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Agatha Christie's Greenway (Devon, England) - The House

I can think of two places that we visited where I enjoyed the house more than the gardens. The first was Greenway, not for the house itself, which was surprisingly small and cramped, but for the history behind it and the fascinating mementos on display. Agatha Christie and her husband Max Mallowan were enthusiastic collectors. You can see their collections on display throughout the house - European and Oriental ceramics, pottery, African tribal masks, Egyptian artifacts, Tunbridge ware, china, trinkets, and books. The Morning Room has a portrait of Agatha Christie as a child and her doll Rosie, sitting in a chair - The Drawing Room was where the family would gather in the evenings. Christie would entertain guests by reading chapters from manuscripts of her latest books.  Agatha Christie's bedroom. Max always slept on a smaller portable traveling cot (you can see part of it in the foreground). It was his favorite bed and he carried it with him on all of his archaeological travels. N...
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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
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  1. Kris PetersonNovember 3, 2022 at 9:51 AM

    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!

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