Pollination

Here is an updated info graphic on pollination.  I left out some important information the first time.

Frost Warning

Last Sunday I received an alert on my cell phone that Wellesley was expected to get a frost that night.  I knew what I had to do that day besides watching football - get all of my porch and patio plants inside before nightfall.  Luckily, I have my husband to help - I cannot easily move the hibiscus, lemon tree, agapanthus or mandevilla.  I was able to move the orchids, Christmas cactus (it should be in bloom by Halloween),  and fuschias  into the house.  The geraniums that I keep on my front steps went into the garage.  My amaryllis plants that had been summering in the shade of a large ornamental grass were also brought into the garage.

Here is my one small lemon that I hope will grow big enough to be used.

I hope that this mandevilla is happier in my sunny den than the one I bought last year, which languished in my not-so-sunny bedroom.

We did not get a frost Sunday night.  That is good news for me, because it means that I can still harvest parsley, rosemary, cherry tomatoes, and maybe an eggplant or two.  I also have two dahlias that are budding but have not flowered yet.  My 'Silver and Gold' Chrysanthemum Ajania has not bloomed yet, and I am keeping my fingers crossed that it will soon.  I still have a few plants to move and some tidying up to do.  My husband was able to spread an organic lawn fertilizer a day before a Nor'Easter blew into town and dropped several inches of rain - which we have needed.

This post is probably my last for the season, although I am not promising that I will not post once in a while, especially if I get some eggplant or my chrysanthemum blooms.

Fall jobs

Most people look at gardening in the fall as "clean up" time.  I think of it more as "evaluate" time.  There is a relaxed pace to fall days - not so much planting and weeding and watering as in the spring and summer.  The last of the flowers are either blooming or about to bloom.  Everything is established.  Here are the jobs  I have come up with after taking a long, hard look at my growing environment.

1. Move.  Lots of perennials need to be moved.  I planted daisies in my pastel section in the spring, and they are very happy.  They would look better if I moved them over to the left a bit.  The lavender that is to their right has finally established itself, and the daisies are being crowded by it.

One of my favorite plants, asclepias tuberosa, (butterfly weed) spread a few years ago.  I am going to remove the plant that is in the front of the border, and move my sedum 'Autumn Joy" to where the asclepias  tuberosa was.  The sedum has been suffering because my anise hyssop has been so happy and is overshadowing the sedum.

I am also going to move some Russian sage that is in one of my sunny borders.  The plant has a lovely way of bending and bowing over its neighbors.  I like this effect more in the back of the border than in the front, where it tends to confuse the eye.

 

2. Fertilize.  I tested my soil recently and found that the earth was deficient in everything - nitrogen, phosphorous, and potash (potassium).  I will fertilize my beds and lawn in the next few weeks with organic fertilizer, and test again in the spring.  Once I get on a more regular feeding schedule, I hope that my lawn and perennials are happier.  I bought the testing kit at a local hardware store.  It helps to have distilled water and patience; other than that, testing is pretty easy.

3. Top dress.  I bought a few bags of good quality top soil, and spread it out thinly over the really sad parts of my lawn.  Two of the sections had been leveled, enhanced, and re-seeded in the last twelve months.  I don't think I did a bad job last year, I just think that the lawn was stressed by the harsh winter, the animals burrowing in the soil, and the very dry summer.  I did not spend lots of time top dressing, and I plan on buying several more bags of top soil to dress the rest of the lawn.  I did put down more grass seed, and the grass has sprouted.

4. Water.  We had a really dry summer.  There has been some rain in the last few weeks, which helps.  I still need to water, especially where I put down the grass seed.  The trees and shrubs need water, too.  Some of my rhododendrons look exhausted.

 

St. Louis

I am from the Midwest - Cleveland - and my daughters have gone to school in the Midwest.  My youngest is at Washington University in St. Louis, so I thought I would talk up the city.

Last year the Cardinals played the Red Sox in the World Series.  A few writers for the Boston Globe opined that there was nothing to do in St. Louis.  I will do my little part to correct that notion.  If you are from the East coast, and are most familiar with cities like Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, a city like St. Louis might seem awfully quiet.  The fact is, though, that a lot of Midwest cities were built and grew differently than East Coast cities.  A lot of the action takes place in neighborhoods.  Places like the Central West End, Maplewood, Soulard, South Grand, the Grove, the Hill, and the Loop, to name just a few.

