Flower Garden Lovers

Tip for Saving a Frosted Houseplant

We find that much sharper frosts are to be expected after Christmas and the New Year than before. Although in this day and age of insulated windows of many kinds this may occur less frequently, there are some homes still with single pane windows so that even our houseplants on our window sills may suffer from frost. Our home in the Black Forest of Colorado outside of Colorado Springs was such a house and when the temperatures fell below 10 degrees, we had ice on the inside of the house.

A great old time protection can be found in newspapers. If we fold one and line the lower part of the window with it, we keep out a good deal of the cold and we may quite lightly spread another over the plants themselves. So long as it is effective, it matters not that it is a homely and rough-and-ready way of doing things. It is far better than letting the plants suffer.

But suppose our houseplants, or pot-plants as they were called, have become frostbitten and we see a limp, almost lifeless plant. What can we do? First we must see to it that not one bit of sunshine touches these frostbitten plants. We then spray them with the cold water, or if you use a watering can of some type, water them from the rose of the can. After that put them in the dark for a day or two. It may be that even these measures will not save the plants, but it is the what we can do and sometimes plants really badly frostbitten have been saved.

During the winter such plants as geraniums may be allowed to become quite dry before more water is given and other plants, too. The soil must never be allowed to become dry as dust though in the case of hard-wooded plants like azaleas tha already have their flower buds formed. Of course the bulbous plants that we are forcing in pots must never suffer from lack of moisture. We want to hit the happy medium here; never to keep them too wet nor to let them suffer from lack of water. We have to remember that, as we are forcing these bulbs by growing them in the warmth of our rooms, they are in active growth and therefore must not receive a check in that growth for lack of water.

Lastly there is one delightful occupation we may give ourselves even when the world is white with snow. That is to gather seed catalogues and go throught them again and again to decide, even in these winter days, what we intend to grow to make our gardens beautiful in the summer that will be coming.

© 2005, Sandra Dinkins-Wilson

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