Skip to main content

Featured

The Newt (Somerset, England)

After Stourhead , the second garden on the tour that day was "The Newt". Talk about a change in garden styles! As I review my photos, I can appreciate the beauty and style of this garden, but I must confess, it was one of my least favorites.  I remember mostly the heat (it was one of our warmer days), the glaring sun with few trees in sight, and the commercial feel of the whole enterprise. But then again, this was mainly a vegetable garden and I was having an "off" day (I had just toured Stourhead, where I missed some of the main landmarks). The entrance took us through an area with gift shops and display areas (nice thing about photos is you see things you missed - I had not noticed the intricate ceiling design) - We did have an actual tour guide at this one, and he led us through the entire garden - Down a winding, blinding white walkway, towards the large vegetable garden - Leaving one vegetable garden, we headed up a grassy avenue with water features.  Along th...

Bringing Plants in for the Winter


It's that time of year and actually it looks like it is happening faster this year. Temperatures are already dipping into the 30s at night and next week I see a prediction of 28 one night and a high of 42 next Friday. Ouch! And some forecasters are predicting snow showers. What??

I know the photo shows a hot mess and it is but I'm conducting an experiment and hope to spread the plants out some as soon as I can make room. We are fortunate to have a garage at the basement level of our house. We love it although it is woefully small, especially when both our vehicles are in and they always are. That leaves about 6 -8 feet on one side for storage. Shelves run all along the wall as well as space for our old functioning refrigerator which we use for overflow. Most of the shelf space is taken with tools, Christmas decorations, etc.

For years, we've overwintered tender potted plants - Angel's Trumpet, fuchsia, begonia, etc. in this dark basement with good success. However, they take up so much floor space. We finally decided that fuchsias and begonias took so long to bloom the next year that it was feasible to just buy new plants. So this year, there are fewer plants or so I thought. I'm also adding plants that I normally keep inside the house (they always suffer and Michael bitches about the mess they make) and I have a large mandevilla that I got late in the season from the nursery as a freebie. I hope I can keep it alive. And there is the Plectranthrus 'Guacamole', one of our favorites this year, that was just too beautiful to toss.

This year I'm doing things different with the addition of a plant light. I've never used one before and no instructions came with the light. There are various timer increments (6-8-12 hours) as well as different colored light levels and brightness modes. So, more research on this is needed as well as clearing off more shelf space to spread these out some (which will probably mean buying more lights!). Ah, the things we do for plants...

Do you use grow lights? What experiences and recommendations do you have?


Text and photos by Phillip Oliver, Dirt Therapy

Comments

  1. Best wishes with hauling those plants in, Phillip. That's one annual chore I don't have to worry about in coastal SoCal. I've heard that the La Nina conditions that feed our drought often mean colder than usual conditions for the PNW. I hope you get more rain than snow!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment