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Wintering Plants in Pots - Part 2Read the article this discussion is about
This archived discussion is "read only". » Marge_Talt - Good ideas Hi Marcella,Thanks! Yes, isn't it amazing how we have to relearn stuff all the time. I seem to reinvent wheels continually :-) I like the nursery idea, too...but I'm not sure I advocate it. Perhaps as a last resort. Since I personally haven't tried this one, I'm only going on hearsay and not experience...so it kinda makes me nervous, but I thought it worth the mention, since it did work for the nursery. I, too, have been having this gut feeling that Mother Nature was gonna sock it to us this year. But, the other night, one of the local weatherpersons gave his winter forecast and said that while we would get some cold periods and more snow than last year, all in all it was supposed to be a rather mild winter. Now, do I believe him 100%???? Naaa....think I'm gonna plan for the worst and maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised instead. Our temps should be similar, but I think you may be a tad warmer...or maybe I should say milder...being in PNW....probably wetter from what I hear. -- posted by Marge_Talt » Marge_Talt - sub for cold frame? Hi Holly,Yes, think even with cast off, you need to take it easy with that wrist! Well, FWIW...That agapanthus probably needs to be somewhere it won't freeze. Does your garage freeze? I have one in about the same size pot that I winter in my "pseudo greenhouse" / garage. It goes dormant after the first frosts, but then wants to come back about mid winter. If we could guarantee a winter like last year, it might survive outside up against the house covered in leaves. But, if it is colder, it will die on you. I think there are only one or two of that species that are winter hardy in the ground around here..most are rated to USDA z. 8. If your garage does get to freezing, could you put it in one of those styrofoam coolers to help insulate it? Maybe with added foam peanuts?
I bet the white fly attacked because of dry air. Try putting it inside on a tray of pebbles/water (or propped up somehow...eh Barbara?) over a container of water to add moisture around the plant leaves. This seems to keep the nasty critters at bay for me and prior to doing this, I had massive scale, whitefly and spider mite problems on both my tropicals and tender outdoor plants I was trying to winter inside. The heuchera may not root if they have no warmth to encourage root growth....bit late for dividing..ahem :-) If they were mine, I'd bring them in to the greenhouse, or at least a cool room in the house, to encourage them to root and monitor for critters...then, put them in the greenhouse. You could try covering them with leaves, but you may find a rotted mess next spring..then, again, you may not. This is one where you may have to take a chance if you don't want to bring them in. If you want to leave them out, put them up against the house and cover with leaves...just make sure to check them during winter for water, as they will likely not get any if the are under the eaves. The hosta could be covered in mulch. Dump a few bags on them and leave until early spring. They are tough guys. Just water them after the mulch fills the pots and then dump the rest of the mulch on them. Can you manage bags of mulch? If not, can you scratch a shallow one-handed trench in a soft bed and just dump them in and cover with leaves? Sounds like you need your buddy from Chevy Chase to come over and give you a hand! I can surely empathize as I can well imagine how limiting it is to try to deal with these plants with only one hand! Do be careful of that injured one... -- posted by Marge_Talt » Marge_Talt - doing it alone Sonni,Your tale of carrying the futon down 5th Avenue made me laugh...and brought back memories of the time I lugged a two 4x8 sheets of plywood about 10 blocks in San Francisco....not to mention the time I borded a bus there with about 8 gallons of paint, brushes, etc. Lordy! What you do when you must! :-) -- posted by Marge_Talt » HollyT - move to greenhouse? a major reason i paid $$$ to have a greennhouse was to overwinter things like agapanthus and to keep the dormant brugs out of the dining room, and now i'm afraid to put them in it! what do you think would happen if i hosed off the pot and then wrapped the top of pot and cut-down plant with reemay, and slid them back under the shelf to darker cool spot against the wall?i would take pity on the heuchera and put them on heat mat, but it's full of amaryllis that need to bloom by christmas (are there any other amaryllis addicts out there?). i suppose just getting them into the gh with regular water would help. when/if they're rooted, shd they go in cold frame so they will have some winter? -- posted by HollyT » ______MarcellaGM - Storing Plants Marge, I don't think I'll use the nursery method but, you never know. I inevitably forget plants and have to rush out at the last minute with old sleeping bags and tarps I keep for just this purpose. It is not very aesthetically pleasing but it's saved a few plants on occasion until I could rescue them.