With cold weather fast approaching, I've had to go through the process of moving my outdoor succulents indoors! As a Canadian, our winters get insanely chilly, and most succulents don't do well with temperatures below 30 degrees Fahrenheit. As I am fairly new to the succulent family, this was a whole process for myself. After many hours of intense research, I was finally ready to take the step of bringing them indoors!
For those who aren't as familiar with succulents, some of the cold hardy plants can survive the winter, but if possible, you want to try and bring the tender plants inside. This process takes a bit of time, so make sure you do it on a day where you are able to dedicate yourself to your plants.
If you are limited on space, you first need to sit down and decide who you will be taking in for the winter. When you narrow things down, be sure to remember that they need a lot of sun (so see where you can get optimal lighting for your succulents). Here are a few tips that should help you throughout the transition!
Watering your succulents can be slightly tricky to water, and if you've ever done it the wrong way you can probably relate to this. You want your soil to be soaked since the plants expect there to be a "drought." DO NOT water them until you feel that the soil is completely dry. For this, I made sure to water them while they were still outside - about a day or two prior to the move will be fine. For indoor watering, I just used a watering can and made sure to evenly pour the water. Please do not use a spray bottle on your plants; they prefer to be soaked and not sprayed, they absorb the water and even grow new roots in preparation for the time they get watered!
Although they do like a wet soil - they do not like sitting in the soil for too long. This is why the choice of soil is super important. You want to choose a soil that is going to help with draining and not only that but to having a pot that has a draining hole as well. This allows for any non absorbed water to drain out from your plants. You, of course, can choose to skip this - but you will to put even more care into your succulents.
How often you water them will depend on what kind of area you live in, my house isn't very humid, so I water them every 3-4 days. My boyfriend, on the other hand, lives in a very humid house and gets by watering them once a week.
Prepping your pot is a huge step for transferring your succulents, you want to remove any of the dead leaves and debris from the outdoors. For this, I used a pair of tweezers and a lot of patience. This is when you can also redo your dressing so it looks nice for when you bring it inside!
This next step wasn't something I did, but made my boyfriend do since I'm terrified of bugs! But check your plants for bugs, they love to hide in them and honestly they can stay outside! You would be surprised how many we found just hiding out and hoping to be brought into a warm home!
When choosing an indoor location for them, make sure you are able to give them loads of sunlight. You can do this by putting them near your brightest window of the house, they need about 6 hours of direct sunlight a day. If you are using grow lights, make sure you don't always have them turned on. The succulents do need a bit of darkness to also grow!
If you notice that your plants start to grow towards the sunlight, it's a good indication that they aren't getting enough sunlight and you need to re-evaluate where you have put them!
I really hope that all of these tips help you guys with the indoor transitions !
Are you guys a succulent fan? Have more tips for me? I would love to hear them down in the comments ! :)