Preparing For Winter ~ Assessing The Collection

With colder nights and  fall's first frost come and gone, I  assess  'the collection', deciding what will be saved, what is an annual and will stay outdoors until winter's cold takes it, what can lie dormant in the basement, what will be pawned off on fellow plantspeople.

Over a period of weeks, starting back in the earliest days of spring when the most cold tolerant could be safetly moved out doors and find a home in the yard somewhere, my houseplants are slowly relocated outside to the yard and patio.

Since my house is very small and my plant collection large, living space is at premium. Aside from my earlier blogged about front porch, which faces west and houses the bulk of my collection, plants end up on every windowsill, in available corners on the floor, and tucked here and there as my family tolerates. I have this fantastic bay window in my living room which I used to fill with as many plants as possible over the winter. A few years ago we finally got a plush cushion for the bench seat in this space and decided that the extra seating was more important than using this space as a greenhouse. At this point my collection was forced to downsize, at least as far as some of the larger speciemens were concerened.

As spring progresses, the threat of frost ends and temperatures warm, all of my plants that were going to go out were out. By summer's end the number of plants needing winter protection had grown to more than I could fit indoors. Many of these are new introductions that had come home with me  from work or are  given to me by fellow collectors. Having lived outdoors all summer, many do not have an alloted space indoors. Others have grown and been repotted, now being much larger than they were in the begining of the season.