Some plants spending the summer vacation in the ground:

This looks so perky this morning, Begonia, polka dot (Hypoestes,) Dracaena 'Rikki,' Coleus, a little "false Aralia" Schefflera elegantissima (formerly Dizygotheca, that's been renamed yet again, and I refuse to learn how to spell another name for that plant, and declare at least a personal moratorium on any new names for it.)


Having a problem with armadillo digging, so I left everything in the clump that it had been in, in a group pot. A safety in numbers/proximity kind of thing, I hope.

Do you dig all the plants up or just take cuttings for winter? I have never been good at digging up plant in the Fall. I do all pots for tenders and just bring in the pots.

drdawg said:Armadillo are way more destructive than squirrels.

Glad there are no armadillo here. Squirrels don't spend a lot of time in my back yard because of the dogs, in the front yard, they dug up three honeysuckle vines I *just* planted. They're the thuggish suburban squirrels who dig up your plants, hang out on low branches flipping you off when you walk past.

Cinta said:Do you dig all the plants up or just take cuttings for winter? I have never been good at digging up plant in the Fall. I do all pots for tenders and just bring in the pots.

Me too, except for super easy plants that are growing in large mixed containers, like plectranthus and assorted Tradescantia and related spiderworty plants.

Oh, you really need a batch of armadillo, Celene. You think squirrels are bad, you should see what digging the armadillo do. The only thing worse is to have wild hogs.

I've been doing this more & more the past few summers. Most of the stuff I've dug up, except for Coleus. And I know well that ground dirt isn't a good medium for pots, but for a lot of this stuff that's only going to be potted for a few months before going back in the ground, I just scoop 'em up & plop in a pot. Try to shovel up a chunk of roots/dirt the same size as the pot. Not for those who might freak out if something crawls out of a pot they've brought into the house, dirt usually has some "bugs" in it. This also has been going well the past few winters, for stuff that was excavated & plopped.

Celene, LOL! Having a terrible time with squirrels tearing up hanging pots. I'm going to have to fill them with plastic forks (tines up) so they can't keep doing that. Try putting some rocks around your newly planted stuff? Squirrels are the busiest & most prolific gardeners on the planet, but dang, they have some weird ideas!

The bugs would not bother me because if I dug up that many plants I would be dead before winter began. God Bless you I do not know how you dig up that many plants. It takes me weeks just to drag in all the plants in pots. The only plant I take out of the pots and are the Cannas. Those I pull and plunk in a garbage bag with whatever soil they come out with.

LOL, that cracked me up. TY!

Are folks farther north finally getting to take plants outside (where desired?) Feel free to share some pics. :+)

Here's this mornings' cool happenings...

Birdnest fern with variegated Callisia fragrans:


Palms, variegated lucky bamboo (Dracaena braunii/sanderiana,) a little Ficus, a variegated Plectranthus:


Dracaena with a really late (or early) Thanksgiving cactus:


Callisia fragrans blooming (flowers upper right, sort of hard to see but open & scenting downwind:)


Tradescantia cerinthoides:


Bromeliads & Cryptanthus, perking up from being in too low light for winter:


I took the pics earlier this morning when the sun is coming in sideways. These plants are all in the shade most of the rest of the day.

We have warmed up to August temps. We are suppose to even hit 90 next week. I took everything out last week because the lowest we were getting was 47 at night. I also wanted them out to get some rain water since we were raining every day.

My patio looks like ghetto ally. I will post a pic when they are all in the decorative pots and placed around all pretty.

.

I love the size of that porch. I wish I had one at my present home.

The buds have popped!


Cordyline needs a bigger pot...!

Wow, your cordyline looks happy. It looks good. I need to order some ti logs.

TY! Half of me wants to cut that & get some going in another pot. The other half of me says heck no, let it get taller.

Been waiting for grass to die under leaves in this spot before using it. I probably should wait another few weeks, but I didn't. I'd rather micro-manage some pulling than wait longer. Yesterday morning, this was 5 separate pots. There's snake plant (Sansevieria,) various Tradescantias, Begonias, Bromeliads, Coleus, holiday cactus, Aglaonema. The heavy clumps are root balls from pots. Then there's some stray individual pieces of stuff that are cuttings I stuck there after planting the root balls. It looks sunny because I took this pic early this morning. By now, the area is in shade, until about 6 PM.


This is the same spot I showed 4/27, 2nd pic. The growth has been fast & incredible!

Yes, that's incredible growth. It looks good.
I'm going to have to seriously look into putting some of my plants in the ground for the summer.

Yes they did a lot of growing in the ground. I still am not going to do it.

i'm just starting the idea of accilmating mine into outdoor life. 70's all day thursday and friday so its outside for the day then back inside for night.

I'm not sure this qualifies as a houseplant (although I think @purpleinopp grows them in containers successfully). Despite the fact that I don't trust our apartment folks to not spray my plants when they pressure wash.... I wanted a little something that isn't difficult to care for, a perennial, blooms easily, and wouldn't be difficult to replace if lost.




I've read the good thing is, you can't kill it. The bad thing is, you can't kill it. Good thing it's in a pot.

Planto

Looks nice!

I just bought it a couple weeks ago and I noticed the buds when I purchased it. I can't take credit for this set of flowers, unfortunately.

Do you grow yours as a houseplant, as in it comes indoors in winter? Does it die back? I was going to leave mine outside, I was just curious how you treat it since you combination container garden.

Planto