I am so sick of this cold weather. It will be so nice to be able to leave my plants outside where they belong.
I have two beautiful fushia hanging baskets, calla lillies, window boxes, impatiences, and a few flats of annuals.
I planted my four tomatoe plants against the house and have to put five gallon pots over them at night. I took them off yesterday afternoon and from the sun it was so warm inside the buckets. I am sure the tomatoes loved the heat seeing as they haven't had any good heat in a while. They are hanging in there though. I had bought those burpee water tubes to put around them but they are so awful, they won't stand up. I went out the first morning and they were laying on top of my plants. They are going back to the Home Depot.
I also planted some morning glorys I started in the house and moon flowers, I covered them up with leaves to try to protect them.
I am wating for this weekend it is suposta warm up, seeing is believing....
How are your plants making out?
Have a great day
Amos
Is anyone else sick of taking plants in and out?
Hi Amos,
I guess I learned decades ago not to be so eager to plant things out until mother nature tells me it's time to. I've also learned to buy annuals that can take a frost. I just love verbennea hanging baskets. They are hardy down to 30 degrees I think. They are a perennial in warmer zones. I always look for those and buy them because I can hang them out early and leave them out late in the fall and get to enjoy them longer. Wave petunias can take a cold spell too as can marigolds. I won't buy the super tender stuff of if I do I just won't put them out till after Memorial Day weekend and then only if the nighttime temperatures are consistently over 40 degrees. They have not been where I live. I'm half a mile from the Sagniaw Bay of Lake Huron and we've been getting frosts every night just about. This morning when I woke up it was still only 33 degrees and the sun had been up a while so it may have even gotten colder than that. I have a sensor outside that projects the outdoor temperature and the time on my ceiling in the bedroom so when I wake up during the night I know what time it is and what the outside temp is.
You've remided me I need to put my morning glory seeds in the ground. I have them soaking in water in the kitchen. Thanks for the remider. :) They should be fine since by the time they come up it will be warm. I hope so anyway. It is supposed to get up to 70's by Sunday. Hopefully, the nighttime temps will stay up there but if not I just won't plant my tomatoes and things till it is. They are tucked safely in the garage by the door. During the day I open the door and they get plenty of light and a nice breeze and are safe from frost. If I were to put them in the ground now they would just sit there and shiver anyway. They won't grow much till the soil warms up past 55 degrees. They need heat as does pepper plants and squash etc. I have the hardy stuff in the garden already and they're doing fine...........broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, onions, spinach etc. Sometimes if you put tender plants in the ground even with covering they suffer a shock and it will set them back. Plants set out later when the soil is warm take right off and surpass the growth and blossom set of things put out too early. They don't have to recover from the cold temperatures.
If you want to plant things out early then be selective about the things you buy to set out. Make sure they can take a little hit of frost or colder temps. Now that my husband is retired and we're living on a fixed income I don't spend nearly as much on annuals. I like the wave petunias because one plant can cover a three foot area so you don't need many of them. They can take the cold plus they often drop seed that will come back the next year. Not always true to the original plant though. Begonias are bad about dying with cold temps as are impatience. You gotta be tough or I won't buy you. :) I have mostly flowering bushes, roses and perennials now with a small peppering of annuals. I just can't see spending the money on plants that will be dead in a few months. I'm even thinking of trying some perennials in my containers so I don't have to buy so many annuals. I saw someone who had baby iris in a planter and it overwintered fine. They multiply like rabbits so that's a thought. Even when not in bloom I like their spiky form. I used to buy four purple fountain grass for containers but nobody carries the little ones any more and I won't spend $10 a piece for them. Sorry. That's just too much. I'll replace them with a cheap spike I guess. I used to grow bunny grass from seed and may do that again next spring. Easy to grow from seed and has a nice look to it with little plumes.
Take care of those fushias and other tenders. I don't think we've seen the last of the nighttime frosts but I hope we have. Keep a close ear on your local weather reports. My problem is our town is so dinky there are no local reports. Our weather comes from the Flint/ Bay City area and it's much warmer there I think. I do use Accuweather.com and they are pretty accurate when I put my zip code in.
Have faith. I is bound to warm up sooner or later.
