#36 Frost

                “The frost comes on little cat feet” – my apologies to Carl Sandburg, the madman likes the phrase, but really wishes you had used frost instead of fog. The mere mention of frost strikes fear in the heart of the madman, and that first frost warning coincided with the Connecticut Association of Optometrists’ Fall Conference in Mystic. Since he’s education chairman, he had to go – leaving his plants unattended for three days. As soon as the National Weather Service began issuing frost warnings, the madman sprang into action. He couldn’t leave his plants unprotected.

A Cool Spot for the Cacti

                He had been talking for the past few months about what plants went where for the winter. After a trip to Chris Allen’s greenhouse, the madman realized that the 67˚ basement didn’t provide enough cool to stimulate flowering in his cactus plants. They needed a cool, dry environment and the greenhouse would be perfect if he kept it cooler. The idea of no cactus in the house made me happy-don’t get me wrong, the plants are beautiful-they just happen to be painful if you accidentally hit one.

                With the threat of frost and a three day absence, the madman had run out of time. The big cactus were the first to go to their winter home. One by one, the pots were lifted out of the sand in the new cactus bed, placed in the wagon and gently hauled over to the greenhouse which had recently gone through a thorough cleaning in preparation for this. Once the big guys were placed, the surrounding space was filled with smaller specimens. The Cacti were safe.

Succulents Get to Go Inside

                The cactus bed is shared by members of the succulents-agaves, aloes, gasterias, haworthias and, of course, his precious euphorbias. With no cactus going in the house this year, space freed up for plants he feels will need a little more winter warmth. Since most of these hail from Central and Southern Africa, they rarely tolerate temperatures under 50˚ so the basement or a sunny window should be ideal for them. As of this writing some have been moved to the basement and some to sunny windows, but a majority are being sheltered in the étalier. The madman feels he has until mid-November to decide where each plant will spend the winter.

Row of Death

                With cacti and succulents accounted for, his attention turned to the Row of Death. He had to select those peppers that would get valuable greenhouse space for the overwintering process. From my perspective, this looked like a painful experience for the madman. He wanted to save them all, but knew he couldn’t. Because of the worries of frost, he had to get the peppers under shelter so he pulled up a bunch of pots and moved them to the étalier. He will make the final cut later in the month. I know he is hoping the frost warnings are wrong and the Row of Death will survive his absence.

I Have Plants, Too

                My selection of plants that need protection from the frost is much easier. The Angel Trumpets and Passion Flowers are wacked in half and sent to the basement for the winter. The rosemarys and bays get moved to a sunny window in the entryway where they will receive fresh, cool air for the winter. The Mandevilla, a couple of exotic petunias, the Calibrachoa and Jack Frost Euphorbias will beg for space in the greenhouse. If the last group survives the winter, we will take cuttings for next year’s plants.  For the time being, these plants will seek shelter in the étalier – after all, I have to pack for the weekend.

Citrus

                The madman also has a large collection of citrus that will have to come into the house or greenhouse for the winter. Luckily they can withstand a light frost so the madman won’t worry about them until we get back. They are hunkering down in place.

                As you can imagine, we don’t just move the plants from the garden to the house. They have just spent a summer in the wild and who knows what sorts of hitchhikers are along for the ride. The madman once learned that he could not take shortcuts after I saw a horde of ants emanating from some plant he snuck in. But that was in his younger, more foolish days!

Plants Need a Half-way House

                We use the étalier as a staging area because plants go through a rather thorough inspection and purging before they are allowed inside. The plants also need to adjust to less intense light and, with its corrugated fiberglass skylights, this is the perfect spot. We take each plant out of its pot to inspect. Many an insect’s winter plans have been disrupted by this process. We wash the pot, trim the roots and add fresh sterile potting soil to most of the indoor-bound plants. Then we prune the plant to allow for good air flow. To make sure that no insects remain in the plant’s roots, we drench the soil with a dilute solution of ivory liquid and water.  

The Infamous étalier

                Let’s talk a little about the étalier – literally it is the studio of a professional artist. We were lucky that the house that we purchased was inhabited by an artist who was just as mad as the madman. He wanted studio space, but having moved to Farmington from another part of the world, he never understood the concept of zoning regulations. This 25’x15’ studio was built on a concrete slab attached to the garage. As far as building codes went, it met none of them, but the madman loved the skylights.

Our new neighbors, the Zebrowskis, always referred to the building as the étalier. The madman had no idea what this meant, but he liked the sound and the name stuck. Because of the shelter and light provided by the skylights it is an ideal place to store plants. But, since the sun is the only source of heat we can’t over-winter tender plants. (The madman is working on this though and that may be a subject in the future).

Wrong Again

                Guess what happened while we were away? The temperature dropped to 32.9˚ – not a killing frost. The Row of Death survived, giving the madman a chance to revisit what will spend the winter inside the greenhouse. He’s been picking, cutting, trimming, stringing and selecting since we got back. We now have hot peppers all over the house; this after giving away a ton of peppers to the optometric community.

                He’s out there now, pruning the greenhouse-bound hot ones. Guess we are still on lemonade; time to make some.