This fall, I had all kinds of good intentions in regards to my new 'Brown Turkey' fig. I would pot it up in one of those huge cobalt-blue pots that I bought for a song on clearance. I would haul it all inside the garage and make sure that it overwintered happily there, to be pulled out again the following spring. I would (finally) do right by something that I planned to overwinter as successfully (and easily) as Martha, and Elliot, and so many other "real" gardeners I admire seem to be able to do. I would!
But... as you can probably tell by the close-ups of currently unfurling fig leaves that accompany this post... those good intentions wound up being more paving material for the proverbial road. I ended up carting the poor fig--still in its nursery pot!--inside on a cold December night, and unceremoniously shifted it around from kitchen corner to kitchen corner for the next two months.
I believe that it even guarded the stove for a while, until my dishwasher overflowed onto the kitchen floor... dripped down through the basement ceiling... and knocked out my furnace for a while... but that's a whole other saga. No matter who it got there, it is now happily residing in the dining room near the "plant window," and I'm getting the chance to appreciate these adorable, fuzzy leaves as they open up, one by one. So I suppose that my screwup wasn't all that bad, just for one year.
But next year... next year I WILL treat my fig tree right! I promise. Especially if it continues to delight me with yummy figs. :)
p.s. This must be the winter for "fuzzy" leaves at my house. I'm still enjoying the heck out of this fuzzy echeveria, too... and it continues to put out even more blooms:
13 comments:
How exciting! I can just picture the fig in one of those wonderful pots...I'm still jealous of that great deal! My fig is still bare, but I hope for leaves...and figs!...this summer too.
Congrats on your warm and fuzzies. A little neglect can go a long way. My indoor plants are just surviving. Hoping for spring like I am wishing for spring. It won't be as long as it has been.
Well it looks like it likes being ignored.LOL! I baby mine and they still died off. Maybe there is a lesson here.;-)
Leslie, I know! I only hope those pots survive the neglect, too. I could never replace them for what I paid for them in the first place, that's for sure. lol.
Greenbow Lisa, yeah... I can almost taste spring already. It has certainly felt like a loooong winter.
Hocking Hills Gardener, don't encourage me! You might have just sentenced my fig to another year of "neglect and ignore" treatment. :-D
haha...you have to love how some plants are just determined to grow, never mind our benign neglect!
This is so encouraging. Bringing the plant in is a much better method than trying to bury the thing.
Scott, I know... and those are definitely the kind of houseplants for me! :)
MMGD, I probably didn't explain that very well, but I was going to pot it up into a large pot and then overwinter it in the garage. I'm just not really all that into the idea of burying it in the ground and such--seems like too much work. But I AM considering just flat-out planting it next to the house... we'll see how risk-averse I'm feeling this spring!
We all have such good intentions, don't we? But the follow-through is lacking! I was also rewarded for my laziness. Last year's amaryllis was supposed to get planted out in the garden, dug up and put away, etc, etc for rebloom this year. How about if I just left them sitting in their pots all year, and they are still trying to rebloom, despite the neglect!
amazing top photo! and yes, we will both be perfect this year if not by 2023
MsRobin, that's great! But don't encourage me... I could definitely handle amaryllis that way, too. I have a couple, and they're beautiful, but they always seem so fussy somehow. :)
Stratoz, I LOVE IT! 2023 seems like it could be doable, since it's a dozen years away. *grin*
Kim! I so adore the leaves of figs and they could never make fruit (that would be a shame) and I would be happy. I must have missed the cobalt pot post! gail
Love those fuzzy-leaf photos. It's amazing what plants will put up with from us humans. It evidently likes you! :)
Aren't fig leaves adorable, Kim? We don't get many fruits but I love the leaves.
In IL my neighbor had several fig trees and kept one tree in her rec room, not for fruit but as a backup for cuttings if the main tree {planted in the ground and protected with layers of leaves, metal and bags of mulch} didn't make it through the winter.
Hope you get fruit!
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
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.