Tour

As the autumn days hurtle past, the greenhouse changes. I still have another three weeks, I figure, before everything that is going to make the move to the heated garage will have done so. Everything that remains will have to hunker down. Here is a tour of where things stand now with a view inside the greenhouse facing east. There are still some hanging baskets, including four strawberries. At left you can see a couple of grow lights for the hardy succulents in containers. Alyssum obscures the strawberries planted by the far window. Onions and hardy herbs are in the bed to the right.

Here's a better view of the strawberries behind the alyssum, with a few onions to the right. In a few weeks I will cover the strawberries with straw for the winter.

Next to the onions are hardy perennials sage, thyme, oregano, and coneflower in the pot. The rosemary next to the golf ball is an experiment. I will heat the greenhouse to 10F during the winter, and from what I can tell that is borderline (or maybe below the border) for rosemary.

Turning around, facing west. The bed of hardy succulents is to the left, just below some Supertunias that I'm going to move to smaller pots for the winter. At the far end are hardy perennials that I'm leaving in plastic pots and burying. At right are petunias that have already been potted down, chives, mint, and a bunch of stuff that probably will freeze Dec. 1 because there is no room in the garage.

I already did some rearranging after taking the previous photos. This shows the west bed today with the hardy perennials in buried pots. From left in pairs, two thymes, two sedums, Italian oregano and sage, and Greek oregano and Delosperma. Today I chopped back three mint plants and buried their pots between the others. Partially in view at the right are the new geranium cuttings I took. Cuttings in water have not worked so far, so I put these in dirt.

I have chopped back all of the petunias in anticipation of potting down, except this one. It is my best pot of the 2025 hybrid and I will keep the plants (at least four) in that pot for the winter, but I will have to cut it back at some point.

I have a new backup drone, much better than my previous backup drone. It is a DJI Mini 5 Pro, and one of the deer wandered past as I was preflighting. This is just after takeoff and the deer is starting to wonder if it should be concerned about that buzzing noise. There's a lens flare right there in the middle. I nudged the drone to try to get a closer shot and the deer bolted away.

And that's a quick tour of the greenhouse. It is not as colorful as it was just a few weeks ago before I trimmed all of the petunias. I could have left them a little longer, but I'm taking the approach of getting a little bit done each day rather than rushing at the end. If you look closely you can see that I have put up the Christmas lights.

On to the garage and the inside of the house. This first image is one of the south windows in the garage, the one to the left (east). All of the aloes are on the top shelf with a couple of 'Velveteens.' Tender succulents fill out most of the three shelves under grow lights, with a few coleus and a rosemary mixed in.

Here's the other window. The top shelf is basil and miscellaneous stuff. Once again, tender succulents fill the three shelves under grow lights. The middle of the three has all of the big bowls.

Also in the garage but not pictured, four coleus on a high dim shelf, two pepper plants under grow lights, and the stuff under grow lights in the closet (petunia small pots and cuttings, succulent leaf propagations).

In the house, most of the plants are in my office with a few others scattered around. I have two east-facing windows in my office, with this one on the left (north). Most of my Jades, other crassulas and Haworthias are here, along with a couple of coleus. A new addition is an Amaryllis, right front. The bulb is bigger than a baseball.

The right window has several coleus and eight cuttings in water. Obscured behind the coleus are my little cacti.

The next two are 'Wicked Witch' coleus. The big one (with dried dill sticking out of it) gets the patio door facing west, and the little one is in a spare bedroom with indirect morning light.

Here is the Thanksgiving Cactus (indirect morning light), followed by another coleus (west window).

And finally, a wonderful example of the plant I call Plectranthus 'Velveteen Aromatic,' officially Plectranthus Amboinicus, also known by a number of inaccurate names such as Cuban Oregano. This is in our bedroom in a west-facing window. We also had one there last winter, and it thrived but was leggy by the time spring rolled around. That's not entirely a bad thing; a leggy 'Velveteen' is great for taking cuttings, which propagate easily. This is in an eight-inch pot and it is so bushy that I have considered potting up to a 10-inch before we get too much further.

I always am wishing that I had more room, particularly when I am trying to overwinter. Yes, Supertunias are expensive, but digging up plants or taking cuttings and trying to nurse them for six months may not be worth it. And I'm sort of on a coleus kick now and the tunias might be less prominent next year if I am not successful in carrying all 11 varieties through the winter. I also have some succulents that should be divided, but February/March is probably a better time to do that instead of now. That's also when I plan on seed starting. The heat goes back on in the greenhouse in early April, so some of the seed starting and propagations might have to be over there.