Preparing plants for the cold weather

By Karen McNew
WSLS10 Anchor
Published: September 30, 2008

The plant pictured here is not an inside plant… I honestly can’t remember the name of the bulb… I stuck it in the middle of this tub outside our front door that has been there since we bought the house… I noticed today that of all of these things I planted this one looks the best… the ones that came up in the dirt are already gone…  I love the colors and shape of it… I call it Nature’s Heart… and we all know there are many of those to be seen in different plants and such.. but that is my nickname for it until one of you e-mails me to set me straight…  I kept the bag the bulbs came in for a while but have since thrown it out…

For those of you who have kept up with my “not so green thumb” adventures this year you know that I planted several flowers from seeds… and while the blooms were pretty for cut flowers the plants themselves are rather gnarled and ugly… one reader let me know that I had transplanted the seeds one to many times… anyway… Matt and I have spent all of summer watering these things on the front and back decks of our house and as I looked out the other day I felt a little bit glad we won’t have to do that anymore soon…  But we have two plants that have been with us for two years now that I wnjoyed watching..

One is a Hibiscus with red blooms and the other is what I call a Spider Plant… both have at least doubled in size!  When it gets cold they get to come inside for the winter… I feel like the Hibiscus for sure will need to come in for a couple of nights this week until it goes to live in the basement for the winter…

I am already planning for next year’s deck plants… I feel like there should be some kind of rhyme and reason to the selection… unlike this year… I think the back deck will be several different Hibiscus trees… and the front will just have the Spider Plant.. I’m sure all of the beautiful blooms that pop up in Spring will be too much for me to resist but we’ll see…

I am looking forward to planting a bunch of Hokie Tulip bulbs at our mailbox this fall… thanks for indulging my planting pains… any advice or suggestions you have are welcome.