Yesterday I brought inside several of the pelargoniums that had been so beautiful outdoors since spring. It seems a shame to let things die with the attitude that they can just be thrown away and replaced with new plants the next year. I suppose that is just me railing against the throw-away nation that we have become. Unfortunately, the only sunny window bottom that I have in my home is the one that is reserved for Alfie, my Ragdoll cat. The plants take second place to him and have to manage on the kitchen window bottom and on the breakfast bar, both facing the same easterly direction. The pelargoniums, over winter, survive but they become rather leggy with the lack of light. I water them sparingly and in very early spring I take cuttings from them. This way, by the time the threat of frost is over, I have a lot more pelargoniums to colour my tubs, troughs and borders.
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| Zonal pelargoniums inside; ivy outside. |
In the image above you can just see, through the window, ivy in pots which will be going into the trough over winter. Those ivy plants actually survived all last winter in the hanging baskets on a shady wall. They coped with freezing conditions, snow, and fierce winds and this spring just gone I dug them out of the otherwise empty baskets and potted them. They have grown wonderfully in their pots all summer long, standing in a border. I'm just waiting for the tuberous begonias in the troughs to start dying off before I remove them, dry them off, and store them for the winter.
In the image below, there are more pelargoniums and on the outside window bottom the winter-flowering violas are waiting to be planted into tubs which I will do in a day or so. I was going to put them in a trough at the front of the house, facing south, but that is now full of spring-flowering bulbs!
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| Zonal pelargoniums inside; violas outside |
Below is the fibrous rooted begonia, Heaven White. This plant, and many other Heaven Whites have been marvellous in my garden this year. Never given a minute's trouble since I planted them when they were small. No disease. No pests. Healthy. They have flowered continuously all summer and autumn long and are still doing so, as you can see. I have rescued a couple of the more compact ones as I understand they will grow quite happily indoors and do not demand a lot of light. I am hopeful. I want to take a lot of cuttings from them early next spring. I think they are so very pretty. Sometimes I think that there is such beauty in simplicity. Less is more and all that.
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| Tuberous begonia 'Heaven White'. |
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