Today’s Solutions: September 17, 2026

When a plant is outdoors and surrounded by 360-degrees of sunlight, its auxin (plant hormone) levels are evenly distributed, and it can grow straight up towards the sky. But when you put a houseplant indoors by a bright window, it only gets light from one side.

This causes the plant to grow towards the light, something that is known as phototropism. When this happens, it can leave little patches of exposed soil behind and make the plant look lopsided and sad. Fortunately, there’s a simple fix for this: just rotate it.

When a plant is leaning, it’s telling us that it’s exhausted from using all that energy to grow in one direction. That’s why it’s essential that you rotate your houseplants every once in a while to make sure that their auxin gets evenly distributed.

One simple way to go about doing this is by giving your plants a little quarter-turn every time you give them water. That way, the plant gets light from all sides and grow upwards to create a little canopy.

Solutions News Source Print this article
More of Today's Solutions

8 low-cost hobbies that add hours of joy to your week

Image alt text: Hands carefully pressing colorful flowers between the pages of an open book on a wooden table surrounded by dried botanicals and ...

Read More

The world’s largest battery-electric ferry just crossed an ocean

BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM In 2019, a South American transport company ordered a diesel ferry. By the time it launched six years ...

Read More

Travel scams have gotten harder to spot. Here’s what changed and what t...

BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM The old cues for spotting a scam are becoming unreliable. Misspelled words, strange formatting, unfamiliar sender names, requests ...

Read More

Europe establishes its first wild river national park in Albania

The Vjosa, one of Europe's few wild rivers, has become Europe's first national park. From the Pindus mountains in Greece to the Adriatic coast, ...

Read More