With outdoor temps down into low 40s at night, I think it's time to start bring in the tender plants that I want to keep.
Here's the first batch.
The Schlumbergeras have started to make flower buds.
The seedling Schlumbergeras look good, but I don't know if they are ready to bloom yet.
I gave them all a little bloom food.
This was actually a week or two ago. Last fall or winter, I stuck hardwood cuttings (prunings) from this rose bush, into vegetable garden beds. This one grew into the start of a rose bush. I think it's an"Old Garden Rose" ie, heirloom rose. The parent bush came with the house.
The roots look pretty good. Sometimes I'm surprised at small root system of some roses. I potted it onto used potting soil.
It had a tiny amount of wilting at the stem tips. I cut off those tips. There has been no additional wilting.
When winter arrives, I'll keep it in a sheltered location. Bring into the garage if below freezing.
Here's the flower of this mysterious rose. It has a strong, old rose fragrance.
Since I don't know the name, but I think it's old and a lot of old roses were French, for my own purposes I'm calling it "Rose mystérieuse parfumée" for "mysterious fragrant rose".
I found this lavender plant when I was doing some clean-up of an area that was taken over by thistles and blackberries. When that area is done, it will just be mowable grass.
This plant was scraggly with long twiggy stems. I attempted to dig it out, but accidentally chopped off most of the roots. Oh well. So I also pruned off most of the top, and planted it in a fairly small container, in used potting soil.
About three weeks later -
There are LOTS of new buds growing. I don't know how much they will grow before winter. I might need to keep it in the sunroom. Also, I can't predict whether it will make a bushy plant. With good pruning, I think it might.
This makes me wonder about internet plant growing lore. So far, everything I've found says you can't cut lavender back beyond fairly young leafy growth. So far, all of the lavender plants that I pruned severely has started to regrow. Now wait and see.
There were some really old lavender plants that had been overwhelmed by thistles. I had read that lavender won't survive a hard pruning to woody stems, so just pruned the scraggly plants to their bases to get rid of them, when I cleaned up the thistles in August.
Those Lavender plants made a come back and continue to grow.
I noted that two stems still had about six or nine inches of woody stem. Those are growing too. Both have a severe right angle. I decided to try air layering these stems to make new plants.
I want to layer them in containers. It seems more convenient. With the shape of stem, I need to insert the stem through the low end of the side of the containers, so I cut holes.
Then I trimmed growth from the part of the stem that will be buried. I scraped bark to expose cambium.
I used a Q-tip to apply Dip-n-Gro to the stem, especially the exposed cambium. Then inserted the stem through the hole.
Then filled with moist potting soil, firmed it, and watered in. I did that with both of the longer stems.
They will just sit there by the parent plant until Spring. By then I hope they will be rooted and ready to grow on their own.
I think I've overwintered this one three times. It took a while, but now it's demanding our attention.
