The rubber has hit the road in my garden. This past week, the weather people all forecasted the first serious cold snap of the late fall season. That meant that anything tender left outside was doomed. I wasn’t planning on this development, but clearly I forgot to notify Mother Nature of my plans. On the afternoon before the big chill, I was only halfway finished with the task of bringing in the houseplants. The icy fingers of the cold blast loomed large, the number of daylight hours was small, and it was imperative to get the job done immediately.
The shivering plectranthus and the chilly geraniums would have been better off had they been able to walk into the house unaided, but they have a stubborn stationery disposition. Clearly some human help was needed. The five amaryllis residing in separate pots on the porch would have been easier to move if they had been in a single large pot, but the urgent situation made that idea irrelevant. My plants needed the kind of quick action that comes with desperation.
Why did this happen after I told the world that I could easily multi-task my way through the fall chores? Because even my dedicated multi-tasking was not “multi” enough to keep up with the large houseplant collection.
Some might say that I simply have too many houseplants. I won’t even go there.
Back when I thought I had several more weeks of clement weather, I brought in the porch and backyard plants one or two at a time, washed out their saucers, wiped off the pots and positioned them carefully in the various plant areas around my house. I couldn’t risk doing that as the arctic temperatures closed in.
It was time for horticultural combat conditions.
I laid down layers of newspaper in corners of my kitchen, foyer and dining room, creating holding areas for the newly house-bound plants and saucers. Setting up holding areas allowed me to get everything inside right away so that I can clean, inspect and repot at leisure over the next few days. It is not ideal, but the plants won’t die. In effect, I simply moved the multi-tasking to a warmer place.
I grow several full-size rose bushes in large pots flanking the entrance to my lower back garden. These would most likely die if left outside in the winter, so while I was running in and out of the 
house with plant pots, I paused to drag the roses into the garage for their long winter’s nap.
My daughter fell in love with cannas this year, extending a multi-year affair with tropical plants, including plumbago, oleander and hibiscus. Needless to say, all of them need overwintering. With the cannas, I had a choice–bring the pots into the house to overwinter, or dig up the bulbs, store them safely in the cellar and replant next year. My daughter would rather have them overwinter, but I saved them for last. With time running out, it was easy enough to dig up the bulbs. It also saves space, which is at a premium.
For some reason, a number of plant saucers have disappeared. I have a dim memory of a few breaking over the summer, and some remain under the pots of annuals that are in the process of freezing outside. A number of my plants will just have to stay on newspaper until I get to the nearest garden center. It’s a good thing that I still get hard copies of the Times and the Wall Street Journal. Regardless of editorial content, they come in handy for all kinds of garden-related applications.
Like many other people, I did not get all the bubs in. This first cold snap probably won’t freeze the ground hard, and depending on the temperatures in the coming weeks, I will probably be able to get them planted in the ground. In the meantime, they sit accusingly in a box in the coolest part of the kitchen awaiting installation. I can hardly see them amid the crowd of newly-arrived house plants, but my conscience knows they are there.
If all else fails, they can all be planted in deep pots and join the roses in the garage for the winter. At least this method foils the critters.
While I make plans for the bulbs, I also notice that I am also running low on potting soil, which I am going to need in order to consolidate the amaryllis and geraniums, not to mention potting up bulbs. My next multi-tasking effort will be combining a trip to the garden center with ten other urgent errands.
The thing about muli-tasking is that it feels purposeful—even when it isn’t.