Saving Tunias

With my hardy succulent bed project completed, the next major task is preparing to overwinter the petunias. It means cutting the plants back and potting down to 6-inch plastic pots. I'll also save some of the cuttings and try to root them in water. Before we left for Switzerland I had a bunch of cuttings in water, and most of them did develop roots. But with the length of our absence I believe they suffered from being in the water too long and I only potted two of them, and I'm not sure those two will make it. When I tackle the big baskets, I'll try again and pot the cuttings as soon as the roots develop.

Today I did the two small baskets and a large pot. I got two Vista Bubblegums, a Honey, and a Priscilla out of them. That freed up some ceiling hooks so I was able to get some of the big baskets out of the rafters. I'll wait a few days before I savage this Vista basket of Bubblegum and Jazzberry, which is taller now than it has been all year.

I also made a major edit to my largest flower pot which had a combo of geraniums and petunias. I disposed of everything except a 'Red Lodge Red Vein' which grew from seed deposited by the 2025 hybrids. The parents have purple flowers, and the offspring has red/pink flowers. I'll let it grow by itself in the big pot for a few days, then pot it down. I'll give it its own pot next year and see what happens.

I did put two geranium cuttings in water, and I have other large pots from which I can take geranium and 2025 purple petunia cuttings.

Today I called it quits on two of the three greenhouse tomato plants, and the third one probably will get the ax tomorrow. The plants were all the way to the ceiling so the immediate effect of this is allowing more light to reach the cilantro in the corner. Looking back at this time last year, I had cilantro growing vigorously for another month, but it was in a much sunnier location. Chopping the tomato plants also gives me somewhere to put the potted pepper plants until I decide what to do with them. I want to overwinter at least one of the TAM Jalapeño plants. It is a mild Jalapeño developed at Texas A&M (TAM).

Yesterday I disposed of four of my potted marigolds by planting them in the outside window boxes. The internet says, "Marigolds are generally considered deer-resistant because of their strong, pungent scent," but Red Lodge deer don't take advice from the internet and I fully expected to find them destroyed when I went to the greenhouse today. Much to my surprise, they survived the night. We'll see whether the cold or the deer get them first. The next freeze is forecast for Friday night, but it is not supposed to be a hard freeze.

The two 2025 mums flowered, but the orange one was more vigorous than the purple one, which is already declining. I really need to divide them next spring. I was thinking about dividing each plant into four, planting four pieces in the ground and making two mixed pots with the other four pieces. Most people throw their mums away each year, and I wouldn't be ultra-sad if either or both failed to survive the winter. Last year I buried them in the greenhouse planting beds to provide some insulation, but that is not an option this year so they will have to survive being stuck in a corner.

We have two south-facing windows in the heated garage, and each has three shelves lit with grow lights and the top shelf that gets some direct sun. The shelves are getting pretty full of succulents and other plants. We also have a counter in a closet that is lit by grow lights. Right now it is the propagation room for succulent leaves and petunia cuttings. It's going to be crowded as I pot more petunias. We also have shelves in the middle of the garage that get ambient light. I'm putting the more expendable Coleus there and we will see what happens. Many Coleus are shade plants, but there is a difference between outside shade and inside gloom. All they have to do is survive the winter and I can take cuttings. Inside the house I have most of the Haworthias and Crassulas in my office, and a few other plants scattered around.

Critters

We've had a lot of moose sightings in town this fall, and the greenhouse grounds are no exception. There also are bears in the area but the word on the street is they stay on the hillside below the ridge.

"Remember, this is my turf."

I haven't taken many drone images of the greenhouse this year, and I haven't flown my DJI Mini 4K lately, so I took these with the Mini today. The deer seem to notice the drone but are not startled by it. The grass around the greenhouse is green for Oct. 14, perhaps because irrigation was recently installed and was shut off for the season just a couple days ago.

