How & When to Bring Plants Inside: Timing & Debugging Tips

Want to bring plants indoors without the bugs? Find out the best way to debug your plants along with the recommended timing and temperatures for a smooth transition.

If you want to keep a small fruit tree dormant in storage during the winter, see potted fig tree winter care tips for complete instructions.

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Bringing Plants Indoors

Many of us keep some houseplants including tropical and subtropical plants outdoors for the summer and return them to life indoors in late summer or early fall.

We may also have certain annuals or tender perennials like coleus or geraniums (Pelargoniums) that can also live indoors.

Use these tips to know which plants are good candidates for growing as houseplants (either for the winter or ongoing), how to prepare them, and how to eliminate pests along the way.

If you want to store tender plants (also known as “overwintering“) for the cold seasons instead of growing them as houseplants, the preparations listed here are the same.

Contents

• Plant Suggestions
• Best Timing
• Preparations
• Moving Plants Indoors
  • What To Expect
  • Indoor Care
• Return Outdoors
• Resources

Plant Suggestions

Plants that are good candidates for indoor growing, either during the winter or year-round, are the ones that cannot withstand cold temperatures—not hardy, cold climate perennials.

Possibilities include plants sold as tropical and subtropical houseplants, as well as some tender perennials and long-living annuals like coleus and geraniums (Pelargoniums).

Some of these plants can thrive indoors, others will slow their growth or go dormant, but no matter what, do not expect summer behavior. It’s natural for many plants to slow down during the darker months of winter.

The first step is to do an inventory of your outdoor potted plants and determine which ones are candidates for some sort of overwintering, whether it’s as houseplants or in dormancy, safely stored where they will not freeze.

I choose according to what’s healthy, what I have room for, and which ones I like best.

Best Timing

• Get plants ready to come indoors in late summer or early fall when outdoor lows are still averaging above 60°F (15°C)—not lower than that. The closer to indoor temperatures, the better.
• The average indoor temperature most of these plants like is around 70F° (21°C) with moderate (not low) humidity. Around 50% humidity is good.

Getting the plants moved early will reduce their stress and yours. For me, that’s about 4 to 6 weeks before our average first frost. You want to be well ahead of damaging cold snaps.

If you’re curious, look up the temperature tolerances for your specific plants. Some tap out at 55°F (13°C) while others can tolerate somewhat colder conditions. We just choose a safe average to keep it simple.

Preparations

How do you prepare plants for indoor growing?

The goal is to stress the plant as little as possible, making a fairly seamless transition from outdoor to indoor growing conditions, while bringing few or no pests in with them.

The whole process, unless rushed, should take about two weeks.

These are the steps—you may find logical reasons to do them in a different order or skip some.

The most important thing is to decide on a plant-by-plant basis. A rubber plant will happily take a bath while a tomato plant is too fragile for a bath or much handling at all.

Keep the plants outdoors during these steps, ideally on a patio away from other outdoor plants.

To Do List

• Tidy up the plant
• Apply insecticide
• Bath or shower the plant
• Clean the pot
• Repot if necessary
• Reapply insecticide
• Gradually adjust to indoor climate

Plant Tidy Up

• Examine the plant for any sign of pests, dead parts, or disease.
• Use fine snippers to trim away any dead or damaged parts. Clean blades with rubbing alcohol before each cut.
• If diseased, let it go. It’s not worth the risk to other plants.

Pest Removal

When growing outdoors, we have the entire web of life to look after bugs (insects and other animals) that may be attracted to our plants.

Indoors, without the natural checks and balances, we need to eliminate them to avoid infestations and infecting other plants.

Examine your plants for any pests or signs of pests present on the stems, leaves, and soil. This can help decide how thorough you want to be with your preparations.

Again, we’re only calling them “pests” because they are not welcome indoors. Outdoors, they are all part of the circle of life.

If there are pests visible, spray directly with an insecticidal soap spray, consider giving the plant a bath or shower, repot if necessary, and reapply the spray following the recommendations.

Some types of plants have so many nooks and crannies that it may be impossible to ever reach every bug with the spray.

