Weekend Gardener: Bringing plants inside during a freeze
COLLEGE STATION, Texas (KBTX) – Parts of our area saw the first freeze of the season this week.
Skip Richter with Texas A&M AgriLife shows us how to take care of some plants the next time that happens.
“Some of our house plants may spend the warm season outdoors, like Norfolk Island Pine. When it gets cold, you gotta get them inside,” said Richter. “We also have things like citrus on the patio or a Brugmansia, angels trumpet or Duranta. There’s a lot of plants that aren’t quite hearty here and people will grow them in containers.”
Richter says there is an easier way to bring them inside than trying to carry them.
“This is a simple little set up. You just use your dolly and have some sort of strap. I’ve got a bungee cord. You could also use a piece of rope or whatever you’ve got on hand to tie it to it,” he said. “And instead of lifting what may be a, I don’t know, 60 pound container, you just simply, I mean it’s almost like a one-hand operation. You know, very easy to do to get it in and out.”
“When you get it inside, sometimes in garages when we’re going to really get cold, you need a little extra heat,” said Richter. “You can just use a regular heat lamp. It doesn’t even have to be like a true heat lamp. It could just be, this is 150 watt bulb.”
He says you can use a clamp fixture to attach the lamp to the side.
“But what you want to remember is don’t put that bulb shining right on your plant. Those tissues just get too hot. So point it down because the heat is going to rise up around the plant again. In a really cold condition, you may throw a cover over the plant and have this underneath it and then you can get through.” said Richter.
