It's spring cleaning time! What's the first thing you think of when it comes to spring cleaning?
One of the first things I think of is dusting. We do dusting year-round, but we always seem to get a bit more into it first thing in the spring. Where we live in Las Vegas, we have caliche clay for much of our soils. That makes the dust even worse as this clay makes the dust stick to almost everything. We clean our computers (my self-built desktop PC and my wife's laptop), TV and fans the most as they have the biggest chance of being damaged from being too dusty.
Electronics produce heat when they are on and that heat needs to be dissipated to keep the devices from having performance issues and even from developing physical damage. I've replaced several video cards, motherboards, processors and power supplies in customers' computers in other jobs that I've had that only went bad because they were insulated in a blanket of dust and couldn't cool off.
We've all dusted nicknacks, drapes, picture frames etc. but have you ever considered dusting your plants? Yes, that's right. The leaves of your plants, both indoors and out, benefit from being dusted now and then. Indoor plants need it especially, but even outdoor plants get dusty, especially when you live somewhere with fine dust like we do. What good does it do? Well, the leaves of plants are a lot like the photovoltaic panels on solar powered devices. They need to be exposed to photos from the sun to get the energy they need. Try it with a solar powered calculator, for example. If you cover up the solar panel, the calculator screen goes blank (unless it has a battery backup). Now, try sprinkling a little flour on the panel. It will also lose power.
If you gently rub the dust off the leaves of your plants with your fingers or a dusting shammy cloth, it will help your plants get more light. Don't use water and especially don't use any cleaner solutions as the water could lead to powdery mildew (a mold) on the leaves if you don't dry them and the cleaner solutions could damage the waxy coating that protects most plant leaves from drying out. Dusting your plants is especially important indoors since most buildings have very little light compared to the outdoors. Unless you've got grow bulbs in all of the light fixtures in the rooms where your plants are, there is very little UVB wavelength light indoors. Most plants need at least a few hours of UVB light to maximize the efficiency of their photosynthetic processes. The lower the intensity of the light, the less carbohydrates can be produced by each photosynthesis reaction.
That is not to say that all plants need full sunlight for a long time during the day. In fact, many species of plants, especially those that come originally from the tropics and from forested environments are easily sunburned by exposure to too much light. Also, if a plant is kept in a low light environment, such as indoors away from windows (or even in front of windows if the glass is UV tinted and/or the sun never shines directly on the glass) for more than a few weeks, and then it moved to a high light situation, such as outside on a patio without at least partial shade, it is very stressful to the plant. In each of these cases, many plants lose their leaves. If the plant was very healthy before and if the proper amounts of water and nutrients are provided (more isn't always better), the plants may grow new leaves.
However, as a general rule, plants perform better if their leaves are clean. So clean off their 'solar panels' for better performance.
One of the first things I think of is dusting. We do dusting year-round, but we always seem to get a bit more into it first thing in the spring. Where we live in Las Vegas, we have caliche clay for much of our soils. That makes the dust even worse as this clay makes the dust stick to almost everything. We clean our computers (my self-built desktop PC and my wife's laptop), TV and fans the most as they have the biggest chance of being damaged from being too dusty.
Electronics produce heat when they are on and that heat needs to be dissipated to keep the devices from having performance issues and even from developing physical damage. I've replaced several video cards, motherboards, processors and power supplies in customers' computers in other jobs that I've had that only went bad because they were insulated in a blanket of dust and couldn't cool off.
We've all dusted nicknacks, drapes, picture frames etc. but have you ever considered dusting your plants? Yes, that's right. The leaves of your plants, both indoors and out, benefit from being dusted now and then. Indoor plants need it especially, but even outdoor plants get dusty, especially when you live somewhere with fine dust like we do. What good does it do? Well, the leaves of plants are a lot like the photovoltaic panels on solar powered devices. They need to be exposed to photos from the sun to get the energy they need. Try it with a solar powered calculator, for example. If you cover up the solar panel, the calculator screen goes blank (unless it has a battery backup). Now, try sprinkling a little flour on the panel. It will also lose power.
If you gently rub the dust off the leaves of your plants with your fingers or a dusting shammy cloth, it will help your plants get more light. Don't use water and especially don't use any cleaner solutions as the water could lead to powdery mildew (a mold) on the leaves if you don't dry them and the cleaner solutions could damage the waxy coating that protects most plant leaves from drying out. Dusting your plants is especially important indoors since most buildings have very little light compared to the outdoors. Unless you've got grow bulbs in all of the light fixtures in the rooms where your plants are, there is very little UVB wavelength light indoors. Most plants need at least a few hours of UVB light to maximize the efficiency of their photosynthetic processes. The lower the intensity of the light, the less carbohydrates can be produced by each photosynthesis reaction.
That is not to say that all plants need full sunlight for a long time during the day. In fact, many species of plants, especially those that come originally from the tropics and from forested environments are easily sunburned by exposure to too much light. Also, if a plant is kept in a low light environment, such as indoors away from windows (or even in front of windows if the glass is UV tinted and/or the sun never shines directly on the glass) for more than a few weeks, and then it moved to a high light situation, such as outside on a patio without at least partial shade, it is very stressful to the plant. In each of these cases, many plants lose their leaves. If the plant was very healthy before and if the proper amounts of water and nutrients are provided (more isn't always better), the plants may grow new leaves.
However, as a general rule, plants perform better if their leaves are clean. So clean off their 'solar panels' for better performance.