Yes, it seems like we've made it through another winter, but with that title I'm not talking about myself.
I realized recently that in my flurry of pre-freeze activity last month I never posted about my banana overwintering preparations. I let my Musa basjoo do whatever it will until a really hard freeze is forecast -- usually that means a low temperature below 25ºF (-4ºC) or so.
Yesterday's post was about my biggest surprise of the year (baby fish). Today I will share a smaller one, found in the front walkway garden:
I've been lazy with bringing plants indoors this year. Yes, I got them into the garage when necessary, but sorting them into the "stay in the garage" and "move into basement" lots was only about 50% complete until yesterday.
It's that time of year when I, in 5 minutes, drastically change the look of my back garden.
Although I did bring some plants in before the first frost was forecast a few weeks ago, I left many out there until much colder weather was coming. With the temperature not going above freezing for a couple of days (it's 16ºF / -9ºC this morning) I finally had to act.
As I've mentioned before, I have a new strategy for overwintering this year. Well, perhaps "attitude" is a better word than "strategy", but it's a change nonetheless. The mild autumn we've had probably has something to do with it too, as does my busy schedule.
Even though most plants are ahead of schedule this year due to our early warm weather here in St. Louis, a few of my plants have emerged late.
Spring for most people is a sure thing: a time when the weather warms up, blooms start appearing, and everything greens up. To a gardener though I think that Spring is less certain. We know it is coming -- some years more quickly than others -- but there is a fair amount of hope, surprise, and even disappointment along the way.
Temperatures are very springlike in St. Louis this week: between 60ºF (15ºC) and 70ºF (21ºC) every day with lows that don't go below 50ºF (10ºC). That means it's time to start moving things out of the garage and basement!
A taste of Spring this weekend had me taking a look at the veggie garden last Thursday, as I thought it would be an ideal time to get some seeds into the ground. Before planting though, it was time to review what was already here.
With three days of spring-like temperatures arriving starting today, I dragged the potted walking stick bamboo (Chimonobambusa Tumidissinoda) out of the garage.
Winter that is. It's not that the cold weather has me down, although if pleasant temperatures would hurry along that would be fine with me.
Last week I talked about the cactus that always seem to grow during the winter, regardless of how much light or water they get. Although I'm happy to see something growing at all during winter, my excitement is balanced by worry -- that winter growth won't be as "strong" as it will be once the plant moves back outside in the spring.
One thing I've learned after several years of overwintering plants indoors is that there is a balance that you need to strike between growing and not. The "not" is semi-dormancy and this is what I want for most of the plants, but some of them I actually want to push out new growth.
One of the ways that I continue gardening over the long winter months is through cuttings. It's one of my overwintering strategies for tender plants: take cuttings and root them instead of trying to overwinter the entire (sometimes large) plant.
I spent some time digging more elephant ears and cannas yesterday just before dark. I left some cannas in the ground as an experiment, and thought I would remove half or so of one large planting.
Because it's been so mild, there has not been any urgency in digging up the tropicals. Yes I dug and brought into the garage some of the papyrus (Cyperus papyrus) and the upright elephant ears (Alocasia macrorrhiza) quite a while ago, but the plants with tubers or rhizomes I've not worried about. Elephant Ears (Colocasia esculenta and others) and various cannas have been fine out there -- the ground has not yet frozen.
Although temperatures still don't have me concerned -- it's just been so mild, just barely getting below freezing a few nights -- I figured that it was time to get the Musa basjoo banana ready for winter.
I overwinter a lot of succulents indoors: agaves, aloes, euphorbias, cactus, and most of them are quite easy as long as they get a little light and are kept relatively dry.
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