11%: When temp drops below 50.
13%: When temp drops below 40.
56%: My heat is on already.
20%: Not until I'm shivering cold.
The percentage was out of 2611 votes and you can tell by the title of this post how I voted! I'll try to make it into November without turning on the heat if I can... but tomorrow night's forecasted low of 36 might prevent me from making that mark.Snuggling up under a blanket or two is nice for me--and my (half) sled dog hasn't even started to tuck her nose under her tail yet when she goes to bed. She's loving these cooler temps. Really, the only way I would turn on the heat before I'm shivering cold is if I start to see my houseplants shivering in their pots. (Well, wrinkling up is more like it.)
I have brought in the last of my tender potted plants, and should probably dig up the tubers like the 'Lime Zinger' elephant ears and all of those cannas, too. I just can't bring myself to cut short the cannas' continued display--not even for one day. Not even if I have to dig them up while wearing winter gloves and a hat, while I'm shivering cold!
18 comments:
I wouldn't have turned the heat on here, but Romie did.
I've gotten everything all dug up and potted up and brought in, and it's a good thing, because they're calling for patchy frost here tonight and it sounds like a killing frost tomorrow night, same as you.
I've done that winter gloves kind of thing and even when I was a 'normal' person, I detested the cold, but now with the fibromyalgia, I hate it even more because not only am I miserable when I'm out there working in it, it continues to take its toll once I'm back inside.
I could SO be a bear and hibernate for the winter. LOL.
We have our outdoor furnace and have been burning slab wood (to get rid of it) from the sawmill all summer...the furnace heats our hot water too....so all we do is turn up the heat when it gets chilly in this big old farm house. But our bedroom is always chilly in winter, because the upstairs stays rather cool, so we're used to just adding another blanket, or a quilt.
We're due for a hard frost and very chilly temps tonight too, so I need to get outside and take care of the containers. It's freezing out there in the wind and I hate cold!! (can you tell I'm procrastinating?).
I'm exactly like you with the plants still blooming..I don't want to cut them short even for a day.
Heh...you are a tough girlie! Even though I like the cooler weather, my heat is on already. We had lows in the 20's last night, in fact, I scrambled to bring in the last of the houseplants at dusk. Boy, were they grateful! I still have some perennials to plant out there, but I have until the ground freezes, likely another month. I say let your cannas perform until the foliage is dead...bloom on!
Heat? In October? Unthinkable. (But oh, yeah, I live in South Carolina...).
I am a big weenie. I have the heat on already and it hasn't been that cold really. I just like to head it off at the pass so to speak. Actually our house stays quite warm with little effort from the furnace. We don't let it run during the day when we are busy. We turn it on and off a lot this time of year.
Woops, I also wanted to say that I wouldn't want to tear up the flower bed with those cannas any time soon either. It still looks so pretty.
I'm a Winter Pup.I dont mind being cold in the garden.Its nice being outside even when its cooler.Im glad you are keeping the Canna's in untill they are shivering.Get your moneys worth from their display.
Inside however I dont like being cold.The only place I dont like heated is the bedroom.i think i got that from my grandparents.Their house was furnace like except the bedrooms.You soon warm up under the quilt (especially if you have a warm sled dog).
We've been using the wood stove in the mornings and some evenings and Boy, does it feel nice!
We have only had a light frost and I finally got tired of waiting for everything to die back and started pulling things out and covering my bed with leaves this weekend. Would rather do it while the sun is still shining and before I'm "Shivering cold." :-)
Frost imminent and your bed looks so lush! I think we may get a frost here also! It is only 38 degrees right now and headed down.
Haven't turned on the heat yet. Tonights temps are supposed to be in the upper 30's so I may have to turn it on to take off the morning chill or melt icicles off the cabinets. ;) I usually open all the shades to take in as much sunlight into the house during the day to use as supplemental heat and that works quite well unless it's a cloudy day. I'm painting the interior of our house and I read an article about a paint additive that helps insulate your home. Of course I had to try it. Apparently the product is a powder which is made up of microspheres which you mix into the paint. NASA uses it to insulate whatever it is they need to isulate so I guess that's a pretty good endorsement. We'll see if it makes a difference. I sure don't want to see some of the huge monthly bills we got last year. Just hauled in all the tender potted plants today. What a chore but they sure enjoyed being outdoors. We had a hard time getting some in through the doorway because they grew so much.
kylee, ugh. Yeah, fibro would make the cold way less bearable. I'm still on "patchy frost watch" here, but I hurried up and harvested my basil and pulled everything that might be bitten by frost inside. It's probably about time anyway.
kerri, the wind has picked up here as well... I can handle the cool weather, but that wind that bites right through you kills me, too! I'm very jealous to hear that you have been "burning slabs of wood from the sawmill," though. Very cool.
lisa, temperatures in the 20s would do me in, too. :) I still have a bunch of perennials and grasses to get into the ground as well, but I'm thinking I might do them on Wednesday. But then there's the bulbs...
pam, lol... do you even turn the heat on in November?! *grin*
lisa at greenbow, I would probably be more apt to turn it on if it was easy to turn off/on. Turning it back off or on requires also going down to the basement and flipping a second switch, and I'm just too lazy. lol.
snappy, I used to be a hibernator, but now I am a Winter Pup myself! Being outside more often in the winter really helps get through the season--not being cooped up inside is good.
