When do your House Plants come in for the winter?

Hey Podster:

Thanks for the welcome ..... newbie for a couple of days now and already addicted! About my plant books: I have a few, but they are all about 30 years old! And haven't been looked at in at least 20 Years!! They are just piled out in my Florida room on a shelf. I used to remember all the botanical names of my plants, but as I get old, I don't retain anything from one minute to the next .... so, I just gave up. I subscribe to a couple of magazines, mainly Florida Gardening and Country Gardens, Garden Design - I like to see all those beautiful gardens in the magazines and drool! I just enjoy any plant even if I don't know what the heck it is! Like my Rhipsalis that was so nicely ID'd for me by Nan yesterday, I have for years been calling it my string bean plant! LOL

I don't have any real favorite plants .... love them all! I have about a dozen african violets, some palms, philo's, a couple of begonias, coleus, crotons, about a dozen orchids, dracenas, peace lily's, a couple of ferns, some roses, pentas, a couple of cacti, gardenias, amyrillis, hibiscus, a ficus tree, schefellera .... the list goes on. Nothing fancy, just a mish-mash of stuff in the ground as well as in containers!

I'm so enjoying reading about everyone else's gardens/plants and also seeing photo's. Here's a photo of one of my favorite croton's, I had it in a pot for years and spring of 2005 I planted it in the front yard when we were doing some re-landscaping after the hurricanes of 2004!

Very pretty Croton, it looks as tho it has adapted well. It looks quite tall, how many years have you kept it?
We have a Texas Gardening magazine that is a great magazine and a friend receives many others which she shares. Many of my gardening & plant books are older. The names may have changed to protect the innocent but the information is still valid. The ones I love are the Southern Living Garden Annual books. They have all the plant and gardening articles in Southern Living ~ one book for each year. It is like having a good garden magazine whenever the urge strikes. Unfortunately I still work so my reading time is limited and DG isn't helping with that score... : ))

Hey, Lin...I was going to say something about the "Florida Room", too!! LOL!
Just funny to hear a person in Fla saying they have a Florida room, lol (Cuz I don't have a Wisconsin Room!?) .....though I have heard the term used her up north quite a bit!

Carrie...I've got to read up on your PT/yellow-jacket saga!
Hope the PT wins!

Nan,
I won, or maybe the Force won, because I could never figure out who moved the pot away from the YJ spot, or who peeled off the cracked thin plastic spot. It had been pretty windy, so I am willing to concede to divine intervention.

And just what is a Florida room????

xxxx, Carrie

That's good to hear (read?) Carrie!

My understanding is a Florida room = a Sun Room, or Four Seasons Room, as they're also referred to 'round these parts!
One thing I do know for certain is *I wish I had one*!!!! LOL!

Well, if it's an enclosed porch, then I have one too, although we call it "Emma's bedroom". LOL

xxxx, Carrie

Hi everyone .... The Florida Plant Lady again:

I think I explained on another thread somewhere about Florida rooms. It's just, as Nan said .... A Sun Room kinda, sorta! :) Mine is an aluminum room built on the back of the house, with windows and tile floors. Mine is not really a Four Seasons Room, as it isn't heated or air conditioned and it gets pretty hot in the summer, and depending on how our winter goes, it can get pretty cold in the winter! My Fla Room doesn't get any sun .... nor does the covered, screened deck right outside this room.! Attached to the covered deck is the cement pool deck which is also screened. The screened pool area gets full sun, but the other deck and the Fla room don't get any but does get lots of bright light, which is good for my plants! I don't even know if people still refer to these as Fla rooms .... just many years ago when my family came to Fla (1967) that's what they were called and I sometimes refer to mine as the Fla room and at other times, the back porch! Right now I could refer to it as the junk room! I have some old furniture out there that needs to be cleared out! In the winter time here if we get frost or very cold temp's I drag a lot of plants into this room and a lot go on the covered deck. The ones on the deck get wrapped up in blankets, as sometimes do plants in the yard, if we happen to have frost. We are blessed here in this part of Fla that winter doesn't last long, a few weeks in January and sometimes a few in February. If we have real cold weather, the plants get moved in and out, in and out! It's a job I dislike, a lot of work moving everything, but better than having frozen plants! Right now, we are still in summer mode, but thank goodness the weather has begun to change .... last week mid 90's, but this week mid 80's and lower humidity! My DH and I have gone over and walked on the beach the past couple of aftenoons and it's been really nice!

DH caught me this afternoon amidst my plants and took my photo ... I am posting it, some would laugh at me, but I am certain all my co-horts in plantdom dress and look the same way when they are "playing in the dirt"!

Hope everyone has happy gardening!

Lin

Oh, by the way .... those were new gloves, thats why they are so clean! I go through gloves quite quickly as I'm sure a lot of you do, also.

Years ago when we lived in Ohio I wanted a porch I could use year round. Now this was in the mid 80's. The contractor came and he said you want a Florida room ! It was great went off of the living room with french doors, had two sky light windows is this what they call them ? Cat's got my tongue . the whole room was windows and then the front door. We had beautiful plus mauve carport and white lace balloon curtains . It had a ceiling fan new furniture , TV , cable I loved it ! It could be used year round. And back about 20 years or so ago it cost $11,000. Eleven Thousand Dollars ! Our neighbors ooo and awwed at it as it was stunning !
Now it Florida we have a Florida room too on the home were selling. It is about the same size as the one in our Ohio home years ago. The front door enter's it. My husband built the walls, insulated it big beautiful windows, drop and insulated ceiling this room has vinyl.I had beautiful crisp white with violet valences made . He took the side living door out which use to be the front door and opened it up wide it is all encased with beautiful natural pine . It does have a fan, gets Central Air and heat. A beautiful Sunny room to use year round. Great for plant growing ! Can't get whole room in one picture

another view

It's a good size Florida room !

Yep Violet, that's a Florida room ... and a mighty nice one, I might add! My house is 32 years old and my Florida Room shows it! It is in much need of an update! I would love to tear mine down and start over, it has old faded paneling on the walls, and one of those drop ceiling's with holes in the celing panels! The only nice thing in mine is the tile floor, which was just done about 3 years ago. That room is on our "To Do" list of projects .... someday! I wish it looked like yours, so bright and airy!

Lin

OH, you two....I'm *SOOOO* envious!!
Both wonderful!
VT...your valances and window covering are *so* fitting!

Yep...I've looked around a li'l bit....they'd run about $35000.00 now to build a good sized one.
YIKES! That's half of what our house cost when we bought it!

Well....a girl can dream (Ü)

A lovely photo of a lovely lady, Lin! You have your own paradise, right there at home!!

I luv both your Florida rooms, Lin & Violet!! Beautiful smile, Lin. Now I see you don't have enough plants....looks kind of empty...lol.
Violet where's all your plants??? I hope to have something like that in a couple of years when we start building our new home on the land we call the farm. DH said I'll get a greenhouse/sunroom attached to the house and a bigger greenhouse to start a little nursery. I can't wait!
:) Donna

Back to the title of the thread, LOL, my DH says he's gonna bring in the rest of the plants after work today! I don't know if we'll do any formal de-bugging. There are a bunch of newly acquired houseplants on the dining room table, awaiting such things as saucers, formal housing assignments, etc. Yesterday my 12 yo daughter complained there were ants, tiny, nasty horrible ants all over the table where she usually does her homework! When I got there I found maybe one or two small ants, LOL. But with snow in NY, we can't be far behind.

xxxxx, Carrie