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porkchop, yes, my geraniums for the most part are still going gangbusters. There are two that I had overwintered that are in their own pots by my back door, and every time I pass them I marvel at how fabulous they still look. We've had a couple of light frosts here that have affected stuff right in the pots next to them, but the geraniums look fantastic. Such gorgeous foliage it looks fake lol! Now comes the balancing act between leaving them out as long as possible to enjoy, but not long enough that they die before I can overwinter them!
:)
Dee
@diggerdee zone 6 CT, I completely echo your comments re geraniums. They are such a foolproof plant eh?
I overwinter a few each year (as bareroot in the basement in a box). And as you mentioned, the weather continues to be so mild that I dont have the heart to dig them out.
No pictures, but I was very pleasantly surprised to see my Teasing Georgia in bloom yesterday! There are a few buds too, so I hope they make it.
We have had a few frosts here but most things are still hanging on. Salvia, foxgloves, cosmos, marigolds, zinnias, impatiens and geraniums are still giving some color. The dahlias are still hanging on but honestly they did not bloom well this year anyway, and I can't figure out why....
I think the only perennials I have in bloom are monkshood, but I have a few berries here and there - callicarpa, symphocarpos, hollies, viburnum, etc - most plants are still young so not a whole lot of berrying yet.
:)
Dee
Houzz is a west coast company - I have one more hour!!!
Abelia schumannii is a flowering machine. It runs from late May to frost.
Fuchsia 'Porphyrio' survived this cold last winter with no extra mulch, so I think it's fully established, unless we have another once-every-30-year winter like 2013-2014. This has some R. regia blood, so is heat resistant compared to the pure F. magellanica cultivars.
Hesperantha 'Deborah's Red' from Cistus, though it's been a while since they offered it.
Some Hydrangeas are still going.
Lastly, another potentially tender plant that made it through this winter with no special protection, to roughly 5F multiple times, Bomarea hirtella/edulis.
A bit more detail since I was in a rush last night...this was my absolute, positively, last try with this plant. So the fact it's been perennial and flowering now for 3 years in a row shows why it pays to be persistent. I've experimented with this (fickle in the mid-Atlantic) species all the way back to my parent's house garden in the late 1990s! As I've discussed with other plants that are in some way marginal for one's climate, the secret now was growing it out from seed to select for a 'local cultivar' that is happy under your own conditions. And it was not even my first attempt to do that. I had first tried maybe 6-7 years ago with seed bought from Tobias Spanner's RPS. I got only maybe one or two really weak growing seedlings that amounted to nothing - didn't get past a few inches. Then I tried again, and I can't even remember where this seed came from: either Jelitto or Alplains, probably. A few died as seedlings when it got hot - they didn't like that. (My understanding is that this basically comes from a central American highland climate! You wouldn't expect them to be even zone 8 hardy, much less zone 7! It's sort of similar to the mystery of Alstroemerias, to which it is related, except some of those are at least native to the colder Andes of Chile.) Finally I got 2 really well established plants. Then this 'almost as cold as polar vortex' winter happened and took out 1, leaving this one.
Final warning about this plant, from when I tried to move it from my parent's garden to the townhouse I owned for a while. It makes fingerling potato-like tubules that are counter-intuitively not propagative. They are just for starch storage. Apparently whatever regrows in the following years is smaller and more fibruous, and if you move a clump, you have to move at least one of those. They detach easily from the 'bulbs'. Back in 2002 I tried to regrow a few of those bulbs, to no avail.
Last edit: I know for sure the first time I tried this circa 1999, the seed came from Chiltern Seed in the UK. How I miss the days when that was a carefree process. I believe I should give credit where credit is due!
Rouge, thank you.
Huh. I had no idea Gardeners Supply changed hands. Too bad they dissolved the employee ownership. I like employee-owned businesses. I don't buy much from them because I think they are way overpriced, but I do enjoy their catalog and think they have some good stuff - just overpriced! I will say though, the stuff I do buy does last a long time!
Porkchop sorry you went through all that - browsing, deciding, putting in your cart etc. - for nothing, but glad you caught it in time. Better safe than sorry.