Gratuitous Petunia Images

I almost finished transforming the southwest bed to succulents today, but I want to mix in one more bag of pumice and a bucket of soil before planting. With that almost done, my attention will turn to saving the petunias. The baskets look so good right now, I wish I could put them outside. I could, but they would freeze when it got dark. I gave the baskets a 180-degree turn today, and here are the three baskets on the west side. Reminder, these are Really Red/Latte, Priscilla/Hoopla Vivid Orchid, and Jazzberry/Bubblegum. I was disappointed in the performance of Priscilla (double blooms at center) in the basket, but this is as good as it has looked all year. (Although it could use some deadheading.)

The three baskets on the east side aren't quite so lush. The first basket is supposed to be primarily Blue Vein, but Royal Velvet has taken over. Next is the official Royal Velvet basket, then Honey mixed with Jazzberry. Sometimes Honey looks great; right now it is a bit ragged.

I was set up to take high-quality images today, but brought the wrong lens for my mirrorless. Curse you Canon for constantly switching lens formats! I personally have four (EF, EF-M, RF, and RF-S), there's also the EF-S, and way back in history there was the manual focus FD. I had the wrong lens with me for the Canon R5 Mark II and the camera phone photo was blown out so I went back Oct. 14 and took this one with the correct lens.

In this image there are four pots containing petunias. At lower left is a pot with Bubblegum and buried in there is a Honey. At center are two pots of the 2025 hybrids. At right is a combo geranium/petunia pot which contains at least one plant which grew from a seed produced by the 2025 plants. I have dubbed it 'Red Lodge Red Vein' because it is pink and red rather than purple. It is not that lovely but I do want to keep it.

Next phase

We're getting some cold weather this weekend for the first time this fall. I have two 'Velveteens' in the greenhouse window boxes and they were accumulating snow when I got there this afternoon. These plants can handle just about everything...except freezing temperatures. I expect this will be mush when I check in tomorrow.

Inside, for the first time this season, the heater was running in the afternoon. Outside it was in the low 30s, and the heater is able to maintain the inside at 50. I finished clearing the southwest bed and leveled it out to see how much dirt I removed previously. The bed is 15 inches deep, and the surface today is three inches from the top.

Conveniently, the size of the bed translates to about one cubic foot of soil per inch. A 5-gallon bucket is 2/3rds of a cubic foot, so I need to pull out another 18 buckets to remove the remaining 12 inches of soil. The biggest problem is figuring out where to stash the soil. I need half of it to mix with pumice and coco coir, and then I will plant hardy succulents such as Sempervivums. If all else fails, I can fill in some vole holes in my yard to get rid of any excess.

I'm always pressed for space, so I put all of my greenhouse Coleus on the bed until I get around to digging it out, which I hope to do within the next week. Of these nine Coleus, I might only keep two of them over the winter. I'm not even planning to keep the 'Wicked Witch' at lower right. I have two other copies and some cuttings at the house.

Next day: I took 10 buckets of soil out of the SW bed, which dropped the level to halfway. I found a landing place for the soil in eight of the buckets in two large containers at the house, and the two extra buckets went into the shed. Filling up the eight buckets again will empty the bed enough so I can start mixing in the pumice and coco coir. If I end up short, I can get more pumice and coco coir in Billings Thursday and mix it with the two extra buckets of soil now in the shed. If I end up long, I'll mound it up. I'm sure there will be some settling, so I believe long would be better than short.

So it seems certain I will be planting Sempervivums in the greenhouse bed this week. This is part of the plan to stop doing what is expected and do what I want. I discovered in the past year I really don't care about raising broccoli leaves, aphid-infested lettuce and stunted beets, and whatever tomatoes I grow can be outside in containers. "Plant Semps Not Broccoli!"

After all this is done, I can start in on saving the tunias.

