Get wrapped up for winter
O
NLY a few years ago the arrival of autumn saw gardeners lagging their greenhouses with bubblewrap and setting up their heaters ready to keep all their frost-tender plants safely through the winter.
But these days it’s too expensive to heat a greenhouse so it’s time to go back to the old ways our grandparents used.
The best way to over-winter pelargoniums and fuchsias is as rooted cuttings taken in late August and kept in trays or pots on a windowsill indoors. If you didn’t take cuttings the next best way is to cut your old plants down to a few inches above ground level now before they are killed by the frosts, then dig them up, trim the roots slightly and pot them up.
They should survive in an unheated greenhouse, porch or car port if you keep the compost almost dry from October till late March and cover them with newspaper or horticultural fleece as insulation on the coldest nights.
Alternatively, you could put them in a spare bedroom or conservatory but hacked-back geraniums are no objects of beauty.
As a last resort park your potfuls in the shed and keep them bone dry, or else dig the plants up, remove all the soil from round the roots and hang them up in nets in the shed roof. Even though the leaves fall off and the plants look half-dead they’ll often revive in spring when returned to proper growing conditions. It’s worth the risk when there’s no substitute.
When you have collections of frost-tender greenhouse plants such as cacti and succulents or streptocarpus they’ll be happy on a cool, bright windowsill indoors.
Since they are dormant in winter push the pots up close together to make the most of the space.
Plants such as cannas and begonias that die down to corms, bulbs or tubers in winter are even easier to keep. When the plants die down naturally in autumn let the compost in their pots dry out completely. You can then store them on their sides in a frost-free shed or utility room. But when space is short you can take them out of their pots and keep the dry corms in paper bags in a drawer indoors until it’s time to repot them next spring.
Conservatory plants such as bougainvillea that only need to be kept frost-free usually get by under glass without extra heating in the southern counties but some species – notably citrus plants – need to be kept several degrees warmer than the 35F that’s considered minimum for safety.
So if there’s no background heating for the coldest nights, move them into the living room even if it’s only during cold spells.
But if space for over-wintering tender plants is severely limited my advice is to protect the most expensive ones first, plus any treasures which will be hard to replace.
If push comes to shove you can always buy in new fuchsias and pelargoniums as starter plants next spring. It’s still going to be a lot cheaper than turning on the power in the greenhouse. And anyway, it’s the perfect excuse to treat yourself to a few new varieties.
KEEP YOUR BIRDS COMING BACK FOR MORE