Bringing the Plants Inside

This post, "Bringing the Plants Inside", was written for my blogspot blog called The Transplantable Rose by Annie in Austin.

Last Wednesday I planted bulbs while wearing shorts, because it was 89°F in early afternoon. The temperatures quickly dropped and we woke to 38°F on Thanksgiving morning. The cool weather lasted all weekend bringing an inch-and-a-half of needed rain. When I heard that a frost warning was issued for pre-dawn on Monday I was glad the two 7-foot tall plumerias were already inside the garage. It takes two people and a wheeled dolly to move them, but the smaller plants are easy to grab and move inside the garage. Just in case we dipped below freezing, I also cut one stem of the iris in its improbably late November bloom.

The frost was very light - just the basil, the tips of the impatiens and the sweet potato vines looked injured. The frost did less damage than last week's fight between a cat and a raccoon - that loud, midnight skirmish destroyed a large container of impatiens.

The Meyer's Lemon can shuttle between garage and patio until it gets really cold, but what about the four Christmas-type cactus, the aloe, the small jade plant and the unnamed Haworthia? They summer outside but they're frost-tender and the only window with enough winter sun for plants is in the breakfast room. Some of the plants had grown so much they had to be repotted and some of the pots were too big for the narrow sill. Philo came up with a solution. He built a two-legged table that fits over the sill, doubling the depth so more plants can fit.

Three of the Christmas cactus had set buds and went on the new shelf. The poky fourth one went out to the patio table.... maybe it will still set buds and catch up.

The salmon geranium at right has been blooming in the breakfast room window since March of 2006 but the red cyclamen at left was a recent impulse purchase. One of the jade plants was tucked in, a just budded Mother-of-Thousands came in from the patio to stand on the floor at left and the aloe vera is jammed in back. When it gets colder the Meyer's Lemon can stand on the floor on the right.

So our inside garden will be safe when the real freeze arrives. Perhaps I should have left the iris outside to take its chances but there's something so interesting and surreal in seeing them on the table [with a couple of sprigs of lavender!] on November 27th.

Outside, the light frost hadn't affected the Cestrum nocturnum on the south wall. This night-blooming jasmine usually releases its scent only after dark but I could smell its powdery scent today at 10 AM.

The 'Champagne' mini rose continues to bud and flower in the secret garden.

Cilantro plants go to seed when the heat arrives. The leaves are cilantro, but the seeds are coriander. After the seeds dried on last spring's plants I tossed them around and a few seedlings have sprouted to grow in cooler weather.

Most of the pecan and ash leaves are still on the tree - actually they're still green - but there were lots of wet, brown pecan leaves to rake. They don't add much fall color, do they? In the background you can see the second Meyer's Lemon, planted in the ground near the south wall, still shrouded in its frost-cover.

While raking I found a bunch of pecans and picked them all up. You know how you sort of learn to guess the relative weight of an object with experience? When I was in college I worked in a deli, and after some time could know what a half-pound was. This fall we learned to pick up pecans and know instantly which nutshells will be full, which empty, and which only partially developed. The good nuts are the smaller group lined up at the bottom and the larger group at the top are all empties.

Pecans and iris at the same time! Who could have guessed this would be our November harvest?

This post, "Bringing the Plants Inside", was written for my blogspot blog called The Transplantable Rose by Annie in Austin.