Plant Bath

You can also give the plants a bath to force some bugs away from the plant and remove any grime from the leaves. This, of course, is only for tougher plants like tropical rubber plants that tolerate submersion in water.

1. Fill a large tub with warm water.
2. Add insecticidal soap (optional) to the water according to product directions.
3. Submerge entire plant in tub with rock or brick to weigh down root ball if necessary.
4. Soak for 30 minutes, remove plant and allow to drain completely.
5. Use soft rag to wipe all surface of leaves and stems.

If successful, some bugs will be floating in the water, free from your plants.

Plant Shower

Some gardeners give the plants a shower instead of a bath by spraying the foliage and stems with hose water to dislodge any bugs.

It’s not as thorough as a bath but may do for any plants that don’t mind a blast of cold water.

Pot Cleaning

Don’t forget to clean up the flower pot or container as well. Clean the exterior and have a nice, deep saucer ready for indoor use.

Repotting

Should I repot plants before bringing them indoors?

We repot plants (replace their potting mix) either to improve the potting mix and/or provide a larger pot size.

Decide about repotting on a case-by-case basis as some plants find it stressful.

If you’ve seen fungus gnats flitting about, it may help to replace the top few inches of potting mix where their larvae hide. Be careful not to disturb the plant roots. This has tips for dealing with fungus gnats including using sticky traps to catch the adults.

Otherwise, consider repotting later on in winter.

Wait

If there is time before temperatures dip, keep your plants in a sheltered location outdoors away from other plants for a week or two to monitor the bug situation.

Reapply Insecticide

If you see more bugs while the plants are still outdoors, reapply the insecticidal soap as recommended.

Moving Plants Indoors

With your plants all cleaned up, it’s time to come inside.

I see a lot of advice about this step that seems far too generalized or unrealistic.

Some gardeners are adamant that its best to transition plants to lower light conditions, either starting with part-shade outdoors and/or moving to a low light spot indoors—at first.

Others say, with light already diminishing as we head toward winter solstice, it’s best to give the plants as much light as possible indoors since it will probably be less than they were accustomed to outdoors during the summer.

But it’s not one-location-suits-all. Different plants have different light needs and some are far more reactive to changes than others. I’m going to treat my sun-loving tomatoes and herbs much differently than some of the tropical plants originating from shady, rain forest conditions.

It really helps to know your plants and their preferences and just do the best you can to accommodate their individual needs.

If indoor humidity levels are low (40% or less), the plants may also show some stress from this. This explains why humidity levels are so important to plant health and why maintaining a level around 50% helps.

What to Expect

Depending on the plant and how drastically growing conditions have changed, your plants may slide right into life indoors as if nothing happened while others may sulk, have some dieback, or worse.

The most important thing is to give them time. Some may drop a bunch of leaves or show other signs of distress but, as winter moves along, most should gradually recover.

Also, signs of stress may not show up until weeks or months after a drastic change. Keep that in mind if your citrus seems fine until mid-winter and suddenly drops its leaves. That may be the result of the move from outdoors to indoors months earlier and the plant simply needs time to recover.

Winter is also a time of dormancy, so don’t be surprised if growth halts entirely during the low-light months.

Indoor Plant Care

In general, winter is a time to ease way back on watering and hold off fertilizing.

Come spring, as light increases, it’s time to increase water to meet individual needs. Liquid fertilizer may also be warranted.

Return Outdoors

When is it safe to put plants outdoors again?

The general rule is when outdoor temperatures are consistently at least 60°F (15°C) and any risk of frost has passed you can start transitioning plants back outside. This will be late spring or early summer depending on your location.

Just like young plants ready for transplanting, a period of hardening off over a few weeks will ease the stress of the transition to summer outdoors.

Resources

Read More

• Insecticidal Soaps For Garden Pest Control | Clemson.edu
• Easy Houseplant Tagging System To Simplify Plant Care | Empress of Dirt
• How To Keep Houseplants Watered While On Vacation | Empress of Dirt
• How To Overwinter Potted Trees Like Figs | Empress of Dirt

Products

• Bonide Insecticidal Soap Ready to Use | Amazon
• Safer Insecticidal Soap | Amazon

~Melissa the Empress of Dirt ♛