Overwintering Plants Set Up On Our Sunporch

By necessity, I have tweaked how I’ve set up our sunporch to overwinter plants.

That specific necessity is that there are more outdoor plants I’m trying to save.

It started with three ferns, and now I have six ferns, two gigantic geraniums, three polka dot plants, one rosemary, two basil plants, a couple of petunias, and some other plants I don’t know the names of.

Let this be a lesson.

I’m not sure what the lesson is, so we’ll call it a choose-your-own-lesson type of story.

Every plant on this sunporch spends six months of the year outside, either on our front porch or deck. If they survive the summer, I bring them inside, roll the dice, and see what happens.

Not going to lie. I’m still shocked anything survives. I only learned what overwintering was a few years ago.

If there was one plant I’d encourage you to try to overwinter, even if you don’t have a sunporch, it is the geranium. Most people cut them way back when they overwinter a geranium, which seems to be the plant version of tough love.

My geraniums are 1.5 and 2.5 years old. I haven’t cut them back ever, and it is time. Past time.

The geraniums are so large that they have taken over one end of the sunporch. It’s obnoxious in a beautiful sort of way.

I can’t bear to trim them when they are blooming, though, so I’m going to wait a little longer to try tough love.

(I talk a good game, but there’s a 50/50 chance that I’ll be “waiting a little longer” all winter long.)

On the opposite end of the sunporch, I’ve added a two-tiered system of displaying the plants that I am overwintering. This gets them off the floor and makes it a bit easier to water.

I know petunias and million bells are considered annuals, and most people don’t try to overwinter them.

However, they still had blooms when I finally brought them inside at the end of October, and I can’t bear to just toss out flowers that are still blooming. It is possible to overwinter these flowers. I have one petunia that survived last winter. It seemed to prefer being an indoorsy plant, which is completely relatable.

So, I’ve given them a chance. We’ll see how badly they want to live.

Since the sunporch is my experimentation station, I plan to try my hand at propagating my flowers, too, particularly the geraniums.

The internet tells me they are “easy” to propagate, but the internet has lied to me before.

This will be the ultimate group project where I’ve done my part, but if my group members – the plants –  don’t pull their weight, we’ll fail.

I know I’m blessed to have this sunporch, and thank my lucky stars that someone over 100 years ago decided this was an important addition to the house. Not only do I have space to grow herbs and overwinter plants, but we also use it to naturally heat our house in the winter.

It’s the very best place to sit on a sunny day in the dead of winter with a cup of coffee, a book in hand, and the earthy smell of the plants in the air. It’s not quite as good as sitting outside, but in January, it’s a very close second.

Do you overwinter any plants? How do you feel about sunporches? Comments really do make my day. You can comment on this blog post, email me here, or reach out via direct message on Instagram or Facebook.

P.S. The furniture in this space also goes outside in the spring with the plants. The sunporch is too hot to use during the summer, but I love that I can make use of the couch and tables year-round.

Thanks for sharing part of your day with me. If you’d like another blog post to read, please try one of these.

Navy Blue Sunporch (paint details here)

Plywood Side Table Makeover (it’s holding the red petunia right now)

DIY Plant Hanging Rod