Back in our home gardens, autumn and winter are considerably less demanding than the more active seasons of spring and summer. This would now be a good opportunity to attend to some of the interior garden concerns. Houseplants may be groomed, pruned, relocated and repotted.

If the weather is rainy but not too cool, houseplants may be brought outside for a gentle rinse. For reasons that no horticulturist has yet identified, houseplants seem to benefit more from mild rain than from rinsing with a hose or shower. Dust that accumulates in warm and dry home interiors may inhibit the evapotranspiration and respiration that occurs in the stomata. Gentle rinsing of the foliar surfaces helps to cleanse the stomata of such dust, as well as to expose more foliar surface formerly obscured by dust to solar exposure.

While houseplants are outside for a shower, their drainage dishes may be scrubbed to remove  unsightly mineral deposits left from irrigation water that has evaporated.