Give porch ferns a place indoors

QUESTION: Is there a way to save Boston ferns over the winter without bringing them into the house? The ferns I had on my porch this year were large and beautiful. Indoors, they drop leaves and make a mess. Can I keep them in the garage?

Most experts suggest the best way to keep Boston ferns over the winter is to bring them in and treat them like house plants. Unless your garage has a window that allows bright light to enter, it’s probably not the best option.

Southern Living Garden Book provides a method that may minimize leaf drop: “In fall, use sharp scissors to cut back all side fronds to the rim of the pot, leaving the top growth about 10 inches high. Place the pot indoors next to your brightest window and keep the soil fairly moist. By spring, your plant should be bushy again and ready for its return to the porch.”

Houseplant expert Barbara Pleasant (The Complete Houseplant Survival Manual) adds that Boston ferns need high humidity in addition to bright, filtered light, so daily misting is helpful. A light dose of balanced houseplant fertilizer every couple of weeks keeps them healthy.

It’s normal for them to shed leaves, she says, so keep scissors handy for clipping broken or brown fronds.

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Fall is here and winter is on the way, but there’s still gardening to be done. Check out the Winter edition of the Garden Calendar in Saturday’s Tennessean.

Garden events in Middle Tennessee

Nov. 11: The Tennessee Gesneriad Society will meet at 2 p.m. in Cheekwood’s Botanic Hall. The program will be an African violet workshop. For more information contact Julie at Julie.mavity@gmail.com or 615-364-8459.

Nov. 17: The Nashville Tree Foundation hosts ReLeafing Day. Volunteers meet at 8 a.m. at Coleman Park, near Thompson Lane and Nolensville Road, to plant trees in the Woodbine area. Find more details and sign up to volunteer at www.nashvilletreefoundation.org or call 292-5175.

Nov. 20: The Perennial Plant Society meets at Cheekwood’s Botanic Hall, with the program “Winter Landscape Maintenance for Woody Ornamentals” presented by UT Extension agent David Cook. Refreshments and plant swap at 6:30 p.m., meeting and program at 7 p.m. Open to the public.

Dec. 14: All About Gardening, 9 – 10:30 am. at Warner Park Nature Center. Learn when and how to grow an organic garden from naturalist Deb Beazley. Class is limited to 15 adults; call to register, 352-6299.

Jan. 6: The Nashville African Violet Club meets at the Green Hill meets at the Green Hill Women’s Center, 10905 Lebanon Road in Mt. Juliet. For more information, contact Julie at Julie.mavity@gmail.com or 615-364-8459.

Come in out of the cold

QUESTION: I would  like to know how to “winter over” geraniums.

Geranium photo by Jonathan Hornung.

By now, anything you want to save from frost should be indoors. So, now that they’re already inside, here are general guidelines for keeping geraniums happy. These tips are from garden author Barbara Pleasant’s book The Complete Houseplant Survival Manual:

Ideally, you would have moved your geraniums to a shady spot outdoors in later summer, to begin to acclimate them to reduced light. Even when you do that, they lose many of their leaves inside, so don’t be surprised when they begin to look very bare. Clean up the leaves, and prune off up to half of the long branches.

They do well as houseplants in bright light from a south or west window, in rooms of cool to average temperature, and in good potting soil. Pleasant suggests feeding them every two weeks with a balanced houseplant food. Allow the soil to dry slightly between waterings but don’t let them get so dry that the plants wilt. Blooming should resume after a few weeks, she says.

QUESTION: Is there a successful way to save  Boston ferns over the winter without bringing them into the house? (Too messy!)

Most information sources say that the best way to save Boston ferns over the winter is to treat them as house plants, but even Barbara Pleasant (see above) says that keeping them healthy through winter can be a challenge. They need bright light and high humidity, so you should plan on frequent misting. Southern Living Garden Book advises to cut back all the side fronds to the rim of the pot and leave the top growth about 10 inches high. Place the pot next to the brightest window you can find, and keep the soil moist. Even with that, fronds will break, leaves will turn brown, and a mess will be made, so keep the broom handy, and send the fern back outdoors after the last frost in early spring.

Time to hang up the tools? For some, maybe, but a gardener can always find a reason to be
outdoors, even in winter. To help you plan, check out the four-month, Fall & Winter Landscape & Garden Calendar in Saturday’s Tennessean. A short list of garden classes and events in the coming months is at Tennessean.com.