My Plants are in Rehab!

Posted on January 17, 2014 by The Owl

Yes, it has been forever since I posted. I have officially joined the ranks of bloggers who let their blogs languish. I started out with good intentions, but I let life get in the way (more details in posts to come), and then the laziness started. The good news is that it is a new year, and with new years come new beginnings. I am hoping for new beginnings for my plants that are in rehab!

On January 6th and 7th, we experienced what the weather folk called a “Polar Vortex.” It sounds way more exciting than it was. We experienced sub-zero temperatures for a couple of days, which I didn’t think would be too terrible until it was. I guess you could call me a negligent plant parent. I snuggled down in my cozy home during these freezing days and thought about the wonders of hot water heat and the awesomeness of big radiators where cats lounge. Not once, not even for a second, did I think about the welfare of the plants on my sun porch.

The sun porch is a three-season room, so naturally it was freezing without any sort of heat source. For the past couple of winters, I have successfully kept my hanging summer plants happy and healthy through the winter months. The sun porch usually gets enough sunlight during the day to warm up a bit, and the nights, though cold, typically aren’t cold enough to affect my plants.

Unfortunately, while I read about the wonders of radiator heat on my Kindle Fire (yes, I really did that!), my plants were suffering from an arctic blast. The winds howled through the night, and cold air pressed against the windows of the sun porch where my plants were hanging. My wonderful summer plants were the last thought on my mind. Obviously, I can be a bit of a bubble head. If my plants had been children, I would have been arrested.

In my defense, I did spend one day totally and obsessively worried about my frozen water pipes in the kitchen and laundry room. The thought (and horror) of burst pipes filled my head. Even though our home was warm, the crawlspace under the kitchen and laundry room got the brunt of the arctic winds. We spent an entire day with space heaters running in the areas of the pipes and hoping for the best.

Fortunately, my pipes thawed just fine, but my sun porch plants did not fair so well. The potted Goldfish Plant appears to be totally gone. The Wandering Jew, that was about 5-feet tall, withered. The Burro’s Tail turned mushy and started smelling like rotting potatoes. The Spider Plant shriveled up. Surprisingly, the Rabbit’s Foot Fern withstood the cold blast best of all with only a few brown fronds.

I’m hoping I can revive my wounded plants. They are officially in rehab. I trimmed off as much damage as possible, and I have moved them indoors. I’m hoping that these photos are before pictures: