With winter just around the corner its about time to think about winter care for those tropical plants – this winter care tips should work for curry leaf plant, banana tree, jasmine plants.
About a year ago I had a blog post on curry leaf plant and had a mention on CFL light bulbs for indoor plants. This year I invested on a plant light and a shop light fixture and my plants seem to be loving it.
I shopped around before investing on these and looked at some of the set up at worms way and similar stores and found these run close to $100.00
With the sour economy these days I wasn’t quite ready to spare $100.00 and ended up spending less that $20.00 at a hardware store.
Here is all you need for setting up indoor light for plants.
- Shop light fixture – this come readily with chain kit
- Plant/Aquarium light
- Mounting hardware – couple of eye hooks
- 10 minutes for mounting
Here is how the light setup looks after mounting on the ceiling.
Oh! did I mention my plants love this indoor lighting?
Here are some indoor care tips for curry leaf plant, banana tree, jasmine plants.
- Keep the plants away from windows – plants don’t like cold draft from windows.
- If you have heater vents on floor, keep the plants away from heater vents.
- Avoid over watering the plants – indoor plants don’t consume much water and make sure the soil doesn’t get dried out either.
- Occasionally spray salt water on the plants – this will keep any bugs away from the plants
- Spray neem oil mixed with water/soap or rubbing alcohol water mixture as soon you see sign of spider mites and/or mealy bugs.
Updates:
I bought a light timer to keep my plants on a regular time schedule.
Now the plant lights gets turned on/off from 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM – remember plants sleep, too
Where did you buy the “shop light fixture” for putting up the lights for your plant? Also, for how long do you keep the plant lights on? I got a new curry leaf plant from logee’s and the leaves just keeps dropping all the time. I dont see much new leaves coming out. If this continues, very soon there will not be a single leaf left on the plant. I water the plant only when the soil feels dry (once in 2 weeks)
Jayeeta,
I picked the fixture from Home Depot and lights from Wal-mart. Regarding how long to keep the lights on, I think it should be OK to keep it ON during the day time. I got mine on a light timer and these lights goes ON at about 6:00 AM or so and OFF around 6:00 PM.
About your new curry leaf plant, I would suggest you to continue caring for it indoors until spring and may be it will survive when you take it outdoors. I am guessing this is a new transplant and its roots aren’t fully developed.
Good luck!!
Hi sasi,
Very nice to see your plants. I have almost similar setup as yours. I just saw your blog, and was happy to see that.
Do you have any spare curry leaf seeds ?I have been trying to get one, and no success. It will be great if you can help with me with seeds. I will bear any expenses for postage etc.
You can see the pics of my plants here.
http://picasaweb.google.com/premanandr/OfficePlant#
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prem.
looks like a great setup to care for my curry plant in the winter. I will definitely try this!
Brett,
Make sure to maintain a short distance between the plants and the “hung” lights. In my case, banana tree did very well compared to the dwarf ones
[...] they seem to be healthy so far You can read about my blog post on Winter Care for Tropical Plants here. [...]
Excellent information on Curry leaf plant .
I have a curry leaf plant which has had it’s share of troubles. I got this plant in 2008 and it got a terrible infestation of spider mites. I placed it out in summer and treated it with rubbing alchohol. I repeated these treatments rigorously and finally towards the end of summer the plant started growing and I even got a seedling.
Now that I have shifted it indoors I see that the spider mites infestation is coming back.
What can I do..any recommendations ?
Thanks
Saj
I am thinking the indoor dry air is causing spider mites infestation. I would suggest spraying the plant with a stream of salt water and placing the plant away from the heater vents.
Hullo! More questions on your curry leaf plants
How do you make them thrive? I have two curry leaf plants that are tiny and they are not dying but they don’t seem to be growing much. They’re near a window which gets plenty of eastern light all day long, but I haven’t put them under any artificial light. do you think I should move them under lights? (the fluourescent lights underneath my kitchen cabinets) fertilize them? (with alaska fish fertilizer?). What potting soil did you use for your curry leaves? Do they do well on citrus fertilizer?
In general curry plants are slow growers when grown in pots. I am assuming you live in a place where you experience winter weather or where the temperature drops below 60 F. In that case, I would suggest growing in pot is the best.
I wouldn’t suggest fertilizing them in winter. I remember feeding mine in early August. On your question on artificial lighting, as far as you plant is getting about 8 hours of light I wouldn’t suggest adding additional light source. Make sure your plant is away from heat vents to prevent the plants from withering their leaves.
Regarding soil, I mixed garden soil with peat and compost. Personally I don’t buy potting soil. Why buy it when you can make it your own
Thank you for those tips! I’ll just be patient and try not to stare at my little plants too much. The temperature definitely dips below 60F several months of the year so I moved them indoors after last summer. The leaves all fell off and I was sure they were dead but i kept watering once a week just in case and voila! New leaves! New shoots! We don’t have a garden but I couldn’t resist getting plants for the deck and so I had to buy potting soil. I bought citrus soil for the curry leaf plants because they are rutaceae like citrus, so I just guessed it might be right. These plants are from the seeds of a special, very frangrant variety that my great-grandmother grew which my grandmother now grows in her garden.
Yeah not starring at plants may help…out of sight, out of mind…right?
The leaves falling off is quite common with curry leaf plant indoors during winter month – I remember mine did the same 4 years ago. Anyway, spring is just around the corner and I bet your plant will do a lot better when you move it outdoors. Good luck with your curry leaf plant.
Feel free to come back post on updates on your curry leaf plant.
I’ve happened to be searching all over for this material. The good news is I uncovered it on Bing.
Hello Sasi-
You appear to be the Curry Leaf King based on the knowledge you offer!
I just purchased a young 6″ curry leaf plant over the weekend. I noticed tiny white spots on some of the lower leaves. Are these signs of bugs?
You suggested a salt/water solution spray as well as a Need/water or rubbing alcohol/water solution spray in order to handle bugs. Could you tell me what proportion water:salt, water:need oil, water:rubbing alcohol, that I should use?
Thank you!
[...] culinaryherbguide and mylogmyblog have useful information on growing herbs and winter care for tropical plants respectively [...]
were can i buy this curry leave plant in melbourne