Winter is coming

Our average first frost date is Sept. 12, but this year is skewing the average as we have not had frost yet. We are expecting freezing temperatures and snow tonight, so I was moving things around today. Mum flowers can stand some cold, but out of an abundance of caution I moved the two baskets to the greenhouse today. These mums were chopped down and overwintered last year, and don't look as nice as fresh ones from the garden center. They really need to be divided, but the problem is I don't want a bunch of mum pots. Maybe I'll divide the orange one and euthanize the purple one.

Today I cleared out the southeast planting bed, the one designated in 2027 for herbs, including overwintering hardy herbs. From bottom right, I placed the Italian Oregano pot, and planted the smaller Greek Oregano, an English Thyme, Sage, and the onions from the southwest bed. The next row is a pot of coneflowers, a Rosemary planted in the bed, the Lemon Thyme pot, the other English Thyme in a pot, and the other Sage in a pot. The left edge of the bed was planted with Allium bulbs a few weks ago. I don't expect the Rosemary to survive the entire winter, so planting it is an experiment to see how long it lasts. The pots except the Coneflowers eventually will move to the garage. The Coneflowers need a period of cold so will stay here, but I am concerned whether the terra cotta pot will freeze and crack. It may get transplanted to a plastic pot.

The southwest bed also has been cleared out, and is designated for hardy succulents after I transform the soil with big doses of pumice and coco coir. I need to do that within the next week so the Sempervivums can get acclimated before I turn the heat down around Thanksgiving. Currently the bed is stacked with various pots, some of which will eventually move to the garage and some of which will be sacrificed to winter.

The greenhouse will extend the growing season for about another month. It will look similar to this until then, although the cucumber vine just right of center may disappear in the next few days. I picked a cuc today, and there are no others in the pipeline.

The tunia baskets are looking good, but sometime in the next few weeks I will need to cut them back and put them in smaller pots before moving them to the garage.

The turkeys are somewhat infrequent visitors, but they were out in force today. They are habituated to humans and totally ignored me as I went about my business.

I have lots of coleus cuttings that have developed roots in water, and I potted one up today. I'll probably do this gradually and see if I can find space. A few of the petunia cuttings also have developed roots in water, but I'm still not sure of this method. I have found petunias much more difficult to propagate than coleus.

As part of clearing out the southeast bed, I also potted up two coleus that had been planted next to the window. I have 3-4 coleus in the greenhouse that may just get abandoned to the cold when the time comes. There are probably five varieties that I want to keep. I also will be starting some seeds next spring, and I want to make at least one more ColorBlaze acquisition, 'Golden Dreams' to go with the 'Wicked Witch' I got this year.

Two final notes from today. I had two plants at the house that the deer ate down to the nubs every year but didn't kill. I finally caged them this year and one of them flowered recently. (The deer breeched the cage around the other one.) I believe the PlantNet app ID of Phlox is correct. Also, I planted a Black-Eyed Susan in our front yard but didn't cage it until after the deer chewed on it. After a long recovery, it currently has seven blooms, but there also are indications that the deer have nipped off other blooms that got too close to the edge of the cage. ...And now is when I point out that both Phlox and Black-Eyed Susans are considered deer resistant.

Vacation

We drove to Denver to fly to Switzerland, so were gone from home for two full weeks. I set up all of the irrigation, everything in the greenhouse watered every two days except the baskets which were every day. This is more than enough and today I set all of the pots outside to dry everything out just a bit, and to transition some plants back to the house and move all of the hardy succulents back to the greenhouse. This is what it looked like after I moved everything back in.

Everything in the pots survived pretty well except the Bachelor Buttons, which didn't get hit by the irrigation and were dried out. Then after I moved all the pots outside and went home for a few minutes, the deer targeted it (and the chives) and tormented it even more. Oh well, it's an annual and will not be overwintered.

The cucumber baskets already have been cleaned for the winter, so it was a small surprise to see that the cucumber plant in the grow bag finally produce a cuc. With the windows closed most of the time, there isn't much opportunity for pollination.

