Garden thoughts, plans, and daydreams are captured here while sipping a cup of coffee and enjoying some type of food that is probably not good for me.
Overwintering plants is both a money saver and a time saver. By keeping the same plants year after year, you do not have to buy new ones every year. The over-wintered plants mature saving you time since you do not have to grow new ones from seed, or make a shopping trip to purchase new plants, and then care for them into maturity.
My First Over-Wintering Experience
I purchased my first fig tree in the summer of 2020 at a local Farmer’s Market. It was in a pot and I had decided that I would continue growing it in a pot and not place it in the ground until I knew more about maintaining and keeping a fig tree. So, in the Fall of 2020, I went back to the Farmer’s Market and asked the vendor where I had purchased the fig tree if she had any tips on keeping it alive in the winter and what she had done.
She explained that she had kept the fig tree in her garage during the winter. I decided to do the same. When the first heavy frost was forecasted, I moved the fig tree in the pot into my garage. I watched several YouTube videos about fig trees and found that they are deciduous and lose their leaves in the winter. And this was true to form as all the leaves on my fig tree fell off. I turned the garage light on at night for about 8 hours. This was a basic LED light and not a grow light. I did not water the fig tree for the entire winter. The fig tree went dormant and in the early Spring I noticed leaves starting to bud out on it.
I had purchased two Hibiscus plants in pots around the same time and did not know how to care for them over the winter. I placed them in the garage and ignored them for the entire winter. They received the same light as the fig tree but I did not water them. One plant held on to its green leaves the entire time. The other dropped all of it’s leaves and in the Spring I thought it had died.
As the weather warmed, I hardened off all three plants over a couple of weeks. I placed them outside in a sunny location for several hours a day and them moved them back in over night. After the two weeks, I left all three outside. I am happy to say that all 3 plants grew successfully for the next season. I did prune a portion of the weakest Hibiscus, I’m not sure if part of it had died or not. It diid eventually bud out and return as a strong blooming plant during Spring, Summer and Fall. I honestly feel I was just lucky because I had vigorous plants that bounce back after winter.
How I Am Over-Wintering Plants This Year
Houseplants? Coleus,Peppers, Pineapple and Mandevilla
I decided to give my gardening a head start for this next season and overwinter some of the plants so I don’t have to buy new plants or grow new ones from seeds. I have Coleus and a pineapple plant over-wintering in my bathroom. I moved the two Mandevilla vines from outside into the dining room in front of a window and am treating them as houseplants for the winter. You can follow the Coleus over-wintering project here >>>Coleus As A Houseplant . I have Pepper plants (see the pic at top of this article) thriving in a southern facing window in my laundry room. See more about this project here >>>Over-Wintering Pepper Plants .
The pineapple plant was grown from the top of a pineapple and rooted in water last winter, then moved to a pot in soil and placed on the patio last Spring. I’ll be writing a blog about growing pineapple plants at a later date.
Winterizing in the Garage: Fig Trees, Hibiscus And Many Others
The fig tree has returned to the garage, along with two new ones. The Hibiscus have also returned along with four new ones. Weather tender succulents have found their place on a garage shelf. Currently in the garage you will also find an African daisy, various herbs, and four corkscrew rush plants. All of these are watered once per month on a day that the temp rises above freezing. I have a calendar reminder set for each month through April.
I have five geranium plants that are stored in a box as dry root plants. This is an experiment to see if it works for me. I have watched YouTube videos showing how it should be done and the content creators swear by their success at doing this. I purchased a water spray bottle and lightly spray the roots once per month. I am following the suggestions as described in the video below.
Although they usually survive our winter, I have dug up the Canna, Caladiums, and Elephant Ears and they are stored in plastic buckets in the garage. With heavy mulch they usually survive outdoors. However, last winter we had one of those every 20 years cold winters with temps plunging to 20 below. I decided not to taking any chances this winter and dug them up to be stored for the winter.
I also brought in two Rose Of Sharon Hibiscus bushes that I started from cuttings during the Spring.
The Late Fall/Winter Outdoor Garden
I am currently harvesting radishes, kale and turnip greens and turnips from my vegetable garden. These were planted in September and have been providing fresh vegetables and salads for the past month. I will pick the turnips and radishes until they are all gone. The Kale will remain until early summer when it goes too seed.
Since the ground doesn’t freeze in my area, Zone 6B, I will be planting my garlic this next week. Last year I planted it in November. This year I have had other priorities and have waited to plant garlic.
Summary
Late December
It its the last week of December and the weather has been a rollercoaster in temps. This is normal for Northwest Arkansas. Christmas Day hit 75 degrees. That is unusually high. We’ve also seen temps in the 20s this past month. I am waiting until January to prune trees and bushes that prefer winter pruning.
The Coleus over-wintering in the bathroom are a mixed bag of hit and miss. Some of the smaller plants that I rooted at the end of the summer have died. The larger Coleus plants are doing fine. I water them all about once a week. The plants in the garage are being watered once per month. I do not check them exept when I water them. I am of the mentality of they make it, they make it. If not, I’ll figure out another plan for next winter.
The pepper plants are thriving but I’m finding I need to be watering them more often then I had been. I will be doing this. Of all the plants I am overwintering inside, the peppers are the ones I’m most interested in seeing survive.
Imoved the pineapple plant from the garage to the bathroom. The tips of its leaves were turning brown. it needs more water and the temp was dropping too cold in the garage.
Update June 8
Update of how things turned out. I lost the Mandevilla plants even though they were placed in a sunny window inside the house and were watered regularly. I lost the corkscrew rush. I had placed them in the garage and forgot to water them regularly. I lost all but one of the large Coleus plants. It is healthy and currently living on my patio. I have already taken cuttings which have rooted in water. I will be planting them in a garden bed soon. I had placed them in a bathroom for the winter thinking the humidity would work well for them. Obviously I was wrong.
I eventually moved the last living Coleus, one of the large ones, into the room where I had set up grow lights for starting seeds. It was on the floor beside these. It thrived in this location. I will keep a group of Coleus at the end of this season and place them in that location to see if they will survive the next winter.
At the end of the season I wound up with a total of 10 Hibiscus plants. Four of them died. The other six have leafed out and two of them have already started blooming. All of the fig trees are doing well. The petite black is loaded with tiny figs that I hope make it to maturity.
Although I was very skeptical about the Geraniums, four of the six plants survived the winter bare root in a box. I planted them out at the end of April. When I removed them from the box, the leaves of course were dead but there was still green on the stems. They are now healthy, green and starting to bloom in two different planters in my garden.