Last night we had our first frost. The water in the bowl on our oputside washing up table was frozen and it was fun lifting the sheet of ice off. There will probably be another frost tonight. Consequently, I spent this afternoon transferring geraniums from the ground into pots so that we can try to over-winter them by bringing them inside on cold nights.
The east side of our buildings, where the rose garden is, gets greater extremes of temperature than the west side. Through the summer this means more hours of sunshine. The geraniums that I planted to fill space in the rose garden are actually three times as big as the ones in the west garden. It also means, however, being more exposed in winter. The roses can take it but the geraniums can't.
I dug them all up and took them to the potting shed to pot them. For this you can use potting compost or soil of the type that they are used to. There are pros and cons, as always. The soil from the ground they have been growing in is likely to contain all the enzymes, fungi and other symbiots that they need. On the other hand, using natural soil one may also be over-wintering pests along with the flowers. I used natural soil, mostly dug from the same bed that they had been growing in.
As we do not have a greenhouse (yet! one of my ambitions) I will keep them in the big barn. This is not totally frost proof in the very coldest weather, but at that stage we might bring them into the house.
I searched through all our stored plant pots, mostly acquired as we bought plants, and chose reasonable sized ones for each plant. In the bottom put some broken tile to aid drainage. I find that actually putting them into the pots is most conveniently done in the wheel barrow as excess soiul thn just falls back into the stock.
In the end there were 17 pots. I took them all across to the barn in the barrow - two loads - and put them inside for the night. It is a bit like looking after little animals. I wonder how many will survive until spring. They have been a wonderful display all of this summer.
Replies
Last night I left the little darlings outside in their pots as it was raining and the temperature is rising. Looks like we shall have a nice day today.