Last updated on December 2nd, 2011
LIKE CAMP FOR CHILDREN AND SEA BREEZES FOR ADULTS, houseplants, too, benefit from a summer vacation out of doors. Here, under nature’s ideal growing conditions, most of them are able to recover from the frustrations of house life, and to store up a reserve of health for the next winter ahead. Here are some tips for getting these plants off to a good summer-start, along with some display ideas:
Before they go on vacation, take an unsentimental inventory of your plants, and decide which ones to keep. I’m parting with the Coffea arabica plant that’s pictured above. Although it promised flowers and brew-able beans, in three years’ time it is has produced neither for me. Other plants I’ll toss or bestow are those which have outgrown their allotted space in the window garden.
Next, bring all of your keepers to a shady, sheltered spot, where they can acclimate to outside conditions for one week. Mine go on the front porch, which is protected from wind.
This acclimation period will give you a chance to examine pots. If a plant has pushed its roots through the drainage hole, repotting is in order. “Repotting” doesn’t always mean shifting a plant to a larger container. Often you can simply knock a plant from its pot, trim off 1/3 of its roots and 1/3 of its foliage, and then return the plant to the same pot, filling in with fresh mixture. You’ve seen me perform this procedure on my Pelargonium peltatum.
If roots have not grown through the drainage hole, just remove as much top soil as you can without damaging roots. Then top-dress with fresh mixture.
Now comes the creative part: finding suitable summer quarters for the plants. Years ago, I used to hang spider plants, marantha, and ferns from tree branches in the shady Woodland Garden, sink potted geraniums into a sunny bed in the Kitchen Garden, and set my sweet olive, African gardenia, thunbergera grandiflora and other flowering specimens upon wrought-iron stands on the semi-shady patio. Scattered this way, the plants were a nuisance to manage.
This summer, I decided to travel the easy road, and keep the plants together in one place: the semi-shaded corner of my Herb Garden. Here, the plants can’t possibly be ignored, for I enjoy breakfast, lunch and dinner in this garden. How beautiful they look in their summertime digs, the small flowering subjects on Victorian stands, the trailing vines on old wrought-iron kerosene lamp brackets (these borrowed from my window garden), and the large foliage plants on a shelf I attached to a clapboard wall.
To sweeten the scene, I suspended above the plant shelf a cheap, plastic wall-mounted fountain. This I framed with long strands of grape ivy. The ivy makes the fountain look more important, I think, and not so cheap. The houseplants seem to enjoy the gurgling water-music as much as I do.
Wherever your houseplants go outdoors, keep in mind that they need regular attention. I feed and water mine daily — and twice daily during periods of high heat. A weekly blast of cold water from the hose refreshes their foliage and keeps insects at bay.
Permitted this period in the fresh, humid air, the plants in September return to the window garden in mint condition, the ferns and tolmeia filled with new, lush green growth, the philodendron and grape ivy so exuberantly-long you can use them to frame a window, the Sweet Olive, Meyer Lemon, impatiens, begonias, and geraniums eager to bloom. And they continue this beauty pageant long after the snow begins to fall.
Are your houseplants presently enjoying a summer vacation, too? Where did you place them?
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The Fragrant, Fruiting Meyer Lemon
Seven Ways to Beautiful Houseplants
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Katreader says
Sadly, I think I let most of my houseplants die. I need to check for signs of life and perhaps prepare for some new ones-letting the survivors stay outside for a bit. Though in this heat, I'm not sure they'd thank me!
Kevin Lee Jacobs says
Katreader — If you can keep them together, as I did, in semi-shade and near a hose, they won't be too difficult to nurture back to health. You'd be amazed at well they respond to a little sun and fresh air!
Eric says
Love the fountain! It doesn't look “cheap” to me, but what do I know?
erin says
I hope they made it through that storm! wow
Kevin Lee Jacobs says
Eric – Thanks. Grape ivy works wonders.
erin – Whenever we have a big storm in June — especially one that includes hail — you can bet that I've just set the houseplants out! Fortunately they all survived.
Carol says
Thanks for the repotting tip. I thought you always had to transplant to a larger pot.
The wall fountain is great! Could you use it indoors in the wintertime as well?
Yolanda says
Kevin, your plants look so healthy and happy outdoors! Guess they really benefit from the fresh air.
Do your African violets get a summer vacation too?
despina says
I put out my rose geranium and am worried the deer may get to it, but it really likes the west sun and it is on its second blooming spurt of the year.
Kevin Lee Jacobs says
Carol – Yes, the fountain can be used indoors. This fall, I'll place it in the the room we use for our weekly yoga class.
Yolanda — My African violets are the only plants that remain indoors all summer. They can't bear the extremes in temperatures, and a cold rain can harm their leaves.
despina – Probably deer won't bother your scented geranium. I know that woodchucks and rabbits can't bear the scent.
Jingles says
Glad to know I’m not the only one who can predict a future hail storm by moving houseplants outside. I’ve reached the point that just the orchids and very sentimentally valuable plants go under a table for protection but the 13 year old impatens comes back inside after the slightest hint of possible hail.
Question please – I’ve heard that deer do not come around if there’s bleeding heart plants in the grden. Really????