I brought our porch plants inside for the winter approximately six months ago. How many porch plants survived the winter inside on our sunporch?
*drumroll please*
Technically speaking, all of them.
Not-so-technically speaking, our green pepper plant might be on its last leg due to pests but I haven’t given up watering it hope yet.
While the pepper plant might be dropping out, the ferns are the overachievers of the group.
I really wish they’d dial it back a notch.
They’ve already been trimmed multiple times this winter and in the below picture, you can see their current state. To describe it delicately, they are bustin’ out of their britches, which, I suppose, is similar to how humans feel after a long winter hibernating inside and eating holiday treats.
We’re going to have to cut back on the sweets fertilizer.
I don’t recommend overwintering your ferns unless you are okay with a little plant mess.
By “little” I mean if you bump them, move them, or look them directly in the eye, they will toss fern confetti around as if it’s midnight on New Year’s Eve in Times Square.
They have no shame.
The geraniums, on the other hand, have been the come-from-behind, underdogs of winter. I was rooting for them but had never tried to overwinter geraniums.
It’s uncomfortable to admit this, but most of the time, geraniums last a maximum of two months on my front porch before I kill them with neglect.
I’ve never kept them alive an entire summer until last year. Since it seemed like this geranium plant had the will to live, I figured it didn’t hurt to bring it inside in October.
I watered it once a week and then after three months or so, I started to see new blooms!
What will happen next? I don’t know.
Will they keep blooming once I move them out to the front porch? I have no idea.
Am I now emotionally invested in their long-term survival? Unfortunately, yes.
(As a side note, that sunporch picture above is slanted. It’s not your eyes. It’s not my photo editing. It’s the building. It all slants to the right. Not sure if that’s intentional or what just happens after you’ve become the oldest one on the block. Let’s go with intentional. Gives hope for the rest of us.)
Even though I’m touting my success rate of overwintering my porch plants, I don’t know much about plants.
65% of the time I don’t even know their names.
I do know plants need light and water, but how much of either is a guess.
The one thing I am good about is consistently implementing my guesswork, I mean, watering.
My porch plants seem to be okay if I treat them like houseplants by watering them once a week and occasionally giving them plant food.
My point is it doesn’t appear you have to have the greenest of thumbs to have success with overwintering your porch plants. Just a sunny location and regular watering.
What I have enjoyed the most about overwintering my porch plants is the life they bring to our house. It’s different than my regular houseplants, but I can’t quite describe to you why.
Plus, there’s something extra special about seeing plants bloom in the dead of winter.
Color, that I had a hand in creating, set against the gloomy background of winter is a very rewarding outcome. Who knew that would be such a powerful serotonin booster?
(Scientists, probably.)
Have you overwintered your porch plants? Have you had any success? I’d love to know. You can always comment on this blog post, email us here, or reach out via Instagram or Facebook.
Happy growing!
P.S. Our outdoor couch on the sunporch is from Amazon. We store it inside during the winter and then move it out to the deck in the summer. Most everything else on the sunporch is thrifted or built by us. But not the sunporch itself. We likely could build something a little more level than that.
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