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Ornamental pepper isn’t happy indoors

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My ornamental peppers aren’t looking too good these days. I seem to go through this every year.

I keep my ornamental peppers outside in the summer and when it begins to get cool outdoors (October or so) I bring the Ornamental peppers indoors along with several tropical plants and vines to spend winter indoors.

I think my ornamental pepper is still alive, but barely. They should look like this:

ornamentalpepper2

I took that photo two years ago during the summer when I had the plant outside.

Oh well … if the pepper dies I can always plant some of the seeds from the dried peppers that I save. I’ve done that before and it always works to create a new plant. Cheating, I know!

Do you grow Ornamental peppers? If they are indoors how do you keep them alive during the winter? I think our problem is that our house faces north and I have so many plants to put in the south facing windows that the pepper might still not get enough light.





A vibrant annual for the garden

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Celosia or Cockscomb is a vibrant annual that you can use in your garden borders or do as I do and plant them in your mixed planters.

They look lovely beside hostas, impatiens, dianthus (Sweet William), geranium and other plants that are traditionally grown in planters, flower baskets and in the garden border.

They come in many colors but I particularly love the orange reds and yellows as they seem to fit well with my planter arrangements.

spear like flower

Cockscomb or feathery amaranth as it’s known, has plume-like flowers ranging in color from dark crimson to orange and golden yellow. Tall varieties grow to 30 inches and dwarf forms grow to about a foot. I tend to grow the dwarf varieties.

Do you grow Celosia in your garden?

Our Hibiscus is blooming indoors

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In early November I finally got around to bringing our small Hibiscus shrub indoors for the winter. I usually bring it, and my other tropical plants and vines indoors sometime in October but I was a little late this year.

Being late didn’t seem to do my plants any harm. In fact, my hibiscus is very happy if it’s abundant blooms mean anything at all!

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I have the small hibiscus in my kitchen and I almost think it’s blooming more indoors than it did when it was outside during the summer.

One bonus to growing hibiscus is that we can use the flowers as food for our box turtles. Yes, the turtles occasionally get to snack on a coral colored hibiscus blooms that’s almost as large as they are. They love them!

Even my Labrador Retriever puppy seems to like the flowers. One dead flower fell to the floor a few days ago and as I was picking it up to put it in the trash I noticed Midnight looking at it with interest and I thought, well the turtles eat the flowers and they are perfectly safe to eat so why not see if she’ll eat it? She promptly took off with the flower to her doggy bed – her special place to eat treats and stolen treasures (dads socks, tissue boxes and so on) and munched on the flower.

If the hibiscus keeps blooming through the winter I guess I have three pets that can enjoy the occasional flower treat. Well … after we’ve enjoyed the visual treat of seeing such lovely flowers indoors, I mean.

A hardy rose – William Baffin

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You may or may not believe this, but this is a rose. It’s a rose called William Baffin and it’s shape and the style of it’s petals is more that of a wild rose.

It’s a very hardy Canadian Explorer rose. Hardy to zone 2 I believe. I live in a USDA 5b gardening zone, so needless to say this rose does very well here and in fact it is one of my largest roses! Talk about thriving!

Naturally being in Toronto, on the coldest day of the year so far, this rose is dormant and no longer producing blooms or even leaves … but when it was blooming it was lovely! I believe I took this picture last June when William Baffin was in full bloom. I don’t even mind when it’s flowers begin to shed their petals as the grass is covered in pink to dusty rose petals and it looks lovely.

Do you have a rose or a plant in your garden that you admire?

Canna Tropicana Bloom

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I just realized that I never posted a photo of any of my cannas in bloom on any of the blogs that I do Green Thumb Sunday on.

Perhaps I never posted a photo because I have so few from this past summer.

My canna’s didn’t overwinter inside the house very well last year and as a result they took quite a while to recover once it was warm enough to put them outdoors. They didn’t begin to bloom until late August and the blooms didn’t last all that long.

Canna flower

The canna’s are once again indoors for the winter. I keep them in my basement. I let their stalks dry out and I cut them down and then I only water them about once a month or so. Just enough to keep them alive, but dormant in the cool dark basement.

I have several tropical plants that I place in my garden each summer, but then bring back indoors by October. Passion flower vines, a Trumpet flower vine, a Jasmine bush, a hibiscus and … I’m sure there are a couple more, but I can’t think of what they are right now. I keep the vines, jasmine and hibscus upstairs in a bedroom with a south facing window. They get a fair amount of light through the winter and are well watered. Others like the canna’s go to the basement for a winter rest.

Do you have tropical plants that you place in your garden or yard during the summer and try to keep alive indoors through the winter? I’m getting better at overwintering my plants, but it’s not uncommon to lose at least one each year … although, crossing fingers!, I didn’t lose any last winter so hopefully I’ll have the same luck this winter.

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