Wake Your Houseplants Up From Dormancy

April 23, 2021

“Good morning, houseplants! It’s Spring!!”

Spring has officially sprung.

Once my eyes become red, itchy and I began to sneeze 47 times in a row throughout the day, I know it’s springtime. These seasonal allergies get me weirdly excited because that means our houseplants are heading into their growing season.

The wintertime can put your plants in a sort of dormancy, where they stop growing all together or start slowing way down.

But now that Spring is here, how do I wake up my houseplants from dormancy?

Here are some ways you can get your houseplants up and ready for the new growing season(s).

What Is Domancy?

Dormancy in plants is like a hibernation.

In nature plants go dormant to prepare themselves for the cold of winter. With this, plants go dormant due to the lack of nutrients available since the amount of daylight in winter is greatly reduced than it was in the spring/summer. Plants will store up all the energy they can just before winter and reserve it so it can survive those long and frigid days ahead.

Producing new growth takes a lot of energy from the plant, so in order for that plant to survive it will slow down from what it was producing in the summer months.

“OH, NO! My Houseplant Went Dormant”

Don’t freak out or think your plant is dead. Often times plants will lose their leaves, stop growing and may appear to be dead. But it might not be!

Make sure you keep up your normal care routine, minus the fertilizing you did a few months ago – because chances are your houseplant is just dormant and will start producing new growth like it did in the growing seasons, in a few months.

Rise and Shine, Plants!

Spring is finally here, and you’ve cared for this ugly, half dead looking plant for months – now what?

First thing you’re going to want to do is move it back closer to your light source (if you moved it away from a window for winter). Depending on the plant a bright/indirect light can perk it back to life.

It’s also time to start fertilizing again. Your plants are HUNGRY and are probably out of energy. Usually around March or April is when I start to give my first dose of fertilizer. This is going to wake them up even more, giving them the energy to start producing new growth again.

Sometimes you’ll find they will wake themselves up on their own. A lot of my plants almost seemed to know we changed our clocks back for spring and popped off new growth in a matter of weeks.

But, don’t always leave it up to fate, they will often need a little boost to come back to “life”.

Spring Fling

Now that your plants are back in their brightly lit spots, and got a bit of food (fertilizer) you should start to notice new leaves and stems popping up like crazy.

Tying to wake up your houseplants from dormancy can be a timely task, this can take a few weeks for you to start seeing any action.

Do keep in mind that not all plants will go ‘completely’ dormant. I had a few plants still pushing out new leaves all throughout winter. But, for those plants that do go dormant, and I’m looking at you Alocasias, these are a few things I have done in the past to get them back in their “normal” growing state.