:)
Dee
Added - I just did a quick google search on Gardener's Outlet and sure enough most of the hits on the first page of results went to Gardener's Supply. There IS a Gardener's Outlet in Lubbock, TX. Looks like they are more of a nursery; website says they've been serving TX for over 20 years but then they say their spring opening is 4/8/2023! Their FB page looks to be updated in November 2025 and maybe April of this year, but I can't access it (not on FB). The AI results on my google search says they are on Garden Watchdog but I couldn't find them there (although there have been times when I can't find other places there either, so IDK...)
In an odd coincidence, just this morning Google search returned the fishiest online plant vendor I've ever seen in a search result.
https://www.containerscrop.com/contact-us
Can't even get a US zip code correct! The leading 0 is supposed to be there.
They sell stuff that cannot possible survive in Maine, like Crinodendron. Aerial imagery shows no nursery at that address.
I've grown so many of these (Cupressus macrocarpa 'Wilma Goldcrest') here in Z8, and a lot of them in containers - for years. Based on my experience the top is probably hardy to around 16-17F for a few hours, the containerized root system around 20F, again, for a few hours.
I know what I would do: Keep it outside in good light but protected from dry winds as much as possible, as long as the temperatures are above what I described above. Move it into the garage for cold-snaps only, but then back out when it warms up again.
Since your plant was mail order I'm assuming its quite small and easy to move multiple times.
Good luck, garden experiments are at least half of the reason I keep going!
Thanks guys! I'm still so bummed lol. Every time I walk by that thing my first thought is how beautiful the color is, and the immediate second thought is, what am I going to do with it?
The plant is about 2-2.5 feet tall, so yes, it is easily moved - for now. I do need to put it in a bigger (which means heavier!) pot though if it's going to live in a pot, even for this winter. I think it's too crowded in its current pot.
It is currently in my family room lol. We had a freeze warning last night so I brought it in.
So artinnature, I think you and the others are right and I will need to bring it in and out, at least till I decide it's permanent fate. I think I knew that from the get-go lol. It's just I'm not sure of my options. Even bringing it in and out, these are the options:
Outside warmest spots:
In front of the house: decent sun in winter, lots of wind (i live in a fairly windy spot) but hoping the house would break the wind and protect it
On the side of the house, against it, on the asphalt driveway (which goes all the way up to the concrete house foundation): warmest, sunniest spot throughout the whole winter, but not as protected from winds.
Back patio: My house forms a kind of U-shape around the patio - back of the house, a room that juts off the back of the house, which is connected to the garage. That corner by the garage wall is very warm (I have trouble keeping things alive in summer because the sun here is so hot). However, there is more shade (from the house itself, so even in winter) and also that U-shape makes the wind into whirlwinds. There are often little piles of leaves in the corners and against the walls - which might be a good thing??? Insulation vs winds??
Inside options:
Unheated garage: Honestly, I'm afraid this is too cold. I swear sometimes it's colder than the outside!
Family room: long story but this old addition to the house is on a raised concrete slab, between the back of the house and the garage, with an inaccessible crawl space, and the concrete slab is cracked, so the room is cold. The back door opens into this room. We rarely use it in winter since we finished the basement, but in the old days we used a space heater in addition to the heat from the vent from the furnace. If the space heater runs and the door to the next room is closed, it stays warm. But I can't run a space heater for a plant lol. If the space heater is NOT on, it still is warmer than outside but it does get cold (but no lower than 40's-50's I would say). It has 2 east/southeast facing windows, so it does get decent sun at least in the winter mornings, and is a bright room.
Front hall: about 6x6, does have a heat vent but has cold tile floors. Temps fluctuate - cold at night and when the sun isn't there, much warmer on late afternoon winter sunny days.
I think I just need to figure out my combo of indoor and outdoor spots lol. Trying to decide what is worse - the cold or the wind. Indoors? Well I just worry in general because I can never overwinter anything in the house. My doors are the threshhold of doom to any plant lol.
