Time to Go Undercover
16.06.2023 - 02:36
/ blog.theenduringgardener.com
Time to Go Undercover
After weeks of commenting on how many summer and autumn flowers have continued to flower their socks off, winter is now making itself felt as temperatures have plummeted. In this sheltered coastal garden we seldom have frosts, but there are still plants that will be much happier undercover instead of taking their chances outdoors. So, rather like the alpine farmers taking their animals to lower pastures, this week I’ve been moving plants to places where they can shelter for the winter.
The greenhouse is too small for most of them and will soon be pressed into use for seed sowing, so the plants end up in a variety of places depending on how much attention/warmth they will need in the coming months and – equally importantly – how precious they are to me.
My three citrus trees used to be small enough to all come into the kitchen for the winter, but now that they are substantial shrubs there is only space for one. They take turns indoors and this year it’s the Calamondin Orange that gets to enjoy the limelight. Although the light is good enough to prevent leaf fall, it’s really a bit too warm, so the tree sits in a gravel-filled saucer and is spritzed regularly with water. I keep the soil just damp (with rainwater) and feed once a month with a winter citrus feed. And I check regularly for scale insects –a healthy tree may show no sign of any infestation outdoors, but once indoors they may emerge and need dealing with as soon as possible. I’m not keen on using systemic insecticides and generally wipe the leaves with methylated spirits but the tree is now of a size that this may be far too Herculean a task, especially as the Calamondin has many small leaves, unlike the larger leaves on the other
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