Autumn changeover: the month plants ask you to pay attention
For most of the year, what your plants want from you is routine. Water when it's due, feed a little, leave them alone. October is the exception. It's the one month where the routine that worked all summer quietly stops fitting, and nothing about the plant tells you so until a few weeks later. So this is the month I'd ask you for something different: not more work, just one honest look at each plant.
Three things change at once
If you're in the Northern Hemisphere, three things are happening in your home right now, more or less in the same fortnight:
- The light is dropping fast. Around the equinox the days shorten faster than at any other time of year — a few minutes every day, which adds up to more than an hour over the month. The sun is also lower, so the light that does arrive is weaker.
- The heating comes on. Warm, yes — but also dry. The air next to a radiator in October is a different climate from the air in that same spot in September.
- The windows close. Less air movement, and at night the glass itself gets cold. A windowsill that was the best seat in the house in July can be the draughtiest one by November.
Any one of these would be worth adjusting for. All three together are why a plant that sailed through summer can suddenly sulk in the same pot, in the same place, on the same schedule.
Water: the summer rhythm is now too much
Less light means less growth, and less growth means less drinking. The soil that dried out in five days in July now takes eight or nine. If you keep watering on the summer beat, the roots sit in damp soil for longer and longer — which is how most winter losses actually begin. Not in January. In October, on time.
This is the part I handle for you. Watering in Bloombi is planned by month, not by a fixed interval, so as October turns into November the gaps between reminders stretch on their own. You'll notice the Today tab getting a little quieter. That's not me forgetting your plants. That's the season.
What I can't do is feel the soil. This month, before you water, push a finger a couple of centimetres into the pot. If it's still damp, wait a day or two — even if I said today. In a changeover month, the plant gets the final say over the calendar. And if you find you're waiting every single time, lengthen that plant's autumn interval so the schedule catches up with what you're seeing.
Feeding: taper, then stop
A plant that has slowed down isn't using fertilizer, and what it doesn't use stays in the soil as salts. For most foliage houseplants, October is the month to go to half strength, and November the month to stop until spring.
If a plant's feeding is linked to its watering, this is the moment to break that link — watering carries on through winter, feeding shouldn't. I went through the two styles in Watering and fertilizing — together, or apart?; the short version is that winter is exactly the case "apart" exists for.
Place: redraw the map
The spots in your home are not the same spots they were in July. Worth a slow walk around:
- Away from the radiator. Anything within arm's reach of a heat source will dry out from the leaves faster than its roots can keep up. Half a metre makes a real difference.
- Off the cold glass. Leaves that touch a window on a cold night get damaged. Pull pots a hand's width back from the pane, and keep them out of the line of a window you open to air the room.
- Closer to the light. This sounds like it contradicts the last one; it doesn't. A plant that was happy a metre and a half into the room in summer may now want the windowsill — just not pressed against it. Wipe the dust off the leaves while you're there; in low light, every bit of surface counts.
- Balcony plants come in. Anything tropical that spent the summer outside should be indoors before the nights drop below about 10°C (50°F). Check under the leaves and around the soil for passengers first.
If a plant ends up in a different room, move it in the app too. To me a room isn't a label, it's a climate — and the plant just changed climates.
What to leave alone
Autumn also brings an urge to do something. Mostly, resist it.
- Don't repot. Roots that are slowing down won't grow into fresh soil; they'll just sit in a larger volume of wet mix. Unless a plant is in real trouble, repotting waits for spring.
- Don't prune hard. Remove what's dead. Leave the shaping for when the plant can answer with new growth.
- Don't panic over a yellow leaf. One or two of the oldest leaves yellowing and dropping in autumn is a plant trimming its own budget for winter. Vera, the monstera from A year with one plant, does it every November and is fine. Many leaves at once, or new leaves yellowing, is a different story — and usually a watering one.
Take one photo
Before the slow months start, take a photo of each plant. This is the best anchor point of the year: the plant at the end of its growing season, as big and as full as it's going to be until spring. In February, when you're convinced something is wrong because nothing is happening, you'll be able to scroll back and see that nothing is supposed to be happening. That's what the photo journal is for.
The ten-minute version
If that was a lot, here's the whole changeover as one walk around the house:
- Finger in the soil of every pot before watering — this month, every time.
- Fertilizer to half strength now; off in November.
- Away from radiators, off the cold glass, closer to the light.
- Summer-outdoors plants inside, checked for pests.
- No repotting, no hard pruning.
- One photo of each plant.
And one thing I won't do: turn any of this into an "autumn alert." You still get one reminder a day, at the time you chose, and only on days when something is due. The season is changing; the tone isn't.
If you're reading this in the Southern Hemisphere, flip everything — your plants are waking up, and you're about to have the opposite problem. I'll get to that one in the spring.
For everyone else: ten minutes, one look at each plant, and then you can go back to mostly leaving them alone. They're about to do the same.
— Bloombi