St. Louis also looks different.  It seems like someone put part of New Orleans on a barge and shipped it north to St. Louis.  There is a charming mix of French style and arts and crafts buildings.

Finally, if you love gardens, you cannot help but be aware of Forest Park (bigger than Central Park in NYC), ant the Missouri Botanical Garden. Forest Park takes up a lot of space.  It includes a zoo, a golf course, the art museum (St. Louis Art Museum, or SLAM - bast acronym ever), the Muny (largest outdoor theatre in the country), the St. Louis Science Center and the Missouri History Museum.

My daughter and I visited the Missouri Botanical Gardens last fall, right before Haloween.  A costume party for kids was wrapping up, so the space was a combination of lively and serene.  The 79 acre site has conservatories, formal gardens, demonstration gardens and International gardens.  I especially liked the 14 acre Japanese strolling garden.  There are also Bavarian, Chinese, English Woodland, Ottoman and the Strassenfest  German Garden.

I highly recommend St. Louis as a travel destination, especially for gardeners.  And if you go, remember that there is lots more to the city than the Arch and Busch Stadium (both worth visiting, of course.)

That Pesky Pastel section

I have written at length about a part of my border that I find quite boring.  Things are beginning to change, though.  Plants are maturing and fulfilling their promise.  They have good, solid shapes.  There is a good flow to the design.  Plus, I have had some surprises.  First, the gaura survived, and it adds a graceful, airy element to the space.  My dahlias are blooming, and one is definitely not a pastel.  A delphinium that I planted in the Spring is re-blooming despite having been unceremoniously pruned by a varmint.

The group in the middle row, center is Chrysanthemum Ajania 'Silver and Gold'.  It isn't blooming yet (the flowers should be bright yellow), and I like it just fine without any flowers.  It has a good, well-behaved shape, and has a noticeable presence in the garden.  Plus, there is good flow.  As your eye moves from front-right to middle-center to front left you are following a path of grayed foliage.  There is no confusion in this scheme.  It is satisfying.

I did not pay much attention to the color of the dahlias when I planted them.  It is usually hot, I am in a hurry, and I always doubt whether they are going to grow or not.  This year, they grew.  One is tall and pink; the other is medium-height and orange with  a yellow center.  Luckily, my delphinium is also blooming.  The blue and orange are complements; I think they go together very nicely.

I like these colors together.

Late Summer

Late summer has its own type of beauty in the garden.  Less showy than spring and mid-summer, but perhaps more confident.  I like sedums for this time of year.  These plants have solid shapes and subtle coloring.  Here I have a picture of sedum 'Autumn joy' hiding under anisse hysop (which I will cut back as soon as it is clear of bees.)

The sedum flowers will become bronze-red.  I like them much more than the garish colors of mums that over-run garden centers in September and October.

I am yet again surprised by plants that I thought had died - asters.  They are a beautiful, vibrant hue; they do clash with the nearby rudbeckia.  Sometimes, those clashes are OK.

The part of my garden that I complain the most about - the pastel section - is vibrating with color.  One of the delphinium that I planted in the spring, and that was feasted upon by  a "varmint", has survived and bloomed.  Two dahlias that I bought at the Home Depot, and didn't think too much about, are also in flower.  The one in the foreground has a discordant color, but it will be beautiful in a vase.  My late Uncle Norm loved dahlias.  I am not such a big fan because they look best when you only see the flower - the stalk is not very attractive.  I have two dahlias in my other long border that have not bloomed yet.  Because they are in the back, the stalks will only bother my neighbors.

 

My pink turtlehead Chelone lyonii 'Hot lips' is in full bloom in my shade garden.  Pick this plant if you are looking for something other than astilbe or hosta in your less sunny sections.

 

Sadly, one of our peach trees had to be cut down.  It was so laden with fruit that a heavy rainstorm toppled the tree.  I hope that there is another peach tree in the neighborhood so that the other tree can be pollinated.  We will see what happens.  I think that we may have to plant another peach tree, and be more diligent about keeping it pruned.

My husband using the chain saw to cut down the tree

One Year Later

One year ago today I decided to celebrate my birthday by going to the garden center and buying some plants.  It was a bit melancholy because early September is at the tail-end of the season, and is a time that is treated like a lost child.  Making the best of the situation, I decided to take advantage of the end-of-season sales (at least 50% off everything.)

I bought a gaura linaheineri (white butterfly flower) to be placed in a pastel section of my border.  I knew that these perennials did not always survive the winter.  This past Spring, I concluded that, indeed, the gaura had not made it.

