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Practical Flowers

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This weeks theme is Practical

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You knew I’d find a flower for the Practical theme this week didn’t you? Of course I did.

I think flowers are very practical life forces.

They develop on plants, look attractive and sometimes give off scents which attract insects who either help the plant produce fruit or that protect the plant in some way. Then, once the flower fades seeds are often produced which help the plant ensure that new plants come up the following year.

Plants and flowers are very practical.

BTW this is the seed head of a Maltese cross flower.






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?

Talk about strange weather

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So far October is shaping up to be more like the end of August or early September temperature wise.

It’s been no less than 10 degrees higher than the average temperatures for this time of year and often a lot higher than that.

This weekend is Thanks Giving here in Canada and the temps are supposed to be close to 30 Celsius each day. That’s the mid 80’s for those of you who are stuck in Fahrenheit.

I remember Thanks Giving weekends when we’ve had snow or when it’s been so cold and rainy that you don’t want to step outside. Luckily most aren’t like that, but neither are most as warm as this one will be.

There’s also been quite a bit of humidity. On Wednesday night I was out with my husband shopping and when we came back to our car at about 8 in the evening the car was blanketed with moisture. It wasn’t cold out so it wasn’t condensation due to temperature change. It was warm and sticky wet humid.

Then, last night at about 6 pm a strange fog descended on the city. You can see photos at BlogTO if you’d like to see how dense the fog was the blanketed the city during daylight hours. The CN tower has clouds at half it’s height! Very strange.

As much as I’m enjoy this strangely warm weather I’m worried that it’s giving my plants the wrong message. How are my roses ever supposed to get the message to stop growing, leaving out and creating new buds if it doesn’t begin to cool down?

Many plants need the gradual cooling of temperatures to signal them to go into dormancy. Without beginning to slow down and become dormant before the harsh cool weather of winter comes along the plants might end up having more winter damage.

How’s the weather in your area? Do you wonder strange weather in your area might affect your plants health?

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