The sunflowers in the bed were all dead when I got back so those went into the compost pile. It really isn't a compost pile; just about everything I throw there disappears within a day, eaten by the deer. In the southwest bed that eventually will be transitioned to a hardy succulent bed, I killed the tomato plant and potted up the pepper and basil plants. All that remains are green onions and a few bulb onions. Sometime next week I will have to move on from the onions and change the soil to a succulent mix -- 45% of the current garden soil, 45% half pumice, 10% coco coir. Then I will plant the Sempervivums and hope there is enough time for then to establish well enough for winter.

Other plans:

• Pot down the petunias in the baskets and large pots.
• Pot up the petunia cuttings that have developed roots in water.
• Pot up the coleus cuttings that have developed roots in water.
• Decide which Velveteens, peppermint, basil, rosemary will be allowed to freeze come winter.
• Mulch the strawberries with straw.

I'm already lacking room on the garage shelves for the petunias and coleus I want to overwinter. I have resisted moving anything into the closet under the grow light except for the succulent leaf propagations. Moving one or two of the larger coleus into the house will free up some space, and probably will be better for the coleus that may not find 50 degree in the garage to be that desireable.

With the Supertunia baskets protected from the wind inside the greenhouse for the past month, they look really good. The Vista basket (Bubblegum/Jazzberry) is getting really tall. This is the Really Red/Latte basket.

But I'm going to have to prune the tunia plants to fit in 6-inch pots for the winter. I just ordered 50 more 6-inch plastic pots, which is too many...for now.

Full Circle

The two cucumbers baskets are gone from the greenhouse, so the geranium baskets that were on the ground now have hooks. I moved the baskets around and the six Supertunia baskets went back to their springtime locations hanging in the center. Here are the three on the west side. I don't think they have grown much since they came back inside, but they look pretty good now that they aren't getting tossed around by the wind.

Everything inside the greenhouse is on irrigation now, except the Sempervivums. This is one of the Coleus I raised from seed, currently residing on the bench with all of the other Coleus and some other stuff. I'm using down-facing overhead irrigation on the bench because I thought it would provide the best coverage AND not spray upward to get the Sempervivums wet. I'll leave this in place for about three weeks, then start the transition of the Coleus back to the house, and the downsizing of the tunias for overwintering. Maybe it would be simpler to have a year-round greenhouse with permanent plumbing, but that is not the current reality.

Cucs

Growing cucumbers in hanging baskets was a modest success, but one of the two baskets was looking spent and had no active fruits on it, so I removed it so I could get one of the geranium baskets off the ground. The second basket has one active fruit which will be picked probably in two days, then it too will go into the recycling pile on the hillside. Nothing lasts long in the pile; I saw the deer eating the first vine minutes after I put it out there. We didn't keep track, but we probably got about 10 cucumbers from the two plants.

There is a third cuc plant in a grow bag on the floor of the greenhouse. It is about four feet tall on its trellis, looks pretty good, and has produced nothing. Now that finally has flowers, it probably can't get pollinated because I have the windows closed most of the time this time of year. I'll leave it for a little while longer unless I need the floor space.

Most of the succulents except the Sempervivums have been moved back to the house, and most everything that needs frequent water has been moved to the greenhouse at least for a few weeks. This table shows eight Coleus (two Colorblaze 'Wicked Witch'). Only five of the eight plants will overwinter; the others are just standard burgundy with green borders and will be allowed to freeze to death. I want to get Colorblaze 'Golden Dreams' next spring, and I have two variety seed packets. All of these Coleus taught me some things, but the ordinary ones are being cast aside.

I took these images with my Canon S95 Powershot, a 10 Mp 15-year-old camera. Sounds obsolete, right? Besides my Samsung phone, it is my only true pocket camera. And despite the phone having 5x the resolution, I don't think the images are any better than those from a real camera, even if it is 15 years old.