Connie, I'm grinning at your last statement--definitely understandable! We haven't had any frosts here yet, so I keep trying to hold out. Tonight I have a houseful of people over carving pumpkins and cooking apple crisp and such, so the house should be warm enough tonight.
layanee, that's why I wanted to show it--because who knows how long it will actually be lush! :)
Ki, that paint sounds interesting... and very fitting given your fixation on tiny things lately! *grin* I think that I am going to try to use some of that plastic window covering on my attic windows, at least, to see whether that makes a difference. A couple of my heating bills last year were atrocious, and I know that natural gas rates are supposed to go up this year too. :(
I turned on my heat last week and I'm glad it was on last night because it was quite frosty this morning!
I've dug cannas as late as December, in a snow storm. Don't wait that long!
Carol at May Dreams Gardens
Hello! Your cannas still do look lovely. I'm no expert in cannas but my planting guide says to cut them down after a light frost that makes their foliage brown (but doesn't kill the root, I guess).
There's nothing left to my cannas but a small crispy bit of brown - they didn't do too well here anyways and I did't care to save them. My sled dog agreed with me...
Thanks for the comment on my tomatoes! Yeah, I'm curious to see if the fruits taste okay.
You were right on both counts about our dog - Malamute dad and Husky mom. I think she looks a little more Malamute, and has that personality too. She only vocalizes to make harmony for sirens, is stubborn but friendly and curious, is gentle and relatively calm as long as she gets her daily walk. She, probably like your dog, is eagerly awaiting snow and cold! I'll be sure to post pics from the Iditarod-qualifying race here in the new year (our dog isn't in it, the spoiled girl).
We have a wood stove, which I have been lighting sometimes in the mornings and then letting go out as the day warms up. Today, I suspect it will go all day and into the night. We have oil too, which I've used a few times in the evening when I haven't wanted/needed a fire. Those winds we get on this hill make it really chilly some nights, though frost is still a sort-of event; cold wind last night did discourage some of the annuals, but too windy for actual frost.
Love those cannas--I don't have the patience to grow them, then I kick myself when I see gorgeous ones like yours.
Ha! Our furnace has been coming on automatically and we haven't been preventing it; the house is always so cold. We are getting a vented gas insert installed in one of our 5 non-working fireplaces so we are very excited about that.
The annuals here are FINALLy beginning to decline. About time, too.
Your new front bed is lovely.
Carol, if I were digging cannas during a December snowstorm... well, I would definitely be shivering cold! *grin* I hope to get to them before that, though.
gardenista, I think that's the plan I have, too--I'll wait until they get hit by a light frost and dig them out then. By the way, thanks for clearing up my question on your sled dog. Had I been able to gauge her size or see blue eyes, I would have known how to ID her. :) And yes, stubborn but friendly and curious, and all the rest sounds pretty familiar! lol. The one difference is the vocalization... mine will go through sets of scales until I get the hint and take her for that second walk of the evening, etc. I can also get her to "duet" with me, much to my boyfriend's chagrin!
Jodi, I was surprised that the cannas were as easy-care as they are. Especially because I definitely was not as good about watering them as I should/could have been. I would occasionally break the seedballs off of the spent stalks, and that was about it. (Mine were in morning sun if you ever want to try them again.)
EAL, thanks for the compliment on the front yard! It's mostly lawn-less people like you and Pam that I thought of while reminding myself that yes, I can tear out more grass... *grin*
By the way, when my boyfriend was helping me tear out the carpeting in the living room, we discovered the old fireplace here. I have been tempted to look at converting it into a vented gas fireplace for some extra heat in the evenings (we have gas heat anyway) so I hope you'll post about your experiences with that. I'd love to know how it works for you.
I love this corner garden - a very pleasing mix of color, texture and height - probably close to what you were going for, eh?
I finally bit the bullet over the weekend and dug up dahlias and cannas - it was hard, but I know we won't go much longer without a hard freeze, so...
Post a Comment
One of my favorite things about blogging is the interaction--posts are often simply the beginning of an interesting conversation! So thanks for taking the time to join the discussion, and please know that I enjoy reading each and every comment left here. I try to answer as many as I can.