Pole bed project update

My reworking of the pole bed has been on hold because I had too many other projects going around the farm and the weather hasn’t been real great.  I spent a whole afternoon bringing in and arranging houseplants and tender perennials but I am still not finished.  Every window in the house now has plants in it except for the main bedroom and Steve has to take the air conditioner out of that window first.  If he does that I am sure it will get warm again.  One window in that room we usually cover with a heavy drape because it lets in too much cold air so it isn’t usable for plants. 

 It’s always crowded in the fall when I first bring things in.  I have a step ladder in the big living room window that allows me to use vertical space.   There are plants on each step and on the paint shelf that sticks out toward the back.  I have shelves or tables at the bottom of each window and shelves across the middle of the window.  The only windows in our house that have curtains are the master bedroom windows ( 1 covered, 1 on the lower half).   Some plants got a lot bigger over the summer, like the lemon tree and the staghorn fern and required different locations.  I am still running around trying to find saucers for under each pot-they were put away somewhere and I still have to repot some things.

 Our house always looks more homey with the plants but it does make it a bit darker when the windows are covered with plants.  Until the leaves fall off the trees on the south side it is really dark, but after the leaves are gone  and the sun is lower on the horizon it gets better.

I covered some things last night because frost was predicted.  I’m not sure it did frost but it was very cold, down in the 30’s.  I didn’t want my beautiful dahlias to quit blooming.  I still have some tuberous begonias, cane begonias and geraniums outside.  Most of that along with my rosemary plants will come in on the back porch- as soon as I find room for the plants that are there now- which includes a couple of spider plants and 2 huge pots of hanging abutilons plus the planter my son got me for mothers day which has a huge dracaena and some lavender geraniums that I want to separate.

 I have decisions to make on some of the geraniums and begonias- should I actually bring them inside?  The cane begonia on the front porch is pretty yellowed, I think the cold already got to it or maybe it just needed more fertilizing.  I may cut it back and put it on the porch and hope it rejuvenates in the spring.  Some of the geraniums never did recover as they generally do over the summer and maybe should be scrapped.  I just have a hard time discarding plants, even though I am always advising others to do it.

 It’s sunny today and supposed to be warmer so I may work on my pole bed project later in the day and get it done before it turns into one giant kitty litter box for the kittens.