You need to experiment and try new things if you want to become a better gardener. You may want to experiment with a new plant or a how-to guide to create your own. Gardening advice can’t be generalized, because your garden is unique. You become an expert gardener by trying, and sometimes failing, and trying again until the result is satisfactory (or you decide that it’s no longer worth the effort). You’ll soon find that what you do works and tell others to follow your lead.

Wintering plants that I have never done before is a new experience for me. In previous years, I have successfully wintered over dahlias and cannas. Gladiolas, tuberous begonias, Mirabilis Longiflora, a relative of the four o’clocks, were also successful. This year, I bought several impulse items that I told myself I’d winter over. This article on Proven Winners helped me to realize that I could winter other plants. I also wanted to preserve the plants in the beautiful hanging baskets that I received as a birthday gift this year. This adds up more than 12 experiments.

I received two hanging baskets as a birthday gift. I am trying to keep the sweet potato vines and geraniums alive through the winter. I’ll probably use them as window boxes in the carriage barn if they survive.

How can I be sure unless I give it a try? My wintering experiments are divided into two categories. I have dormant houseplants I want to grow next spring and dormant dormant dormant dormant dormant dormant dormant dormant do not know unless I try. In the case of a few plants I am trying both methods. For the houseplants I’ll be happy to have them survive long enough to allow me to take cuttings or cut them back to encourage new healthy growth. With the low levels of light, I expect them to become leggy and bedraggled.

What I did, and why

Here is what I did, roughly in alphabetical order. I hope this inspires you to try some experiments of your own.

Agapanthus aka Lily of the Nile A friend recommended the Storm Series: ‘Snow Storm,’ ‘Blue Storm,’ ‘Thunder Storm,’ and ‘Sea Storm.’ When I ordered “Storm Cloud”, I assumed I would get that. However, I did not check my email and found out later I was mistaken. It’s still a deep blueish-purple which was what I wanted, so let’s continue with the experiment. It didn’t flower this year. I got a small plant by mail. This summer, my goal was to help it grow and gain strength so it could bloom next year.

There are two types of agapanthus, one deciduous and the other evergreen. You winterize them differently. After some detective research, I found out that mine was evergreen. It went from the large container on my terrace to a smaller container and now is part of my collection of houseplants in my dining room. The dining room, which is the room with the woodstove, is the warmest in the house. This room has a large east-facing, non-overhung window. It gets the most sunlight of any warm room window.

If the sun is shining in the morning, which is rare, then this large window will receive morning sunlight. The tropical hibiscus is in the terracotta-looking pot on far left. You can see a Lemon Coral Sedum at the bottom-right. My son owns the large orange tree. The orange tree was grown from a seed that he found many years ago in an Orange.

Angelonia What I have learned Hot Plants For Cool Climates Susan Roth and Dennis Schrader have shown that angelonias can be wintered as dormant plants. I found my two angelonias in a pot with other plants. So, I removed them, cut their stems to the ground and repotted them. They are kept dry in the basement.

Begonia For the Garden Shelter, I purchased tuberous begonias. The begonias are a good fit for the location but were quite expensive. I plan to winter over them. In the past, I’ve had mixed results wintering them. One lasted for two to three years, but then it didn’t sprout the following year. These mistral pink begonias are in my fingers. Following the advice in A way to Garden, I will keep them in hanging baskets.

Two hanging baskets of tuberous begonias were displayed on the garden shelter.

Canna Cannas are not new to me. I have wintered them before. I used to have a variety of cannas, which produced more tubers every year. I’ve decided that I don’t need so many cannas. I now just winter over. Tropicanna Gold . Following the advice given on Gardening in a Way that Works . Cannas are not that successful for me. They never get big enough and they don’t often flower. They may not get enough heat or rich soil. The plants still look good in pots as a foil to other plants. I keep them.

Coleus – ( Solenostemon varieties). I’m sure more people will overwinter the tender perennial because it is so easy. You can root some stems by cutting them, putting them in water and watching them grow. It’s better to pot up the cuttings as soon as possible, but I’m ashamed to admit that I haven’t done this yet. Just to test my abilities, I also tried rooting some cuttings with vermiculite. I believe they “took”, and I will need to pot on the potting soil.

Dahlia When I was growing dahlias, I grew them in pots so I could bring them to the basement to keep warm during the winter. In our old home, we had a dirt-floored basement. One year a dahlia grew into the floor. Dahlias do grow better and bigger when they are planted in the soil, especially if it is well-amended. Wait for a killing freeze before digging. I remove the tops, leaving a stem handle of about 6 inches. They are sometimes as large as broomsticks so I use loppers to cut the stems.

In my cold climate, ‘Mingus Toni” is my favorite dahlia. It starts blooming by mid-July.

I start farther away from the plant stem than I thought I needed to. I usually start a foot or a foot and a half from it. I use the fork to stab straight down and then pull up. It’s important to lift the tubers up with the fork without breaking or stabbing them. This year I forgot to rinse the tubers. I don’t have to worry, as they survived the winter in their pots with soil on them at my old house. I labeled the boxes with the varieties and stored them in the basement’s coolest area. Finding a large enough box is the hardest part, as the clumps grow really big and I want to plant them in spring big.

Eucomis aka Pineapple Lily I have been wanting to try this bulb for a few years now, so I grabbed some when I saw them at the Ithaca Flower Fair. These were offsets that I received from a gardener. As I expected, they didn’t flower this summer. They were small offsets from a home gardener and as I suspected, they didn’t bloom this summer. I hope they’ll bloom next year. Eventually, I’d like to plant some of them in the ground. This was inspired by the comment made by by the Berkshire Botanical Garden stating that the gardeners in Zone 5b grow them in the soil.

