To mist or not to mist
I've been trying to find out which plants benefit from misting and which ones to never mist. Sadly, according to many on Google - the answers contradict one another. Any one have a list or. Rule of thumb?
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Hi John, the only plants I’ve ever misted have been their plants. The plants are potted and soil, that I mist, are my desert plants. Everything else I water lightly and I give all my soil the chopstick test. Which means placing a chopstick all the way down to the bottom of the pot. The chopstick comes up with soil on it. it’s too wet. Be careful not to disturb the roots if you use this method. So as far as misting goes, I practically never use it. Anyway, I hope this helps.
Don’t mist.
Think of it as the difference between how your skin feels in a steam room vs getting sprayed in the face with a water bottle… the steam room opens up your pores and hydrates, the water bottle just leaves small droplets on your skin. You can’t ‘spray’ humidity, what comes out of a spray bottle is always going to be heavier than air.
In nature, little droplets of water on plants or morning dew will evaporate off pretty quickly from a combination of direct sun and wind (however gentle). Indoor plants generally get very little air circulation, so little air droplets (no matter how small) just sit on the plant. The plant has stomata on its leaves for things like gas exchange, so having water droplets on the leaves smothers the stomata, which can either kill the cells in those spots directly (turn brown/crispy) or weaken them enough to be vulnerable to fungi/bacteria (turn another color like black).
Plants are resourceful and adaptive, and many of the perfect plant parent instructions internet content creators insist on aren’t necessary (like moss poles for monstera — a garden stake works just fine for way less money and no maintenance). In my experience, a lot of ‘high humidity’ plants are totally fine in any humidity as long as their roots are humid enough. Because plants will release excess water into the air around them, you can also group your indoor plants together to create a little pocket of slightly higher humidity. I have a bunch of tropical species orchids, and I’ve found the best way to pot them in an environment with fluctuating humidity is a large glass container (no drainage) with a small layer of rocks at the bottom and the rest loose sphagnum moss, and in cooler months I will usually turn on a seedling mat; this keeps my need-high-70s-temps-and-high-humidity species orchids happy even in winter when humidity is 30% and temps in my apartment are as low as 54 degrees (I live in NYC so I pay more than most people’s mortgages to my criminally negligent landlord for a tiny apartment in a great location).
It would help to know what sort of plants you’re concerned about, but in general I’d say don’t worry about humidity unless your plant looks like it’s suffering for it. If there is truly a need to boost humidity, a seedling mat is usually enough to boost humidity around the roots and trick the plant into thinking it’s growing in a higher humidity environment. If I have a sad plant that needs a humidity boost fast (generally if I bought a plant that came with root rot), I will also usually bring it into my bathroom while I shower and leave it in there with trapped humidity for like an hour.
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Looking at your profile — my dude, your plants look happy and fine. The only thing that I’m worried about is your orchid, which looks dehydrated enough that I’d suggest checking the roots to see if you have rot (if you want to give more context on your orchid I’m happy to help). The fenestrated monstera cutting also looks a bit sad, I’d be curious how much it has in the way of roots and what medium it’s in… though it looks like the other smaller leaf behind it is healthy so it may be totally fine.
Think of it as the difference between how your skin feels in a steam room vs getting sprayed in the face with a water bottle… the steam room opens up your pores and hydrates, the water bottle just leaves small droplets on your skin. You can’t ‘spray’ humidity, what comes out of a spray bottle is always going to be heavier than air.
In nature, little droplets of water on plants or morning dew will evaporate off pretty quickly from a combination of direct sun and wind (however gentle). Indoor plants generally get very little air circulation, so little air droplets (no matter how small) just sit on the plant. The plant has stomata on its leaves for things like gas exchange, so having water droplets on the leaves smothers the stomata, which can either kill the cells in those spots directly (turn brown/crispy) or weaken them enough to be vulnerable to fungi/bacteria (turn another color like black).
Plants are resourceful and adaptive, and many of the perfect plant parent instructions internet content creators insist on aren’t necessary (like moss poles for monstera — a garden stake works just fine for way less money and no maintenance). In my experience, a lot of ‘high humidity’ plants are totally fine in any humidity as long as their roots are humid enough. Because plants will release excess water into the air around them, you can also group your indoor plants together to create a little pocket of slightly higher humidity. I have a bunch of tropical species orchids, and I’ve found the best way to pot them in an environment with fluctuating humidity is a large glass container (no drainage) with a small layer of rocks at the bottom and the rest loose sphagnum moss, and in cooler months I will usually turn on a seedling mat; this keeps my need-high-70s-temps-and-high-humidity species orchids happy even in winter when humidity is 30% and temps in my apartment are as low as 54 degrees (I live in NYC so I pay more than most people’s mortgages to my criminally negligent landlord for a tiny apartment in a great location).
It would help to know what sort of plants you’re concerned about, but in general I’d say don’t worry about humidity unless your plant looks like it’s suffering for it. If there is truly a need to boost humidity, a seedling mat is usually enough to boost humidity around the roots and trick the plant into thinking it’s growing in a higher humidity environment. If I have a sad plant that needs a humidity boost fast (generally if I bought a plant that came with root rot), I will also usually bring it into my bathroom while I shower and leave it in there with trapped humidity for like an hour.
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Looking at your profile — my dude, your plants look happy and fine. The only thing that I’m worried about is your orchid, which looks dehydrated enough that I’d suggest checking the roots to see if you have rot (if you want to give more context on your orchid I’m happy to help). The fenestrated monstera cutting also looks a bit sad, I’d be curious how much it has in the way of roots and what medium it’s in… though it looks like the other smaller leaf behind it is healthy so it may be totally fine.
