A Complete Guide to Late-Autumn Care Techniques for Household Flowers

In late autumn, the weather turns cool in the mornings and evenings, temperatures drop, and daylight hours gradually become shorter.

The physiological activities of flowers also shift from a vigorous period to a gentle period or dormant period, so care should be carried out according to their characteristics. How to care for household flowers has become a difficult problem for amateur flower-growing enthusiasts, so here are a few views on how to care for household flowers in late autumn, to share with everyone.

Cold protection: warmth-loving flowers and trees such as Chinese hibiscus, poinsettia, begonia, jasmine, and Swiss cheese plant should be moved indoors when the temperature is 10°C; spider plant, asparagus fern, Schefflera octophylla, and rubber tree should also be moved indoors when the temperature drops to 5°C; the vast majority of flowers should be brought indoors before Frost's Descent. Potted flowers indoors should be kept ventilated, and when the temperature is relatively high at noon, doors and windows can be opened for ventilation and heat dissipation. Flowers such as jasmine, orange jessamine, azalea, clivia, cyclamen, and Christmas cactus should be placed in a sunny place so they can fully receive light, allowing the leaves to carry out photosynthesis better, supply nutrients in time, and help them survive the winter safely.

Watering: for ornamental plants on balconies and in bright halls, such as banyan, rubber tree, Schefflera octophylla, Brazil wood, money tree, Milan, jasmine, wintersweet, plum blossom, camellia, and sasanqua, watering should be controlled, reducing both the frequency and amount of watering. For wintersweet, plum blossom, camellia, and others that bloom in winter and early spring, watering should be controlled even more, with more misting, to help the formation of flower buds. The best time for watering is from 10:00 to 15:00. For potted foliage plants moved indoors, such as Swiss cheese plant, bird's nest fern, cordyline, bird's nest fern, anthurium, prayer plants, and pothos, misting should be the main method and watering supplementary, so as to keep the potting soil from drying out.

Fertilizing: for clivia, calla lily, cymbidium, and bromeliads, a mixed solution of 0.2% monopotassium phosphate and 0.1% urea can be applied; for bitter orange, kumquat, and firethorn, a small amount of low-concentration quick-acting phosphorus-potassium fertilizer can be applied; for Milan, chloranthus, jasmine, and others, one topdressing of dilute phosphorus-potassium fertilizer can also be given to help them pass the winter smoothly. For most foliage plants, nitrogen fertilizer should be stopped, and some low-concentration potassium fertilizer should be appropriately topdressed, which can increase the cold resistance of the flowers.

Pruning: for bonsai and potted flowers moved indoors, dead branches and fallen leaves, overly dense branches, diseased and pest-infested branches, and weak branches should be cut off; for leggy branches, strong shortening pruning can be carried out; for bonsai bindings that have been shaped for 1 to 2 years, they can be untied, or untied and then rebound, to prevent long-term binding at fixed positions from injuring the cambium of the branches and causing the branches and leaves to wither and die. For tree-stump bonsai placed on the balcony, such as Chinese elm, Chinese wingnut, trident maple, banyan, Buddhist pine, Chinese juniper, and dragon juniper, necessary pruning must be carried out. For jasmine, crape myrtle, pomegranate, and others, pruning can be done in late autumn to reduce nutrient consumption by the plant in winter, promote the potted flowers to store more nutrients, and make them bloom more the following year.

Pest removal: late autumn is still a season when pests and diseases are relatively serious, and flowers and trees are easily attacked by pests such as scale insects, red spiders, aphids, and whiteflies. Diseases include leaf spot disease and rot disease of branches and trunks. Before potted flowers are brought indoors, these pests and diseases must be thoroughly treated, and they must never be allowed to enter the room and harm the flowers and trees.

Seed saving: in the north, many perennial flowers begin to have yellowing leaves in this season and prepare to enter winter dormancy, such as hosta, canna, dahlia, and dwarf dahlia. The rhizomes of these plants should be kept in flower pots to let them go dormant. After the full blooming period of chrysanthemums, the flowers will also fade and the leaves turn yellow; at this point, the branches should be cut off at the root, keeping the old roots to preserve the seeds. The seeds of gourd, loofah, and marvel-of-Peru have already matured, so the seeds should be collected and stored at this time for sowing next year.