And then of course, I wonder, okay, how long can I keep this up? The plant can grow up to 8 feet tall lol! Don't think I'll be able to lug that in and out! My daughter was laughing when I told her - she told me I can use it as our Christmas tree! :)
Anyway, if anyone is still reading after my long dissertation lol, thank you again for your suggestions, and please feel free to add more!
:)
Dee
Claudia welcome! Try the soldering iron to make holes. Soooo easy. I go out in fall with all the milk jugs I've saved (and after over two decades I've decided milk jugs are the best way to go for me, so I use those exclusively) - anyway, I go out on a beautiful fall day, fire up the soldering iron, and put holes in the bottoms of the milk jugs, and one in the side to facilitate easy cutting open when I go to sow. And it doesn't matter which way the wind is blowing because the smoke will ALWAYS blow in your face lol. But for me it's a small price to pay for such an easy method. And then I string all the jugs on a long hockey skate lace, or a piece of twine or yarn or whatever, and then I hang that on nails in the basement rafters, and there they wait till I need them.
Sometimes mid-winter if I run out of prepared jugs I will use a small steak knife to poke holes but that, imo, is more dangerous. I've poked (I won't quite say "stabbed" lol) I've poked myself in the palm of the hand numerous times when the knife slipped off the plastic of the jug instead of going through, and went into the hand holding the jug.
christie, thought of you yesterday. Going through the endless emails in my inbox and saw one for a seed sale. Almost hit delete because it's too early for me to think about that, but then I thought of this thread and thought, well, it can't hurt to take just a few minutes to take a look....!
:)
Dee
We get some very warm days in winter too Markay. I think that's why I've come back to using gallon jugs. They're not quite clear so maybe it's helping them to not overheat. I got over-confident last year and left mine out in the sun with just the lids off. They did just fine when it was windy but then we had a day in the nineties in late winter/early spring with no wind and they cooked. Lesson learned.
Diggerdee - "it can't hurt to take just a few minutes to take a look" That's true unless you're on a budget. Sounds dangerous. lol Much of my temptation comes from reading here or reading articles about "best plants for butterflies" or "long blooming perennials for sun" stuff like that. I research and make lists.
Thanks for the welcome, christie and diggerdee!
I will have to get a soldering iron and try that method. It's about the only thing I haven't tried. I tried steak knives and a sewing awl, various push pins, and screwdrivers. I like the tip about stringing up the prepared jugs! I have just been throwing them in a big box in a spare room but that's an eyesore. I also found the milk jugs gave me the best success. Like Markay and christie I have to watch the temperatures closely. We actually don't get real winter weather here until January most of the time, and February is also cold, but we will get warm days and hot days sometimes. I experimented with growing tomato seeds which I know isn't really the ideal use for the method, but the seedlings that survived all the freezes and hot days were nigh indestructable and I had enough I needed to give some away. I did have to cheat a little bit because there was one hard freeze, I think it was in the teens, that came through in February and I am pretty sure that would have wiped them all out, so I moved them indoors a couple nights. I had one batch of flowers that I killed by letting them stay in the sun on a hot day. I need to keep better records because I don't even remember what they were now. Even if I have some failures and have to modify the method a bit, it's worth it to me to try. I really would like to have a dedicated place with lights and heat mats to germinate seeds efficiently, but I don't have a good spot in the house for it and I get overwhelmed looking for indoor lights and heat mats.
Yep, Dee. I was not expecting them to be THAT small. Haha. I will not be surprised if they don't make it. I ordered from Trees.com which is one I never heard of, but took a chance . They were very nice and I even got a thank you for ordering. The plants are healthy. I won't cheap out next time though - I think the quart size was my mistake actually, not theirs. I will definitely let you know how they do. I figure in five years they might be a decent size. LOL
Oh, I have ordered several times from Trees.com (recent name change from Fast Growing Trees.com). I was hesitant at first but a few people I know ordered from them and were very happy. So I took a chance and honestly have been pretty happy with everything I've gotten from them. LOL actually I think my little Mr. Bowling Balls were from them!
Hopefully you will have as good luck with them as I have
:)
Dee