Bringing your plants indoors

Sep 17, 2014

by Dale Odorizzi, Lanark County Master Gardeners

It is that time of year again. The days are getting shorter, the nights are long and cold. Many of us put our house plants outside for the summer or have purchased annuals to brighten up our containers. If you want to save them for another season, act now to get them inside before frost strikes. Before you decide which plants to bring inside, look at it carefully. If it has not thrived outside, it likely won’t thrive inside. Unless the plant is very valuable or has great sentimental value, do not bring inside.

The first thing to do is to bring the plants inside without bringing in a lot of creepy crawlies—that’s the technical for insects. Earwigs love to hide out in the soil of our plants and when they get inside they start looking around. To get rid of soil based pests, put your containers in a larger container of water. This will force the pests to get out. Do not leave the plant in the water for too long as you do not want it to get waterlogged. Then, look at the plant carefully. Spray the leaves with warmish water that contains a little liquid soap or insecticidal soap. Spray the tops and the bottoms of the leaves and the stalks of the plants. If there are cocoons on the plant take them off and wipe the plant off. If you have room, segregate the new arrivals indoors from the plants which have been there all year so if you bring in any pests, the old plants won’t be impacted.

If you think back to the spring, you will remember hardening off your plants by putting them out for a few hours each day until they were ready to be outside full time. The same thing applies now only in reverse. Our homes in the winter are dry. They do not have as much sunlight as your plants are used to so you should bring them in more gradually, for a few hours each day. As the evenings get colder, I tend to bring my plants in for the night and then back outside for some of the day. This prevents them from frost and helps to harden them off for the tough indoor conditions.

Many of us like to save our annuals for next year. Geraniums are one plant that often come indoors. You can bring them in by taking cuttings, dipping in rooting hormone and planting them up. While some folks are successful doing this in the fall, many are more successful doing the root cuttings in February when the plant wants to grow. I pot up my geraniums and sit them in a sunny window to grow and bloom all winter. You can also keep them in a cold dark room, only providing a minimum of water and then bringing them into the light in February. Once they start to grow, take your cuttings. If they get too leggy, cut off the long stems and let the new growth flourish. Other annuals such as Coleus, Sweet Potato Vine and various other trailing plants do well by taking cuttings and putting them in a jar of water. When roots start to appear, pot them up and let them grow on. With some plants, you can take cuttings multiple times over the course of the winter.

Bringing your plants indoors is an excellent way to keep your green thumb working all winter long. Be careful about watering and fertilizing your plants. Over the winter many of our houseplants and annuals like a little rest so just provide with enough water to keep them from drying out completely.