-- posted by ______MarcellaGM » ______MarcellaGM - Storing Plants Marge, I don't think I'll use the nursery method but, you never know. I inevitably forget plants and have to rush out at the last minute with old sleeping bags and tarps I keep for just this purpose. It is not very aesthetically pleasing but it's saved a few plants on occasion until I could rescue them.-- posted by ______MarcellaGM » Marge_Talt - Carol Wallace Need Your Input and move to greenhouse Well, Holly, that's the reason I just last weekend got my new real live plastic kit greenhouse up to replace my old leanto. (To winter marginally hardy pots of stuff, etc.)Why are you afraid to put those guys in the greenhouse? Bugs? I'd just give them a good hosing off with a hose and then a nice dose of Safer's if you think they're bug covered and put them in the greenhouse. Well, I've put my brugs in the conference room where they have warmth and light and they've put out new leaves after dropping all the large ones they had outside because I don't think the new greenhouse will be warm enough for them. Seems to me I read in the Logee's catalog when I got them that the min. temp. they could tolerate was 60F. As I say, this is my first attempt at wintering them over, so I really have no experience here. Why wouldn't you just set them in the light and let them keep growing? Wish Carol would stop by and get in on this because she's got real experience with this plant and may be able to help here. Yoo Hoo, Carol! Where are you??? I think just putting the Heuchera in the greenhouse and giving them water and the warmth and light in there would encourage them to root. Heat mat would be super, but they would probably hold on until the Amaryllis were off it...only a month to go until Christmas! Is your greenhouse heated? If not, then once rooted, you could just put them in a cool spot on the floor tho' I'm not certain they need a totally cold dormant period, especially newly rooted cuttings...seems you could just let them continue to grow...but I may be wrong as I haven't done this to see what would happen. I don't know how my new gh is going to act...my old leanto got pretty nippy on the floor next to the outside edge although it stayed about 40F on my "bench" (board on block) areas a couple feet off the floor. It was primative, to say the least, so I'm embarking on a totally new experience here as my new one is 12' x 12' and will act quite differently, I think.... I have a half dozen large pots of assorted Amaryllis, but let them bloom in spring and go dormant in winter as I can never get around to putting them on a forced bloom schedule. It's like trying to rebloom Poinsettias...never can manage to put them in a dark closet for the right amount of time, or if I do, then I forget they're in there and they dry out. So, I just summer mine outside and let them get frosted a couple of times so the foliage starts to die off and then put them in a corner in the garage and leave them until they start to show new growth sometime in March when I bring them into light and start watering again. They aren't magnificent specimens, since I'm pretty casual about their care, but the bloom for me around April or so. -- posted by Marge_Talt » Marge_Talt - Storing Plants Marcella,Whatever works is my mantra! Aesthetics be damned when it comes to saving a plant! I'll use whatever I can get my hot and stickey's on when it comes right down to it...and I know what you mean about forgetting someone. I can't count the times I've cleverly stashed a pot of something in a border somewhere that needed a bit extra and forgotten all about the poor thing until all the leaves are down and there's this pot sitting there exposed to the elements. I regularly have several fairly tacky looking solutions to overwintering things...I have trained my eyes not to see them as the eyesores they are :-) -- posted by Marge_Talt » ______MarcellaGM - Whatever works and Brugmansias Marge, The way the rain has been pouring for days now and the wind storm last night that felled large trees and blew a few roofs off I am just trying to clean up the mess of broken conifer branches laying around. I had planned on building a temporary green house over one of my raised vegie. beds. A garden aquaintance of mine has a pvc structure, covered with a prefabricated plastic covering. I must ask where she purchased it.Holly, brugmansias in my greenhouse put up with temperatures that go down to fourtyfive degrees in the winter and do just fine. I always cut them back so they will fit into my small greenhouse. I then save the cuttings and put them into vermiculite. They manage to root and I end up with even more plants. They root even in my cool greenhouse. Like Marge, I use Safers soap to keep the bugs off or give everything a good water spray. -- posted by ______MarcellaGM Please follow the guidelines set forth in the Suite101 Posting Etiquette when adding to the discussion. |
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