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I’m back from Vegas

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Sorry for the lack of posts since Wednesday. I had planned to write regularly while I was in Vegas, but I barely had an internet connection in my hotel so I was unable to make any new posts!

That was such a drag! I was in Vegas for two blogging conventions and ended up with out internet access. How Ironic huh?

Well, I can tell you that the weather was much nicer in Las Vegas than it was here in Toronto while I was away! As our plane took off on Thursday afternoon I noticed what looked like snow flurries hitting the planes window! Ah it was snowing!

Last year you might remember that Vegas had snow in December, A few inches I believe, and we hadn’t even had snow here in Toronto by that time. Quite the change this year!

Las Vegas was a little warmer this past week than it normally is around this time in November. I’d say it averaged about 80 F during the day and low 70’s at night. Very comfortable temperatures since there was really no humidity to speak of at all.

I got home late last night or perhaps you might say early this morning and I already miss the Las Vegas weather. It was raining and cold and just plain gloomy looking outside today! Not inviting at all.

It won’t be long before the cold weather sets in, I’m sure of it.

We still had our patio table and chair set up outside so my husband tried to spend some time outside this afternoon in order to take them apart (they are metal and glass) and store them but he only got the job half done as it started to rain heavily.

Tomorrows supposed to be cool but mainly sunny. Perhaps we’ll get that patio furniture put away tomorrow and if I’m feeling up to it I’d better start working on putting the garden to bed for the winter too!

Have you finished all your autumn garden tasks yet? Is your garden all tucked in and ready for winter?






The garden is beginning to shut down

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It feels like it’s gotten so cold outside! I think that’s only partly true though. I’m sick again with fever and sore stomach so I’m just freezing, even inside my own home!

Looking outside at the garden that I don’t dare walk in when I’m feeling this cold indoors I can see that the leaves from the big maple tree have begun to fall over the lawn and garden, and some of my plants have started to die down.

Those that are shutting down for the winter include the balloon flowers and the Phlox. As I mentioned in earlier posts many of my flowers are still going strong, although I suspect they won’t be for much longer!

We still haven’t had any frost … or at least I don’t think we have, certainly we haven’t had any hard frosts, but I expect within the next week we’ll have our first. That might be the only thing that shuts down my roses! I swear they want to keep blooming and blooming. Silly plants!

Some of my visitors have mentioned in comments that their gardens have been hit by frost already. How is everyone else’s garden fairing this first week of November?

Time to bring the tropical plants indoors!

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It’s cooled down here in Toronto quite a bit over the last week. In fact, some night’s have started to get close to freezing temperatures.

So, I think I’m going to bring all my tropical plants indoors again. I did put all the tropicals like the passionflower vines, the jasmine, ornamental peppers and so on inside the enclosed back porch a couple of weeks ago. We even put two tomato plants that had been growing in large pots inside the porch too.

The plants have all done well in there and the tomatoes have really taken off and have produced a number of green tomatoes. Most are large enough to begin ripening and as far as I’m concerned that’s just in time as the porch will be too cool soon for the tomatoes to survive.

I think that I’ll bring the tropical plants inside and place them in our sunny spare bedroom upstairs.

I do this every year, but I’ve found that not all of the plants make it through the winter. We have a humidifier that we use upstairs in the winter time, but I think that the plants find the air too dry even with the extra humidity we try to put in the air.

Perhaps we’ll get another humidifier or vaporizer to put right in the room with the plants. That will certainly increase the total humidity upstairs!

They have to combat dry winter furnace heated air and the occasional white fly or other pesty bug attack. I do give the plants a spray with a mild soapy water solution occasionally.

Anyone have any other tips for me as to how I can make sure my passion flower vines and other tropicals make it through the winter inside the house?

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