Category Archives: overwintering tropicals

April showers bring May cacti?

Even though it feels even less like spring than last week, I lugged all the deck succulents and cacti out for an April shower.  Temperatures should be above freezing for the next few days and skies shoud be cloudy so it’s a good time to get them used to fresh air and sun again.  After nearly six months indoors with little light and even less water I bet they like the change. cacti and succulentsThe pencil euphorbia and the purplish euphorbia in the back (I have the names somewhere…) hate my winter abuse, the rest don’t seem to care much.  If temperatures drop to freezing I’ll push them up against the house, if temps go down into the 20’s I’ll either cover them up or bring them back in for a couple nights.

There’s a reason this collection is growing.  They do fine in the heat, don’t mind my hit or miss watering, and look good from spring to fall.  All are planted in a mix of 75% potting soil/25% sandbox sand, terra cotta pots, and topped with a light layer of garage sale aquarium gravel on top.  I’ll admit there have been casualties (overwintering casualties) along the way but for the most part it’s been easy-peasy.  If anyone is interested I’ll put up a list of what I have…. if not we might just visit them again in August to see how much they’ve grown!

A day late and a dollar short

I go back and forth on overwintering tropicals and summer bulbs.  Last year was an up year.  I planted a bunch of cannas, elephant ears, dahlias, and banana plants in a new bed over at my mother in law’s.  The tropicals plus a number of tasteless, gaudy, bright annuals were all right up my alley.

tropicalismo garden

A little bit of tropicalismo in my Pennsylvania garden

The annuals were all seed grown and the tropicals were all little bits and sprigs that I keep over from year to year.  I overwinter the lazy way and some are ok with that while others…..

In short, the good gardener will check up on them around early February, add water to the dry ones, remove the rotted ones, air out the damp ones, just give them a general once over to carry them through the rest of the winter.  If you are not of the good gardener type you can still save most of your tropicals if you check on them around March 13th and give them a once over.  I think the yellow, crispy asparagus ferns may still pull through, now that they got a bit of water.

overwinter succulents

Tropicals hiding from the cold

The aloes and jade plant snuggled up against the dim (slightly heated) garage window are troopers and don’t need a drop all winter.

These are the bulbs and roots and tubers that I threw into bags and buckets.  I’m hoping for the best, but it’s tricky to walk the line between keeping them dry and cool enough to keep them dormant vs everything else that could go wrong.  Too wet, they rot.  Too dry, they crisp.  Too warm, they sprout.  Too cold, they freeze……

overwinter cannas

The ugly truth of my overwintering process

I guess I do just kinda throw them in a pile and hope for the best.  To do otherwise would go against my natural laziness.

Here are a few bigger pots, just rolled into the garage and allowed to go dry.  You wouldn’t think it but many tropicals will just “hang out” in the dim, cool garage until spring  (I did throw some water on these about a month ago).  The only one giving real problems is the fig which decided to sprout once it got water.  I really should have left that one outside.

overwinter tropicals

Geraniums….. probably shouldn’t have bothered.

overwinter geraniums

I won’t make you look at the coleus cuttings.  They’ve been in water on the windowsill since October and look worse than the geraniums.  In a week or so I’ll pot them up, take some geraniums cuttings and see what we can do with them.  It should have been done now, but I’m always running a day late and a dollar short.