I have done a lot of work in that  area this year - moving plants, weeding, pruning.  I was quite surprised, then, when I saw a plant that I had not noticed all year - the gaura that I planted last year.

My plan last year was to have this flower be the centerpiece.  I am letting that idea go, just glad to see it blooming gracefully in my garden.

I also purchased a trellised Mandevilla, an annual in the Boston area.  It looked beautiful on my front porch in September and October.  We put it in our bedroom in the fall, hoping for the best.  The Mandevilla really did not make it.  I bought another one, that is quite happy on my really hot, really sunny roof deck.  This fall we will put it in our den, which gets lots of sun, and keep our fingers crossed.

I learned a lot from my experience of believing that a plant that I thought had died had actually soldiered on and survived.  I learned that actions we take do not always produce expected results.  Sometimes, maybe more often than not, patience is rewarded.

My Shade Garden in Late Summer

Last year I visited the Cleveland Botanical Gardens and took note of shade perennials that I was not familiar with.  When I came back to Wellesley, I purchased a few of these, and have been quite happy with them.  They have come into their own this year.  Coupled with a few other plants that I have had for years, I feel that my shade area can compete with other parts of the garden.

I already had liriope, two varieties of astilbe, Euroopean ginger, and hostas.  Hidden among all of these was a stokesia (Stokes' Aster), that I moved today.

I added a Yellow Waxbell Kirengashoma palmata.  This perennial gets to be a good size - mine is about 2 feet by 2 feet.  It has pale yellow-green foliage that is not acid; the flowers are a creamy yellow.  The foliage color and broad leaves, described as "maple-like", creates a nice effect in the border.  It is distinct enough from the surrounding plants that you really notice it - always helpful to "keep the eye moving", my mantra.

I also put in two windflowers (anemone), both of which appeared to have died over the winter.  As soon as it was warm enough in the spring, I bought another one Anemone 'September Charm'.   One of the plants from last year did indeed survive; it is not tall  yet, and not blooming.  Here is a picture of the one that is blooming.

I also bought a second Pink Turtlehead Chelone lyonii 'Hot lips'.  It isn't blooming yet.  The foliage is nice, regardless, and the plant has a good, neat shape.  When it blooms, the flowers are pink.  I will take a picture and post it when it does flower.

My liriope is blooming.  The purple flowers are far from spectacular, although they add interest to the plant.  Liriope is very popular in the Georgetown section of Washington, DC, mostly in foundation plantings.  I would love to move my liriope to my foundation beds, but it is very hard to divide, and even harder to move.  I would like to thin it out, though, perhaps in the Spring.

This post is going up a day late because I lost my phone and internet moments before I was going to publish.  Here are some pictures of the huge truck, and the telephone pole that came crashing down when he snagged the wires across the street.

Who says the suburbs aren't exciting?

I don't think the trucker had a very good night.

The Color Lavender in the Garden

In her magnificent book Colour in Your Garden (William Collins Sons and Co. Ltd., 1985), Penelope Hobhouse explains how color works, especially how colors interact with each other in the garden.  When I first studied this book (I must have read the chapter "The Nature of Colour" ten times before I understood it), the biggest practical takeaway I got was to put paler versions of a light color, such as yellow,  next to deeper versions of a dark color,  such as purple, next to each other.  Never, never, never should you put a deep yellow next to a pale purple.

Of course, I am not always totally logical, and my memory of what I have in specific spots can fade when I am eyeing a plant at the garden center.  Hence, the combination, shown below, of deep yellow black-eyed susan, next to anise hyssop.

This particular photo is off-balance.  However, the yellow flowers on the left will fade, and the sedum autumn joy to the right will bloom an almost burgundy red - creating a pleasing scheme.

Gestalt is important in design.  It is critical to look at the whole of a border, and not condemn based on a limited view.

In this picture, there are three distinct areas of lavender-grey.  The foreground is actually lavender.  The flowers are just starting to show.  When there are more flowers, this block of color will indeed be lavender.  In the middle ground I have Russian sage flopping over a mugo pine.  In the background is the anise  hyssop.  In this view, the interlude provided by the lavender colored plants gives the design balance, movement, and repetition.  It is thus relatively easy for your eye to figure out what is going on in the garden, and to keep your eye moving.

What Was She Thinking?

