from the months spent outside.
For more detailed information on how to care and nurture houseplants in the summer, check out Marianne Wilburn’s book, Tropical Plants and How To Love Them! Happy gardening!
References
‘Moving Houseplants Outdoors for the Summer in the Northeast’ Fine Gardening Matt Mattus
'Put your Houseplants in Your Outside Containers'– Fine Gardening Ray Rogers Issue 143
'4 Genius Ways to Use Houseplants in Your Outdoor Garden', Better Homes and Gardens' Sept 2023 Marianne Willburn
