🪴HOW TO & TIPS
Why May is secretly the most dangerous month for your plants
Hear me out.
We spend all winter worrying about our plants. Are they too cold? Not enough light? Why has my Alocasia dropped another leaf? Then spring rolls in, things start growing again, and we exhale.
That exhale is exactly when things go sideways.
May is the month I see more avoidable plant deaths than almost any other, and it's not because of anything dramatic. It's because plants change gears so fast that our care routines lag behind. Here's what catches people out, and what to do about it.
The watering whiplash
Through April, your watering schedule was probably still a relaxed once-a-week situation. Most plants were just stretching their legs.
By mid-May, that same schedule will leave half your collection bone dry between waterings. Tropical aroids in particular (your Monsteras, Philodendrons, Anthuriums) start drinking like they've been wandering the desert for forty days. If you don't keep up, you'll see crispy leaf edges, drooping, and a kind of sulky vibe that's hard to put into words but unmistakable when you see it.
What to do: Check soil moisture every 3-4 days during May, even on plants you "know." Your plants from a month ago are not the same plants. They are thirstier and more demanding, like teenagers after football practice.
The feeding gap
This is the one I'm most passionate about. Your plants haven't eaten properly in five months. Now they're growing flat out, and a lot of people are still pouring plain water on them like it's January.
Think of it like trying to run a marathon on a glass of water and a Rich Tea biscuit. Your plant is putting out new leaves, new roots, sometimes new stems, and all of that needs nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, and a handful of micronutrients you can't really replicate without proper fertiliser.
The "feed it like Sunday roast" rule. Once a fortnight, give your plants a proper meal. Diluted balanced liquid fertiliser at half the recommended strength, applied to already-damp soil. Half strength every two weeks beats full strength once a month, every single time. Your plants will reward you for it.
The light shift nobody mentions
Here's a sneaky one. The sun is now hitting your windows at a completely different angle than it was in February. That gentle south-facing window your fiddle leaf fig was loving? It might now be getting blasted with direct midday sun and starting to scorch.
Walk around your home in the late morning and afternoon this week. Notice where the bright patches actually fall now. Plants that have been thriving in the same spot for months might suddenly need to shuffle 50cm to the side, or get a sheer curtain. Bleached patches and crispy brown spots on leaves are the warning signs.
The repotting trap
Yes, May is a great time to repot. But this is where I see the most common mistake of the whole year.
People go up too many sizes at once. They see their plant has outgrown its current pot, get excited, and stick it in something twice as big "to save repotting again next year." Then they wonder why six weeks later the plant looks miserable, the leaves are yellowing, and the soil never seems to dry out.
The rule. When you repot, go up a couple of sizes only. About 3-5cm wider in diameter than the current pot. Any more than that and you've got a pot full of damp soil with no roots to drink it, which is basically root rot's favourite buffet.
If your plant is already in a giant pot and you don't want to upsize, just refresh the top 5cm of soil instead. It's amazing what new soil and a bit of fertiliser can do.