A part of my border I consider boring, and I have been fiddling with the area a lot this year.  Last summer I made several changes, including moving the medium height alchemilla (Lady's Mantle) to the back of the border because it spreads rapidly and looks awful after it has bloomed.  This year, I moved it back to the middle of the border because a delphinium in front of it survived the winter unexpectedly, grew tall, and bloomed spectacularly for weeks.  I took this success as a message from the gardening gods to move the Lady's Mantle.

I also got rid of an early-blooming, low-growing, spreading, messy-looking plant that may have been a veronica - I honestly am not sure what it is.  I moved three Knautia macedonica 'Thunder and Lightning' from the middle to the middle-front of the border.

You might think that my changes are a failure because the "before" pictures look pretty good.  I think that, given time, the new scheme will work out well.

Doesn't look too bad, but I was not happy.

Looks good - but I cheated with annuals and a good soaking.

Three weeks into the change - two dahlias are thriving, the soil is parched, the annuals aren't too happy, and I think I am going to like this arrangement.

On a different note, I have another picture of a hummingbird - this one is enjoying my Rose of Sharon.  And for those of you who were worried, my husband was able to affix the suction cups to my kitchen window, and the whole family has loved watching hummingbirds take advantage of the feeder.

 

Making Hummingbirds Happy

I love hummingbirds.  Who doesn't?  I had never seen one until a few years ago.  After that, I was hooked, and determined to provide hummingbirds a welcoming habitat.

There are two ways to attract hummingbirds.  The first is to get a hummingbird feeder.  I saw one at a friend's house that had suction cups that stick onto a window.  She said that you only need a day or two for the birds to find the feeder.

Most of what she said is true - but I had to enhance my environment to get the hummingbirds to notice my feeder.  I bought a few pots of colorful annuals, gazania, snapdragon, and vinca, and placed them near the feeder.  Then, I hung a fuschia  plant near the window.  In a few days, I had my first hummingbird visitor.

You have to be careful with feeders.  The sugar solution needs to be changed every three to four days.  It is easy to prepare - just add one cup of water to one quarter cup of sugar, and heat in a pot until the sugar is dissolved.  Once it has cooled, you can add it to your clean feeder.  Because you are using a sugar solution, you may also attract ants and insects.  Also, I am not having great luck with the suction cups.  The feeder was working just fine until I had to take it down when we had the house stained.  Since then, the cups keep slipping.  Somebody in my family will figure it out.

The purist's way to attract hummingbirds is to plant a garden with flowers and flowering shrubs that the hummingbird can feed from.  I have several of these in my garden.  My neighbor has several in his flower bed, and I have included a picture of his flowers.

His July garden is dominated by rudbeckia (commonly called black eyed susan), echinacea purpurea (purple coneflower), and the not-yet blooming coreopsis (I believe 'moonbeam"), also known as tickseed.

I have a different selection of flowers and shrubs in my border.  Althea (rose of sharon) is blooming profusely now, and the hummingbirds really like it.  They also use the branches to take a break from beating their wings.

There was a hummingbird feeding on the flowers' nectar, but unfortunately, I was not able to get a picture of it.  These shrubs come in lots of colors.  I would tend to stay away from the lavender ones; they tend to get a mauve tint that I don't find very attractive. 

The flower that I have had the most success with attracting hummingbirds is lobelia cardinalis.  The flowers are a beautiful, clear red, and you can easily see and photograph the birds because the plant is erect.

These plants like moist soil and they spread.  I don't mind the spread because they are good looking and distribute red throughout this particular bed.

Beauty in the Garden

Achieving beauty in the garden is often an elusive task.  You can follow the standard rules for achieving it by incorporating thoughtful use of line, pattern, balance, movement and repetition.  But the garden is an organic entity, influenced by weather, pests, disease,  patience, and soil conditions.

And what, exactly, is not beautiful?  Is it something that is ugly?  I think not.  Something that is monstrously ugly, such as a steel mill, is so overwhelmingly powerful and dominant in its landscape that I consider it an amped-up beautiful thing.

To me, lack of beauty is created when there is chaos, confusion, disorder and lack of interest.  That is why a weedy garden is often considered ugly - your eye and brain cannot tell what is going on, gets frustrated, and quits the scene.  Likewise, a design that is symmetrically balanced is often so boring that you want to weep.

My approach to achieving beauty in the garden is to have it be organized and balanced.  The balance includes making lights and darks equally important, and keeping the eye moving.

