Creating a humid indoors for plants

Hello,

My plants are dropping leaves like crazy - I'm sure it's a humidity issue. I've moved my tropicals indoors to the bathroom. I even mist them lightly in the tub for extra moisture. I have my humidifier running. I've seen some very nice 'humidity trays', but I don't want to spend $100 for the copper ones I want, so I guess I'll try to create something on my own. I've thought of trying to put the plants in plastic bags, to keep the humidity from evaporating. I've also seen some zippered plastic wrap that goes around the plant shelves, but I don't know how well that really works.

Any ideas?! Thanks! :)

I'm curious why you think it's a humidity issue? If you're running a humidifier I can't imagine that you would need any more humidity than that. It's more likely to be something like too little light, too much water, air from a heating vent blowing right on them, or just some general shock from being moved indoors.

Plantkiller: ... oh I feel bad about calling you that name! It is a cute user name though!

I think your plants are probably dropping leaves just because of the shock from the change of location more so than lack of humidity. Unless they are turning yellow before falling, if that is the case it could be from over watering.

Even down here in Florida, where we have lots of humidity, my plants that stay outside on the deck all year round, are dropping leaves like crazy! They always lose a lot of leaves just from the change in weather. Raising the humidity for your indoor plants will help a lot. You can do this by sitting them on trays of pebbles and adding a little water to the trays. A lot of folks use those plant stands that have the plastic that zips around ... a mini greenhouse of sorts! I use zip lok bags on some of my smaller plants ... just open them once in awhile to allow for air circulation.

Good luck with over wintering your plants! I'm sure they will survive ... you are not a plant killer!

Hello Plantkiller?
We have a horribly dry climate, here. I choose hoyas, cactus, epi's and succulents for some rooms but have an orchid, ginger, large philo's and even a banana in another room. The trick, for me, was learning to get an air deflector for each of our heat ducts (to keep direct heated air from drying out soil & leaves) and REALLY reading up on what each particular plant needs in the way of light. My ficus trees dropped leaves in numbers when brought indoors but have stabilized and are putting on new leaves, now. It's the change (like others said) in sunlight--they needed to adjust! I water LESS, expect little or no growth in the wintertime (though some plants still grow like weeds) and find the window of light in which each plant is happiest. You may be overwatering?? (I water at 7-10 day intervals for MOST plants in the wintertime).

You could try the pebble try idea (I did one winter but had flying critter troubles). It might work for you, though. Air deflectors are cheap :)

Blessings and best of luck to you (and your green babies)!

somehow I doubt it's a humidity issue. Don't leaves turn brown/black, due to lack of humidity? I don't think they simply drop.
One question... what kind of plants are we talking about?
Ficus, for example are known to drop leaves when they are in shock... moving to a new location, from outside to in, etc.. they are somewhat fussy in that regard.
Sometimes overwatering will cause leaf drop. usually though there is some yellowing along with... what exactly are you experiencing?
As stated earlier, if you're running a humidifier, you should be fine.

Hi everyone,

I have Dracaena reflexa 'Song of India'. The leaves at the bottom were barely holding on. A few of the leaves turned yellowish before they fell.

My Aphelandra squarrosa 'Zebra plant' is what I'm most concerned about. The bottom half of the leaves turned dark brown & curled up, then fell off. Two of the stems have NO leaves - just the yellow flower.

I was sure it was a humidity issues, but maybe some of it is just the change of location. Both plants were outside & seemed to be thriving before I brought them in. They are not near a vent & no air is blowing on them. I may have overwatered the dracaena (oops). I visit the local garden center & they have this nice area w/all the tropicals. Of course you can feel the humidity diference when you open the door. Everything always looks so nice, all green, pretty flowers....... then I go back to my house & think I'm a bad plant parent!!

Thanks for everyone's help. :)

The dracaena definitely sounds like overwatering to me, that's exactly what mine do when they've had a bit too much (in my experience they're pretty sensitive to overwatering). I would also guess overwatering on the Aphelandra, although there could be other possibilities too. It doesn't sound like a humidity problem though unless aphelandras are way more sensitive than other plants, usually when your humidity is too low the tips or edges of the leaves will turn brown, but the problem usually progresses gradually and I don't think I've ever seen anything get in that bad shape just from lack of humidity (our humidity out here is very low most of the year, so if it was at all easy to kill something that way I'm sure I would have by now! I've had plenty of things that were a little bit unhappy and got brown leaf tips, but nothing's come close to dying) If your aphelandra still has some leaves on it that are showing the symptoms, can you post a picture? That might help figure out if it's overwatering or if there's something else going on.

Here's the link to the info in Plant Files for the Zebra Plant: http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/1797/


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That zebra plant is WAY too picky for my home. Maybe you aren't any more of a plant killer than many of us. You may just need to be careful in selection of your indoors plants? (thanks for the link, Plantladylin).

I think Ecrane3 is onto something--if you could post a pic, it would help? It might not be too late to save your plant!