Four o’Clocks – ( mirabilis jalapa ) My mom received a “Limelight” four o’clock. I decided to dig up the plant and save the tuber just as I did with Mirabilis Longiflora. Why would anyone want to grow Four O’Clocks from a tuber? It takes longer to flower if you grow it from seeds. I admit that I love chartreuse leaves and would grow them even if they didn’t flower. Chartreuse foliage is stunning with colchicums.

Pelargonium (As with Pelargonium, the bedding plant Geranium is treated as an annual but it’s actually a tender perennial. Two were in each of the hanging baskets I received for my birthday. (See the picture near the top). This post in A Garden For The House showed how to rejuvenate the geraniums so they would bloom in winter. I’m not sure if I have enough time to make them bloom in the winter. If they survive, I will take cuttings for next spring.

Other sources suggest letting them dry and dormant and then reviving them in spring. Both are being tried. In addition to the two I have on my windowsill I also have two in the cellar that I pried from the hanging basket, and placed into a plastic bag which I then loosely tied. They’re still alive, I checked them out. Through the bag, I can see pale yellow growth. I’m not sure what to do about it.

Gladiolus I love glads. I have bought him a bag with mixed colors to plant in his garden for several years. The dark red ones were his favorites. Finally, I bought two deep reds: “Espresso” and “Black Beauty”. The mixed-color glads came back for three consecutive years, but these dark beauties are not to be taken lightly. I dug up the glads, cut off the foliage, removed the old corm and placed them in net bags with labels. The rest of my stash is down in the basement.

One of the dark red glads is leaning against Rudbeckia Triloba.

Hibiscus I have a Tropical hibiscus Jolly Polly As swag at the recent Garden Communicators National Conference. Some people grow it indoors, while others let it dry out and go dormant. It’s currently in the dining area with the rest of the houseplants. I only watered the plant once. I’m not sure I can completely withhold water. I also don’t like to keep it in a dark basement. I’m kind of on the fence about this one.

Jewels Of Opar( Talinum Paniculatum “Kingwood Gold”) I grew it from seed this past year, and it was beautiful with magenta-pink Colchicums and dark purple Heucheras. It was a gift from a Tennessee gardener friend. It was said to self-seed, but not here.

The ‘Grape Expectations Heucheras’ look great with Kingwood Gold.

This year, I grew five plants from seed. I dug up the tubers, and put them in a bag of paper in the basement. We’ll see what happens when I replant the tubers in spring. A friend in Pennsylvania gave me some seeds. Jewels of Opar is considered invasive by many people who live in warmer climates. If you live in a “warmer climate”, keep this in mind.

Zephyranthes A friend in Texas sent me some Rain Lilies. They were annuals to me, until I read Old House Gardens about how one of the customers in Wisconsin keeps them alive. I planted mine in the soil, and dug them up the following fall to replant them in a pot. I don’t know if they bloomed much this year because they were moved. My plants are still in their pots in the dark basement, with other stored plants. They still have green foliage. I’m not sure what will be required for them to go dormant and dry out. In the spring, I’ll put the pot out again.

Before I knew they could be stored in a container, I grew them in my garden.

Rosemary I winter a rosemary each year and wrote about it in this. Since I wrote that article, we’ve moved into a new home and finally got a ‘Salem” rosemary . Our current house has an attached garage to the south of the home. There are no windowsills facing south for plants, except in the semi-finished space above the garage. The temperature is also quite cool, which is perfect for the rosemary. It’s good enough. Even in a southern location, the rosemary does not get enough sun. Every winter it gets aphids, but I ignore them, and they go away within a week once the rosemary goes back outside. It is important to remind myself every week to check the rosemary to see if it requires water. Otherwise, I’d forget. I don’t go up there very often.

Salvia Salvias are very tender and it is advised to take cuttings in order to keep them alive. This year, I also took cuttings of a salvia that I thought was particularly beautiful at the time I cut the coleus. I’m fairly certain they rooted. It’s important to check for new growth. There hasn’t really been any new growth in my house because of the low light levels, but there may have been some. The mini-greenhouse (just a container of lettuce mix) has been removed and the plants have not wilted. It’s now time to pot them. Ken Druse’s Making More Plants gave me instructions on how to take cuttings.

Lemon Coral ™ In a container that my daughter painted.

‘Lemon Coral Sedum’ This plant is my favorite (Sedum mexicanum). It looks great in a pot, but is not hardy. It was a I received a trial plant from Proven Winners They say that. Does well as a indoor plant This winter, I will try it. The plant fell apart when I removed it from its summer home. I now have it growing in multiple pots in various locations around the house.

The sedum has shallow roots, so I enjoy growing it in unconventional containers like these repurposed creamers. The container has no drainage so I need to be careful not to overwater.

Golden Sweet Potato Vine( Ipomoea Batatas). I received two vines per hanging basket for my birthday. I planted two of them in a hanging pot and am growing them as houseplants. I harvested the tubers of the other two and threw them into a bag with the rest in the basement.

Two different sources of light are used to illuminate the vines, and they look good so far.

The whole lot before it was put in the basement. Two hanging baskets are filled with tuberous begonias. Angelonias grow in the two small pots. Dahlias are in the two boxes. The black crate contains everything else, bagged and in a crate.

Basement I’m always mentioning

It’s not as dark or cold as suggested. Our basement temperature is around 60degF since we renovated our heating system. 40degF is the most common recommendation. Our basement is a busy place. We have a laundry room, a dryer, two freezers, a second oven, and a pantry. Some people forget to turn off the lights when they return from the basement. I boxed and crated everything and put it in the crawlspace part. My plants are now in the coolest, darkest place, but that’s not ideal. It’s all part of an experiment to find out what works in my less-than-ideal environment.