It’s time to decide: Should you bother trying to save the plants you’ve been laboring over all summer or just buy replacements come spring?
It’s time to decide: Should you bother trying to save the plants you’ve been laboring over all summer or just buy replacements come spring?
What to Do With Your Plants for the Winter
ByMargaret RoachOct. 1, 2020
What to Do With Your Plants for the Winter
What to Do With Your Plants for the Winter
It’s time to decide: Should you bother trying to save the plants you’ve been laboring over all summer or just buy replacements come spring?
Here’s what to know →
What to Do With Your Plants for the Winter
Take some cuttings.
Rather than carrying annual pots indoors for winter, do this well before the first frost. First, pinch off any flowers or buds. The length of the cutting should average two to three inches.
What to Do With Your Plants for the Winter
Certain cuttings root readily in water, but a cell pack filled with potting soil is better. Mist regularly or put a plastic bag over the cell pack to make a mini-greenhouse. Fast-rooting cuttings like coleus and sweet potato vine can be potted up to larger containers.
What to Do With Your Plants for the Winter
Stash dormant bulbs and tubers.
When frost wilts the aboveground parts, cut the plant back to the ground and dig carefully. Lay in an airy spot out of the sun for a week. Put in a rodent-proof, frost-free space with a temperature of about 40 degrees, dark and not damp.
What to Do With Your Plants for the Winter
Treat some as houseplants.
Experthus, elephant ears in the genus Alocasia, cane-type angel wing begonias,Tradescantia and flowering maple (Abutilon) are good winter houseplants. Allow the soil to dry between waterings. You don’t want to push active growth.
What to Do With Your Plants for the Winter
Store dormant plants in their pots.
Let the Brugmansia (angel’s trumpet), tropical hibiscus and tuberous Begonia boliviensis nap. For fancy-leaf geraniums, first cut off any flowers. Keep somewhere dry, dark and with a temperature of about 40 degrees.
What to Do With Your Plants for the Winter
Save some seed.
Annuals are good candidates for seed-saving. The goal is to find ripe seed and to avoid collecting after a rain. Let the seed dry for a few days to a few weeks then store it in a cool, dry and dark place, in labeled baggies or envelopes.
What to Do With Your Plants for the Winter
Say farewell, my lovely …
Compost non-hardy plants and those prone to insect infestations, like Petunias, Calibrachoa, heliotrope, Bacopa, Lantana and Fuchsia and Dichondra. Buying new ones in the spring will be easier.
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