Houseplants that can survive 34-50F winter temps
December 12, 2023 5:19 AM   Subscribe

I have a sunny mostly-unheated bathroom in an old drafty house. It gets minimal residual heat from a woodstove downstairs, and I use a space heater in there sporadically just to keep the pipes unfrozen. What plants can survive this?
posted by asimplemouse to Home & Garden (10 answers total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
About 2/3rds of my herb garden survived outside last winter with slightly lower temps - sage, thyme, parsley, mint, and chives. Chives in particular like slightly cold weather and winter well but at 50 degrees they might stay harvestable year round. Rosemary might be able to survive as well, but personally I haven’t had much luck with it.
posted by A Blue Moon at 6:16 AM on December 12, 2023


You actually have a few options. That list includes both light-loving and shade-loving plants; although, I've learned that whether you get light is only part of the equation, sometimes it makes a difference what direction that light is coming from.

Case in point - I have a north-facing window in my bedroom, which you'd think means that it's sunny. But because the window's facing north, it's actually out of direct sunlight - which means that the shade-loving plants actually do better there. I have a small curly fern and a peace lily near those windows and they're doing just fine; the fern is actually right up against the window, too, which means it may be getting some drafts, but it's still hanging in.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:17 AM on December 12, 2023


Response by poster: That list was the first Google result and what led me to ask here, because only the Cast Iron plant sounded like it would be okay in a pretty much unheated room. I’m hoping for some other names, but if that list covers it then okay!
posted by asimplemouse at 6:35 AM on December 12, 2023


This might be the perfect place for any plant you're supposed to keep cool in winter to simulate a natural rest cycle and set flowers. Chinese jasmine vine comes to mind, flowering geraniums, oleander, fuchsia, primroses, African cyclamen etc. The parlour palm also doesn't mind cold but not freezing winters.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 6:53 AM on December 12, 2023 [5 favorites]


Rosemary and lavender should be quite content. Give Rosemary room to grow; she can be a big girl. Look to outdoor Mediterranean plants - those are quite content with those sorts of winter temps.
posted by hydra77 at 6:53 AM on December 12, 2023 [2 favorites]


There's a big difference between 34 and 50F! Also lots of stuff can take a cold night or two, but would give up if every night were 34F. I can keep just about any tropical houseplant in a semi-heated room that gets good natural light and a little bit of supplemental light. The temp varies with the outside temp, but is usually in the 45-55F zone except for a few ultra-cold nights where it may dip to 34F. Things I kept last winter that did fine: spider plant, elephant jade, angel wing begonia, passionflower, dwarf papyrus, philodendron, mini monstera (Rhaphidophora).

TLDR: 50F is fine for all but the most sensitive houseplants. Anything commonly kept should be fine, outside of orchids or bromeliads and a few others. Supplemental light will help.
posted by SaltySalticid at 7:16 AM on December 12, 2023


Your bathroom seems to correspond to Zone 10 in the USDA map so I would imagine that anything hardy to Zone 10 would survive, but may just lay dormant until things get warmer in the spring.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 8:25 AM on December 12, 2023


Stonecrop sedums! There are sedums sold as ground cover that make pretty good trailing succulents if you hang it in a pot or have it cascading over a shelf. My balcony stonecrop survived a snowstorm and a series of below freezing weeks last winter.
posted by spamandkimchi at 3:02 PM on December 12, 2023


- Ornamental grasses as houseplants. Jade. Ivies.
- Houseplant temperature guide
- Planting pot-within-pot (bubble wrap around the smaller pot's sides or fill gap with polystyrene peanuts; keep drainage holes clear) eases temperature swings.
- Plants kept in large pots would have more soil for insulation.
posted by Iris Gambol at 6:25 PM on December 12, 2023


We just moved into a house with a back porch that is made out of crumbling oatmeal, as far as I can tell. It would definitely freeze if we hadn't done a quicky plastic sheet / spray foam insulation; but it does have big south and west windows, so once the sun hits them it heats up. I keep my big pot herbs (rosemary, pineapple sage, thyme, lemongrass, marjoram, lavendar) and my laurel tree (it's about 7' tall now) there, and one thing that helps a lot is keeping the pots on plastic shoe trays on top of grow mats (the type used to start seedlings). I use the shoe trays so no water touches the mats or drips anywhere.
These emit a gentle heat all night long, and on very cold/overcast/snowy days-- I have them on timers or powerstrips that I turn off as needed. The electricity use of the grow mats are very small. I'll probably set up some grow lights for starting seedlings, but I don't use them for the big pots as I don't want to encourage new growth during this season.
posted by winesong at 10:41 AM on December 13, 2023 [1 favorite]


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