“Harden off” Your Indoor Plants before Bringing It to Outdoor Garden

Nursery Today Desk

New Delhi: Bringing your indoor plants straight to the outdoor environment may disrupt their growth. The sudden fluctuation in sunlight, wind and temperature can cause sunburn or shock from wind exposure or lower temperatures that they are not used to. Therefore, it is important to take good care of the plant while shifting it from indoor to outdoor environment. The plants must be ‘hardened off’ before exposing it to the harsh conditions of external environment.

Either it is planting of the nursery plants or transplanting the plants grown from seeds indoors to the outdoor garden. You must take care of following things to “harden off” your plants. “Hardening off” is the process of allowing plants to transit from a protected indoor or greenhouse environment to the harsh outdoor conditions of fluctuating temperature, wind and sunlight.

Place the plants in shade

Place the plants in a sheltered, partially shady location for increased time periods each day for a week before taking it to the garden. Trees, shrub or row of hedges can also play the role of umbrella for your plant.

Set a timer

Set a timer for an hour and take plants outside before bringing them inside to a warm location, ideally under grow lights. They can then be planted securely in their long-term homes, whether in the ground, a raised bed, or a container, by repeating this process for two hours on the second day and adding an hour of outdoor time each day for a week.

Protect from adverse weather conditions

If the weather is changing, it’s raining heavily or there is severe wind in the garden, prefer to bring the plant back inside.

Cover with Plastic, gallon-size milk container

If the weather isn’t too hot, the seedling can be planted directly in the ground and cover them individually with a plastic, gallon-size milk container with its bottom and cap removed. You may secure the container by burying the bottom in a few inches of soil, and you can water plants through the top pouring hole.

For each day’s hardening-off period, remove the container; once finished, replace it and secure it into the soil.

Greenhouse plants

The procedure is sped up if plants were started in a greenhouse because they’ve previously been exposed to sunlight: After roughly a week of opening the windows occasionally, transplant seedlings outside for two and then four hours each day in a protected area then bring them to their original location.