F.U. Winter

[W3rk]

This will be my third year overwintering tropicals inside. One of the best windows I have available is mostly West facing and only gets a little bit of afternoon sunlight. My first winter I only had two Ficus and it was just good enough. Of course the trees have been increasing and last year I added some supplemental light, it helped but was a bit too narrow/focused.

The trees have been inside about 3 weeks now and I had forgotten how bad the leaf drop is. I'm tired of having them just limp through winter so I decided to up my game, did some homework about better grow light options and found good information about the latest generation of LED lighting. Picked my new light, popped a couple of hooks in the ceiling and this should be a massive improvement:



First test drive out of the box, pretty impressive:

 

[BonsaiGrove]

nice! is that a quantum board? I just got an HLG 550 and it is blowing me away. Such an upgrade from my 315w ceramic metal halide! This is the first winter I've seen vigorous growth 2 weeks in to putting them inside.

 

[amcoffeegirl]

Keep me posted on 3-6 month reviews.
I may want to check into it.

 

[Carol 83]

I have a decent southern exposure, but still use supplemental lighting. I got some new led's this year, and the leaf drop has seemed to be less. The bougies still revolted at first, but that was to be expected.

 

[canoeguide]

I took some advice and gradually moved my tropicals further and further back on a covered porch for a couple of weeks before bringing them inside. By the time they came inside they were getting a couple hours of weak early morning direct sunlight, and full shade the rest of the day. I have had zero leaf drop inside, and even a growth spurt. I do have a good south-facing window, but I think the gradual light reduction really helped.

 

[W3rk]

I took some advice and gradually moved my tropicals further and further back on a covered porch for a couple of weeks before bringing them inside. By the time they came inside they were getting a couple hours of weak early morning direct sunlight, and full shade the rest of the day. I have had zero leaf drop inside, and even a growth spurt. I do have a good south-facing window, but I think the gradual light reduction really helped.

That's a really good point about a more gradual transition. I remember last year someone on Reddit had suggested a similar approach, keeping the tropicals outside, but transitioning to shade before bringing them in. I did that last year, but forgot about it this year, I bet that's why my leaf drop has seemed worse this fall.

 

[Carol 83]

I took some advice and gradually moved my tropicals further and further back on a covered porch for a couple of weeks before bringing them inside. By the time they came inside they were getting a couple hours of weak early morning direct sunlight, and full shade the rest of the day. I have had zero leaf drop inside, and even a growth spurt. I do have a good south-facing window, but I think the gradual light reduction really helped.

Sounds smart. We have such ridiculous weather swings, it was summer one day and headed into the 30's the next. Mine had to come in suddenly, no time to acclimate to lower light.