Over-wintering
tropicals generally get better and better each year because they achieve such
impressive size. Being able to
start your growing season with fully grown specimen plants makes an immediate
impact in your garden. That in
itself is reward enough for all the effort it took to over-winter
Many
tropicals are costly. The rarer the
species, the harder they are to find, the more they cost.
Once you have found a rare treasure, you will surely want to learn how to
carry it through many winters.
Many
tropicals that you have been growing outdoors in summer will look wonderful in
the fall. When the annuals and
perennials have diminished the tropicals will still be going strong. If this plant will flourish as a houseplant, all the more
reason to bring it in and enjoy it longer.
The
way you over-winter a tropical plant largely depends on the particular plant.
The general idea is to mimic the way the plant rests during its natural
dormancy period, if it has one, without allowing it to freeze.
In a tropical climate where daylight length and temperatures vary only
slightly throughout the year it is the seasonal dry periods that induce
dormancy. The plants may actually
drop their leaves for a month or longer to enter a period of slowed growth.
But changes in climate will also slow the plant down without killing it.
You
have five basic choices when it come to carrying tropical plants through the
winter:
Over-wintering
as a growing houseplant
Storing
it as a dormant plant, tuber, or bulb
Collecting
seed to start again in spring
Leaving
it outside but protected from the elements
Take
cuttings to root over the winter.
Many tropicals
perform well as houseplants but only if they get enough light and humidity.
Use grow-lights if your available light is not sufficient and run a
humidifier to help boost the humidity. Also
cooler air seems to be less dry. Tropicals
do much better in the winter with day and night temperatures in the sixty degree
range.
When
moving a over-wintered tropical as a houseplant back outside I the spring, do
this very gradually. Too much
sun too soon will burn the new growth and may kill the plant completely It’s like going to the beach on the first day of summer and
laying out in the sun all day without sunscreen.
Start
by taking your plant outside on a cloudy day and place it beneath a shade tree.
Leave it there for a few days and then move to a slightly brighter
location. Give it time in the sun
for an hour or two each day but not at midday.
Finally after a few weeks you may move it to its permanent sunny
location, but make the move on a cloudy day.
Elephant
ears, Caladiums, Canna Lily, Sweet Potato Vine, and Dahlies are from bulbs,
tubers, or corms, (commonly referred to as bulbs.)
Cool and frosty weather will cause a bulbous tropical to go into
dormancy. So will holding back
water. Allow the plant to go
through the first frost, then cut back the top, dig it up, label it and store it
in a cool, (but not freezing) dry dark place.
A root cellar, basement, garage, winterized porch or even the back of
your closet makes a good resting place. After
digging, wash all the soil off and let them air dry for a few hours.
Examine the bulb for rot or damage and cut away any diseased portion.
You can coat them with an anti-desiccant spray to help reduce moisture
loss and ward off fungal attack. Wrap
each bulb loosely in newspaper and then store in a black garbage bag.
Ideal temperature to store in is around forty to fifty degrees.
Examine every month to check for signs of rot or decay.
Spray a bit of water on shriveled ones to re-hydrate them.
You
can resurrect the dormant bulbs by potting them up, moving them to a sunny space
and starting to water them, much sooner than you can plant them outside.
This will give you much larger, fuller plants earlier in the summer.
More Resources:
The following link is an eight page color flyer form the University of Illinois
Extension. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the pages. If
you do not have Adobe Reader installed on your computer you may get it free from
www.adobe.com