Wednesday 11 October 2017

gardening under glass

I have been trying to pack away my pots in the greenhouse for the winter, while observing the following principles:

The things that are most sensitive to the cold must not go next to the glass.

The things that will break if I knock against them can't go next to the aisle.

Things that need regular watering through the winter must not be hidden behind other, taller pots so that I don't see them.

Things that retain their leaves all winter mustn't be squashed up under the canopy of other things so that they don't get enough light.

I have to leave room for the dahlia pots but they can't go inside until the stalks have died down naturally.

It's complicated.

Meanwhile, the pots of Agapanthus have had a dose of their special new blue fertiliser, since the man giving the talk said there was still time to give them a final feed this season, and that was only a week ago.  Some of the older geranium cuttings that were coming on very nicely have gone and got root aphid.  I decided to be bold, take cuttings from them, and throw the infested roots away.  If the cuttings fail to strike I'll have lost the plant, but they are varieties I could buy again from one of the specialist nurseries if I had to, and geraniums (or rather pelargoniums) are generally very reliable about rooting.

In the conservatory the orange flowered Impatiens that was just starting to look respectable has keeled over, again, its roots having been destroyed by vine weevil, again.  I took cuttings of that too and found them a place in the heated propagator, where they will have to stay all winter unless the Systems Administrator lets me put them on the kitchen window sill.

I have been remembering to stick one of the new green labels into anything that will need action in the spring, saying whether I need to take cuttings, pot on a size, or split the plant.  It all seems entirely obvious now, but by March or April it may not be.

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