Brenda
Yes, I am sick of it. I have a tray of tomato plants and a tray of peppers and I leave them out during the day but bring them in at night. If it would at least stay in the 50's overnight, I would leave them out, but 40's is too cold.
I had to buy most of my annuals last week because I'm teaching a container garden workshop this week. My husband took two old doors, put them on wheels and added a pull handle. Now I can easily pull all the plants out of the garage in the morning and slide them back in at night. He lined each flat door with waterproof tarps so I can water everything with a hose. Works really great!
Great invention and good reuse for some old doors. Hopefully, we won't have these cold nights much longer.
Brenda
I havent had to put anything back inside here!!! Have had one frost but it did NO damage(knock on wood)
Planted tomatoes yesterday so there is no turning back now!!!!
Brenda that is a good idea about the verbeenea hanging baskets.
I love the wave petunias also. Have you ever started them from seed?
I have my gh kit that is still in the box, I am waiting for all the leaves to come on the trees so I can put it in the right location. It will be up by summer so I will be able to use it next spring. I am hoping that I will be able to start annuals to save money. I love the idea of the sensor on the celing.
I do know better than to plant anything that is not cold hardy, the rule of thumb is plant on Memorial Day Weekend. With the Burpee Aqua-Shields I bought I thought I would see if I could get a head start with my tomatoes. The morning glory's I have had in years past I have had seed come up from the last year early and they have done fine.
That is a good idea of putting perrenials in pots, I have thought about the stella O'dora day lillys in my pots.
Karen, I love the ideas of the doors. That is so neat
It looks as though you have had way to much fun plant shopping. It is my favorite time of the year.
I went outside this morning and man it is so chilly, the winds don't help.
I'm going to make a nice home made bean soup it's that kind of weather.
I'll just keep thinking about how nice it will be this weekend. :)
It is a cool one today.
I have just been covering my plants every night. Then bringing in the flannel sheets I use to cover and bringing in some nice icky spiders with them. Sigh.
I have left my hybiscus inside for now again though.
We are having company this weekend and usually do a couple cookouts. Well, the camp isn't even cleaned up, Bunches of broken limbs piled up (it has either been too dry or too windy to even have a campfire) Spiders are sure busy though. I cleaned my little cabin and by the afternoon, looked like I hadn't been in it all winter. More sighing.
Amos,
Years ago when the wave petunias first came out I bought ten seeds for something like $5. I have one of those fancey expensive grow light units. The seeds are so tiny. I had peat pots presoaked in warm water and picked up one seed with a damp toothpick and laid that baby down ever so gentle into the center of that peat pot. I did the same with the other 9 seeds. :) I then put them under the lights for 16 hours a day and they all took. I was the first person in my neighborhood or garden club to have the wave petunias. Surprisingly, many of them dropped seed and we had some El nino winters and they came back up the next spring. Not all of them looked like the parent plant and a few looked really ugly. :) Some even grew in the cracks of the driveway. Way cool.
Sadly, we have moved to a tiny house here in in AuGres and I have not found anywhere in this house to fit my big grow light unit. It is out in the pole barn gathering dust. We have a bunkhouse out back that has electricity so I've thought I might set it up in there. Maybe next year. We're still getting settled in here. I for sure would love to start my annuals by seed to save money. My husband is retired now and I can't spend like I used to. I think daylilies would do OK in containers. i'll try it when I divide mine up. Maybe if I put the containers in the garage for the winter that would help. I don't know. I've seen shurbs grown in containers so why not perennials right? For now, I'm putting a few annuals in and sowing annual seeds like marigolds. They come up so fast and before you know it they'll be blooming.
I made soup today too. I had some broccoli in the freezer from last summer's garden and made broccoli soup. YUM. It's cold here and windy too. I think it only got up to 53 today and it was so windy it seemed like 30. It got down to 36 last night and I think it's supposed to get colder than that tonight. I sure hope I can put my tomatoes in by Saturday. I'll have to check Accuweather's long range forecast.
We need RAIN. We only get a spit and spudder. We spent over an hour or more today driving the RTV around and watering all the new trees and bushes by hand. What a lot of work that is but they need a drink. Maybe we should do that rain dance again or something.
I hope we don't have a dry summer. If things don't warm up soon and stay warm it is going to be a long time before I can make BLT sandwiches. :)
Brenda