Allium

I lifted allium bulbs a few months ago from the southwest bed, and decided to plant them today in the southeast bed, the bed designated for herbs next year. They should provide some early-season blooms before it is warm enough to finish planting the more tender herbs. I removed the alyssum that had filled in the edge and planted the bulbs. I didn't count how many, at least 10 of good size and some smaller ones that may or may not grow. The two "pebble trays" shown in the image are splash guards to slow down the water streaming from the strawberry baskets hanging above. Five minutes of irrigation is about right for some of the 14 hanging baskets, but the two strawberry baskets in question get waterlogged and have to drain. Alliums do not require a lot of water.

This image also shows the Teddy Bear sunflowers that took a while to get going but are now churning out blooms. In the right corner are a couple of Bachelor Button plants with their blue blooms. The flowers shown, along with Coleus and marigolds, are destined next season for the west bed, currently planted with tomatoes and peppers.

This is the bed before the alyssum was removed. I tried to transplant some of it outside in the barrel and a window box. It has not grown in these locations because the deer keeping nipping it, but now the barrel is caged. I don't know if alyssum transplants well, so this is sort of an experiment. It certainly has grown well inside.

I spent all summer wondering whether we were going to get any peppers. The answer is yes. We are going to get at least a half dozen small bell peppers, and a dozen or so mild Jalapenos (Tam). It's not a big harvest but it is something. I am going to try to overwinter one of the Tam plants that is in a grow bag and be that much further ahead next spring. Way back when, maybe 30 years ago, I overwintered a pepper plant. It works.

As the first full season of the greenhouse grinds on, I keep coming back to the short growing season we have in the Beartooth foothills. Just as the peppers FINALLY get going, today is the end of the growing season, according to historical averages. (We haven't had a freeze yet but it is definitely cooler.) There are some plants in the greenhouse that need it above 40 degrees to keep growing (Petunias, Coleus, tomatoes, peppers), so the heater has been set on 50. My AC Infinity app shows it has kicked in on several nights. Based on last year, there still may be two more months in the extended growing season. Obviously not everything thriving in the greenhouse now will be there in November, but the controlled environment gives me the opportunity to have an orderly shutdown (tomatoes) or get things potted for transport to the heated garage (petunias). I'm curious to see how long the Teddy Bears will keep blooming.

A week ago I moved the Supertunias in out of the wind, gave them a good pruning, and put them on greenhouse irrigation. I think they look good, but I really don't know if any of them are going to leave here alive, at least not in this form. Eventually I will cut them down some more and try to jam them into 6-inch pots for overwintering in the garage. I overwintered petunias last year so I know it can be done, but this year I have 10 varieties instead of one. Finding space for petunias and 4-5 varieties of Coleus may be a challenge.

Almost Moved

The exchange of plants between the house and the greenhouse in preparation for autumn is closer to the end than the beginning. The two south-facing racks in the heated garage are getting full, and I counted 60 succulent pots today. The number does not include multiple Aloe Vera, 'Velveteen,' Coleus, and a couple other things. Here is the east rack with three shelves under grow lights and the Aloe Vera up top. (Photo updated Sept. 10.)

This is the west rack with two three sets of grow lights, with Coleus and other things up top. The grow lights over the four big bowls are only two-footers, so I'm a little concerned about that. For grow light strips, I have three pairs of 3-footers and three pairs of 2-footers. The shelves are three feet wide in the garage and two feet wide in the greenhouse mini, so that combination of lights is perfect in the summer. But in winter I need all of them in the garage. The final set of two-footers was liberated from the greenhouse today and will go above the bottom shelf in this image. (Photo updated Sept. 10 after installation of the grow lights above the bottom shelf.)

I was hoping to keep the closet in the garage free for propagation and didn't want to move anything in there now. But this is propagation, 39 succulents and one Coleus. There is no natural light and there are two types of grow lights.

In my office in an east-facing window are 22 succulents, with the Haworthias, Crassulas and cacti comprising the majority. Not pictured in my other window is a somewhat lackluster succulent leaf bowl, and eight Coleus cuttings in water which are starting to develop roots.

