This Year's Migration is Finished!

Well, mostly.  My usual date for having everything brought inside for the winter is the beginning of November but this year my niece visited and was certain that there wouldn't be space for everything so I thought an early start would give me a chance to find space or new homes for plants that wouldn't fit.

Some things were moved around, a couple more shelving units were added and a few plants came into the human house (also a  green house but not a greenhouse.)

The Spanish Moss continues to grow and now when people walk through the greenhouse, they usually come out with a few pieces stuck to their clothing.

I'm happy to announce that my niece was wrong.  Everything fits and it one looks closely, (s)he can see empty spaces on some shelves.

Still to come in are four cordylines and a potted Phormium 'Jubilee' which will only come inside if we get really cold weather.  Of course, they could always go in the stained glass room that used to be my winter storage area and is now empty.

My Georgia-dwelling garden blogger friend, Jean, asked if the Spanish moss had blooms on it and wouldn't you know it, this year it did have tiny flowers.

The plan this year was to have desert on this side and jungle on the other but a little of each crept into the other space.  but the things on the shelves in the background will need very little water this winter.

Desert.

Jungle.

This poor Colocasia gigantea. hasn't made it outside in two years but grows unnoticed in a back corner.

The poor agave in the middle looks like it'll recover from the mealy bug infestation it had this spring.  Poor thing used to be so gorgeous.  It could be tossed but it was my very first agave purchased in a four-inch pot.

Come on over for a cup of coffee some morning.  Do call first so that I can get the bags of potting soil and tools out of the way.

We'd all be delighted to see you, especially Ganna Walska below.  My favorite quote of the real Madame Ganna Walska of Lotusland fame is, "More is better."   Certainly not in keeping with the Ikea-loving, minimalist, less-is-more, Danish Modern hugging crowd.  Vive la différence.  I secretly admire the minimalist look but don't know how to do it myself. 

The hibiscus is still blooming and the big brugmansia, finally free of spider mites (fingers crossed) is covered with buds.  The place was abuzz with whitefly this summer and I tried lots of ways to get rid of them.  The most effective thing that has reduced them to almost none has been a yellow fly tape. Go figure, the best solution would be the easiest and least toxic.

So now it's sort of a downhill slide until I maybe grab a few paperwhites to force in January and maybe another amaryllis or two to brighten this space. Fingers crossed for few pests and a mild winter.

How are your winter preparations coming along?  (Unless you're in the southern hemisphere in which case, happy spring you lucky dogs!)

Fall Migration Is Complete

My goal is to have all of the tender plants moved inside by the first week of November each year so this season I'm a bit ahead of schedule.  Hooray, more time to plant bulbs and get the last pots in the pot ghetto into the ground.  I keep thinking that plants should be grouped by water needs but once the migration begins, things seem to end up wherever they fit. Thank goodness that gardeners always have next year to make improvements.  Here's what the greenhouse is looking like now.

Plants tend to grow and take up more space as time goes by. 

Somehow the greenhouse seems to have shrunken over the summer.  It's certainly not that a plant addict continued to collect plants over the summer.

Banana 'Ai Ai' the Hawaiian variegated banana, once only grown by Hawaiian royalty is now available to commoners like me.  Thanks Rare Plant Research for making this available at a fraction of the prices I've seen in the interweb!  It's more than doubled in size this summer.  I'm hoping that it'll be okay with the temperature in the greenhouse hitting fifty degrees during the winter.  It's sure got glorious foliage.

The male bust has been sitting buried among plants in the garden for years.  He said that he wanted to come inside this winter.

 A bit jungley and some interesting plant details get lost in the jumble but it's a great place for the tender ones to spend the winter.

I could move the tables and chairs out to make more space but I love sipping Saturday morning coffee here in the bleakest part of the winter.  It always smells so good, especially when something fragrant is blooming like Jasmine, Brugmansia or forced paperwhites/hyacinths.

It's wonderful to be able to winter over so many things.  Truth be told, quite a few plants stayed in the greenhouse all summer.

The agave on the right was my first, purchased years ago in a four inch pot on sale at Melinda's nursery.

Of course I didn't run out of space and start using my old winter plant storage areas inside the house. That would just be silly!  No, these plants' winter home is intentional to keep the air inside purified when the windows are closed all the time.  It's a health thing, really.  Anybody buying that?  

In any case, everything is inside for the winter except the begonias which will be stored as pots of dirt once the frost cuts them back or I get tired of looking at them.  How's your migration going?

Meanwhile Out in the Greenhouse

Quite a few plants that usually get carted outdoors for the summer stayed in the greenhouse this summer.  One of them is a Brugmansia 'Charles Grimaldi'  that usually got plunged into the ground, pot and all each spring.  When fall came, out it would come.  roots that had grown out of the drainage holes into the soil would be cut and the poor plant would be thrown into the basement where it would lose all of it's foliage.  It had gotten pretty large and quite unhappy in it's pot so this spring it got potted up and has rewarded me with more growth and  a couple of flushes of blooms despite the spider mites trying to kill it.

Opening the greenhouse door and encountering the moist air, heavy with brugmansia perfume is an olfactory delight!

The volume of blooms is far greater this time than last.  It's difficult to capture the entirety of the plant without a wide angle lens.

The height of the plant is wonderful as viewing the show from beneath is different from my usual side view.

It's grown so large that it takes up nearly a quarter of the greenhouse space up top and is large enough to have tillandsias in the crotches of it's branches and even a small plant or two hanging from it.

Three little maids from school taken in the evening with no flash.

With flash.

 The next sunny morning. 

Thanks, Charles, for the great back to school gift!

Tacky Garden and Greenhouse Project

You perhaps know that my garden has a few mirrors in it.  A few weeks ago, one of them fell over and broke because I hadn't affixed it to the fence so a Craigslist search began.  No big mirrors for quite a while and then this:

"Must get rid of Mirror Closet Doors 6' opening, Standard height, Bronze frame. I have over 200 sets of these mirror closet doors and they all must be removed by Aug. 10th Deadline. So someone please step up and take these off of my hands."

OMG 200 sets of them?  A hotel was remodeling and replacing all of the mirrored closet doors with wood.  Jackpot!  Did I mention that they were free for the taking?  My favorite price so we got ten or eleven of them.  Here's where they went.

You may recall that our neighbor put up a new wood fence.  Fence?  What fence?  Three of them went here.

The mirrors reflect the bamboo grove and for some reason, part of the garden that's not directly behind them.

Pay no attention to the pots, this area is being reworked. 

A couple more went on the side of the garage behind the grove.  The gunnera didn't get watered for a couple of days and got baked but is reviving and the black pot inside the too small ceramic pot will change 

 The rest went inside the greenhouse.  The garage door which was left intact in the conversion was covered with blue and white curtains seen here in late June.

The curtains were taken down and the mirrors added.  It's difficult to tell because the mirrors are reflecting the plants and the tomato jungle is taking over everything. 

Here, on the other side of the jungle, it's easier to see.

Would I be a bad gardener if I removed some of these tomato monsters? They're blocking the view of some really cool plants but they're starting to produce.  Maybe some would enjoy being in the great out of doors.  It would be difficult to pull them out without damaging them at this point.  

Anyway, the mirrors here reflect some light which is a good thing, and make the space seem larger.