Why does my eucalyptus drop it’s leaves as soon as I bring it in for the winter?
Without knowing a bit more about your growing conditions and how big the plant is, it’s hard to say. I’m also not very familiar with Eucalyptus.
There are a few reasons that other plants will drop leaves, mostly revolving around either a change in the conditions such as dryer air, or even being put too close to a heater blowing hot air on them.
The other huge reason that plants will drop leaves is if there is no longer enough light – plants require light to make sugars into energy to grow, so if the light levels drop dramatically, they have no choice but to jettison some cargo and drop a few (or many) leaves.
If you can, provide extra light for the plant with grow lights – it’s not enough to just put it in a sunny window in some cases, because the day length or photoperiod will be too short.
Some plants are extremely sensitive to shorter days, which of course they equate with the arrival of winter.
The longer light will ensure that even if the plant does drop a few leaves, it can quickly grow some more to replace them. The optimum day length is about 12 equal hours of day and night, so get a timer to set the lights to come on and turn off on that cycle.
Hope this helps,
Jacki
