The new season is hard upon us now in Colorado. The leaves are gone from the trees, there is snow on the ground in the shaded areas along the back fence, and the only birds around lately are pushy doves at the front feeder terrorizing the squirrels (the squirrels deserve it, in my opinion. Go bad doves!!). The cats are suddenly friendlier, and Mateo, now very soft and fluffy, is growing in his winter cat.
The picture on the left is the summer version of Mateo. His tail is thin, his ruff gone, and I always worry that he is losing weight. Nope. He’s just missing a ton of fur! The other two pictures are examples of the winter, full-coated little furry monster. Right now, Mateo is eating non-stop and getting fluffier by the day. Obviously, winter is right around the corner!
I’ve been slowly bringing in all of my outdoor plants that I thought I could overwinter in the house, and after spending some weeks in the garage, the last of them moved in a week ago. (Why did they have to languish in the garage for a few weeks, you ask? Well… hopefully, some of the bugs gave up and moved on. I want to mention that my garage door has windows in it, and protects the plants from frost, so it is a suitable transition zone.)
Most of the plants that were on my deck outdoors in pots are now in the craft room on shelves equipped with grow lights. The plants adjusted pretty well after their move, but I’d like to unpack what happened with them a little.
The geraniums decided to go to sleep for the winter while they were in the garage and most of the leaves turned yellow and started to drop off. I let them adjust to indoors for about a week and then pruned out all of the yellow and sad leaves, which removed more than half of the leaves on the plants. I could see that the plants were putting out blooms before the pruning started, but to my surprise I discovered lots of new growth emerging on the stems down by the base of the plant. All right then! A week after the pruning (and some fertilizer) there aren’t any new yellow leaves, and the plants seem to be thriving.
I pruned the miniature roses right after they came into the house about six weeks ago, and after that they put out new blooms and filled out with lots of growth. Yay. Looking good! Umm… where did those aphids come from!!!!! I had looked at the roses carefully before bringing them in, but to be truthful, I was looking for Japanese beetles. Who knew that aphids lay eggs and go dormant in the fall? To make things worse, those little guys can reproduce like crazy if there is even one because they can reproduce asexually. Bad aphids, bad!! Even worse, these aphids had wings and could fly!!!
Operation Dead Aphid immediately commenced. My mother used to have us whip up soapy water and then put the suds onto the rose plants, which does work pretty well, but since my plants were so filled out, I went with Neem oil. The cats don’t munch on the plants, so I felt pretty safe using this, and there was an immediate drop in the aphid population. I have to respray every week as new growth emerges, but I’m happy with the dramatic drop in population. After the current round of blooms are gone, I plan to prune back hard so I can get a better spray onto the plant. For other insects that came into the house with the plants I have the little bug catcher that going. If you haven’t seen one of these before, it is a fan with an ultraviolet light that attracts insects that then get pulled into the device where they are caught onto sticky paper. Yay! No little flies or gnats. No!! Just no!!
My jade plant was pretty overgrown last spring with heavy leaves pulling the stems over sideways. I pruned off the growth that was causing the problems, staked the stems, and then put the plant out onto my front porch where it braved the weather over the summer. I brought it back in a few weeks ago, pruned off new growth that was, once again, pulling the stems sideways and then then removed the stakes. Look! A plant that can stand up on its own now. Maybe someday it will bloom…
I almost left the bougainvillea outside to die because it didn’t bloom even once all summer long. I left it so long the leaves began to yellow and drop before I had a change of heart and brought it in.
The plant has continued dropping the summer leaves, but there is new growth emerging at the ends of stems and along their lengths. Okay. I guess we will go with this. Maybe it will bloom? It’s another adventure. The blooms, if they ever happen, are a really cool pinky-orange that will look great in the room. Do you hear that plant? Bloom or die!!!
So that’s it. The plants that made me happy last spring and summer and now inside with me for the cold seasons. Take that winter!! Bring on the wind and snow.
I have secured an endless summer for myself and the cats.
Yarn, Books & Roses 