We have west-facing windows in the kitchen and bedroom. Each (not pictured) has a Coleus.

The rest of the succulents are at the greenhouse, mostly Sempervivums and other hardy plants. 'Lola,' 'Topsy Turvy' and a couple other tender succulents have yet to make the move, but that will happen soon. (Next day: Mission accomplished.) They could survive in the greenhouse with it heated to 50, but I need the room on the bench for plants that are still sitting outside. Most of them are hardy herbs like oregano and thyme so there is some leeway there, but eventually they will have to come inside.

As I was fiddling with the irrigation today I needed to get up on the ladder to reach the cucumber baskets, so I took this image of the bench and the two shelves from on high. Sempervivums up top, 'Velveteen' and other stuff down below. I still have way too much 'Velveteen' and will have to sacrifice perhaps eight pots to the cold. I was surprised to learn I have seven Rosemary plants. I thought I culled it down to five in the spring, and may only keep three over winter. I'll keep some in the greenhouse and see how long they survive. Rosemary is rated for Zone 8, 15 degrees. I'm only planning to heat the greenhouse to 10, but I'll bury the pots in the bed, they will be out of the wind, and I will cover them with straw.

Not pictured, taking up room on the ground in the greenhouse are six geranium and petunia pots, one strawberry grow bag, two pepper grow bags, a big grow bag that had Teddy Bear sunflowers but now is in onions, the deer resistant salvia/Vermillionaire combo bag that the deer chopped down every chance they got, a cucumber in a grow bag, and the two large hardy succulent containers. That's the type of stuff that I'm working around as I bring things in from the house and outside. I need to chop down the six large petunia/geranium pots into perhaps six much smaller pots, but for various reasons that won't be for another month. I have two tomato grow bags at the house that I was excited to see are at death's door, which means I won't have to find space for them. I would be happy just to harvest from them for the next two weeks, then chop them down. There are still the four tomato plants in the greenhouse beds that are healthier.

I was fiddling with irrigation because there are now 16 baskets in the greenhouse; six large Supertunia, two small Supertunia, two cucumber, four strawberry, and two sedum. All except the sedum benefit from irrigation. In about a month, the Supertunias will be potted down, the cucs will die, the strawbs (hopefully) will go dormant, and I'm not sure what to do with the sedum. The mist rained down on the 'Berry Blues' Sempervivum, which not an optimal situation but makes an interesting photo.

My tomato whisperer brother only got three tomatoes this year due to a home construction project, so this is the one and only year will I beat him. This is German Lunchbox, a plum-sized tomato that did the best for me this year.

And finally, after I had knee surgery in December I spent much of the next several months (ok, all 10 months since then) watching gardening videos on YouTube and getting ready for the first full season of the greenhouse. The 800-lb. gorillas of YouTube gardening videos are #3 Garden Answer with Laura LeBoutillier, #2 Self Sufficient Me, an Aussie guy who I have watched but have not subscribed, and #1 the Epic Gardening empire of Kevin Espiritu. Epic's most popular video (growing ginger in containers) has been watched by 12 million, more than any of the major TV networks have viewership for their nightly news shows. I just clicked on Laura's new September Garden Tour and it already has 174,000 views on the first day.

Laura has been around for about 12 years. I don't watch all of her videos (I don't care about her antiquing with her Mom), but I watch a lot of them because they are informative. Some pathetic people on Reddit (I have heard) are jealous that she has the time, motivation, resources, and yes, connections to churn out gardening videos almost every day, and that she gets support from plant companies like Proven Winners. She doesn't hold back if a plant is not performing, even if it was sent to her for free. Those people must be success-hating dolts who think that food and flowers magically appear in stores due to the magnanimity of The State and not as a result of human initiative and ingenuity. I hope Laura makes tens of millions of dollars and keeps making those videos. (Kevin Espiritu already has made tens of millions.)