Despite the fact that I have thought long and hard about how to achieve beauty in the garden, I am not always successful.  I do not have a crew of people weeding and pruning for me.  I cannot make up for the bad winter we just had (my hydrangeas may not bloom, and my peonies were disappointing.)  It takes time, sometimes years, for a plant to hit its stride, as my European ginger did this year.  Patience and acceptance are a gardener's best friend.

And sometimes, plants surprise you.  I have a patch of Agastache 'blue fortune' (anise hyssop), that is blooming beautifully right now.  Growing right next to it is a lovely yellow lily.  I inadvertently achieved color balance because the large area of lavendar works well with its complement, the yellow of the lily.

 

Another happy surprise is this daylily, which I think I bought in Geauga County, Ohio at an Amish run daylily nursery.

I think it is lovely.

A Visit to Prairie Country

Our recent vacation included visiting Minnesota and North Dakota.  People who have never been to that part of the country might be surprised by the differences in plant species and general environment. 

For instance, Fargo, North Dakota, is much further north than Boston.  Fargo's latitude is 46.8772 degrees north, while Boston's is 42.3581 degrees north.  The most remarkable impact created by this difference in the summer is the day length.  It does not get dark in Fargo until ten o'clock at night.  I felt like a little kid going to bed before it was dark out (clearly I am not a party animal).

Despite how far north it is, Fargo can get really hot, and hot early in the year.  I have been told that Fargo experiences "continental weather".  In other words, there are no large bodies of water or mountain ranges nearby to moderate the atmosphere.

As you probably already know, Fargo gets really cold in the winter.  Weeks of negative 40 degree Fahrenheit temperatures were not uncommon this past winter.

This last point leads to an ecological system that is quite different from the one found in Boston.   For instance, I have never seen a rhododendron or azalea in either North Dakota or Minneapolis.  I could be wrong, but I do not think they can survive the brutal winters.

More importantly, tall grass prairie used to dominate the landscape.  Most of the prairie is gone - plowed under or paved over, starting with the arrival of Europeans.

Heroic efforts are being made to restore tall grass prairies.  I am most familiar with the robust program at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota (cows, colleges and contentment).  The Cowling Arboretum,  started in the 1920's, is an 880 acre parcel of land on the campus where the natural habitat is slowly being restored.  My husband went on a tour of the "arb" when our daughter was a student there, and was told that the space is slowly being planted with native prairie grasses.  The only catch, and it is a big one, is that it is very difficult to find native plants.  Someone came up with the idea of locating seeds along train tracks because this land has not been paved or plowed.   The idea is working, slowly.

You many have heard about the strange weather in the Midwest this summer.  There has been lots of rain, and Minnesota was hit particularly hard.  We visited Minnehaha state park outside of Minneapolis, to see the falls and the trails.

The water was rushing frantically on its way to the Mississippi River, no doubt fueled by all of the rain.  Walking along the river, we were lucky to see several snowy egrets (we saw them on the drive from Fargo to Minneapolis as well, in marshy areas.)

Driving around Minneapolis, I was impressed by how many areas were flooded, days after the rains had departed.

Now the Midwest is experiencing colder than average temperatures.  It has been a strange summer.

A rant, then happy talk

First, the rant.  The new way to mow your lawn, or rather have somebody else mow your lawn, is to use a huge lawnmower, or more appropriately, a mowing machine, a behemoth.  The person doing the cutting stands on a platform behind the  mower.  Grass can be cut very quickly.  Therefore, the lawn service can make more money by cutting many more lawns in a day than with traditional mowers.

I do not begrudge anybody the right or ability to make money.  What I don't like, is what these machines do to the lawn.

Because the mower has a much wider wheel base than the old-fashioned kind, there is very little "give" when the lawn is not perfectly flat.  If the wheels are resting on a low point, and the earth crowns between the wheels, the lawn is shaved instead of cut.  This problem is exacerbated because the lawn services seem to like to mow the lawn really short.  Normally, I wouldn't mind what people do to their own lawns.  However, I have new neighbors who have not moved in yet, and their lawn service decided to mow part of my lawn because they did not know where the property line was.  Not only did they shave my grass, they also might a tight turn on my grass, damaging it even more.  AAArgh!

Now to happy stuff.  My garden continues to go through its seasonal show.  My daylilies Stella D'oro are blooming along with lysimachia 'Firecracker' Loosestrife.  I did not anticipate so much yellow in one spot, but I like it.  The bronze foliage of the loosestrife breaks up all the yellow.

My asclepias tuberosa has really hit its stride.  I am glad it is peaking before I leave on vacation.

To the right of the asclepias tuberosa is sedum 'Autumn Joy' and annual lobelia.  The only change I would make to this area (besides fixing the grass) is to have a more prominent blue flower in the vicinity to balance the brilliant orange.

My ancient rhododendron is starting to bloom now.  The bees are captivating to watch as they gather pollen from the flowers.

The flowers start pink and fade to white as they open up.

Finally, my "miracle" amaryllis is finished looking pretty, so off to the border it will go.

I will be on vacation for a week, so please catch up with the Honest Gardener in mid July.  Happy and safe Fourth of July everyone.

My favorite things - late June

I was stumped about what to write about this week.  I've been disappointed with many plants.  They don't seem to have much "oomph" this year.  And there is a part of my garden that is vapid.  Lots of pretty colors that don't stir my soul.  I need to think about these problem areas, and what I am going to do about them (perhaps leave them alone and see if they come into their own?)  Instead of writing more fully about these issues, I will showcase what makes me happy right now.

First is my "miracle" amaryllis.  This flower is at its peak.  Soon it will have a rest in the shade of my liriope patch before dispatching it to the garage for some much needed neglect.

This picture shows one of my favorite summer places - on the slider you see in the middle ground, watching the bees visit my ancient, late-blooming rhododendron.

I have a spectacular filipendula that is blooming with the most glorious coral pink flowers.

This plant has really nice foliage, seen on the right, that looks great after the blooms are spent. Perhaps the plant is getting too big and taking up too much space.  A pruning decision will have to be made.  This picture  also includes Heuchera 'Molly Bush' and Yarrow 'Moonshine' (which responded well to being divided several weeks ago.)

We have a very old climbing rose that looks heavenly.

 
This rose was climbing up our garage when we moved to Wellesley over thirty years ago.  It has survived beautifully, despite losing the garage when we added on to our house.

Finally, my "hot" area has come through for me, despite my trepidation.  The brilliant orange asclepias tuberosa looked, for several weeks, like a large animal was using it for a bed.  The plant prefers poor soil and little water - both of which I have provided this year.  In the last few days, though, I have been very happy with how this area looks.

From left to right, the plants are blanket flower, yarrow, and asclepias tuberosa.

Plants need vacations, too

Lots of us have houseplants that we put outside during the summer.  Some of mine are real troopers - they bloom indoors in less than optimal situations.  Some are stuck in my garage without any love at all for several months.  All they seem to need is some fresh air, sunlight, water, and a bit of fresh potting soil, and they are off to the races.

My geraniums ( the ones we think of as geraniums are actually pelargoniums, also know as storksbill according to Wikipedia), usually do well once they are on my front steps.  First, I cut away all of the dead leaves and stems, add some potting soil and water, and wait.  For bushier, fuller plants, I need to do some pruning.

I usually lose one plant a year.  In addition to losing a plant, I also lost a lot of soil around the plant.  Evidently, squirrels and other varmints were determined to find nuts and seed pods in the pots.

My amaryllis bloom inside in the winter, unless, of course, a plant that I decided was dead suddenly shows life, unwatered and unlit, in my garage.   This amaryllis is joined by orchids that have bloomed stoically all winter in my parched house.

I water the orchids with three ice cubes whenever they are dry.  I expect that they will bloom again before the summer is out.

The amaryllis that did bloom this winter are getting a rest in one of my borders.  I will bring them inside - either to my garage or basement - once summer starts to wind down.  There I will do my best to ignore them.  I think the key to getting amaryllis to bloom again is to wait until you see new growth before re-introducing them to water and light.

 The pots are partially hidden by liriope leaves.

My husband had luck with keeping a fuschia going all winter.  It is blooming nicely on our front porch.

We keep two hibiscus in my third floor studio all winter.  Skylights and a western window provide the most light in the house.  Each year the potted plants are hauled downstairs and placed on our front porch, where they will bloom all summer.

We are keeping our fingers crossed with two other plants - a lemon tree and an agapanthus.  They both live in our sunny den during the cold months.   The lemon tree has flowered several times, and it always looks like fruit is forming - but the fruit always falls off. 

 My sad agapanthus has yet to bloom.  Maybe it is waiting to be placed next to an infinity pool - we can all dream - even an agapanthus on vacation.