Do you have some annuals that are still going strong? In this episode of Down the Garden Path podcast, landscape designers Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing discuss how some annuals can be saved and brought inside for you to use in your gardens next spring.

Tune in to hear Joanne and Matthew discuss ways you can save your annuals.

Here are some of the questions and topics covered in this episode:

• Annuals as houseplants?
  • Coleus, geraniums, tuberous begonias, and sweet potato vine are some of the annuals that we can bring indoors and use as houseplant over the winter.
  • How do you properly bring in plant material for the winter?
    • You can bring in the pot and treat it like a houseplant with indirect light, keeping it lightly watered.
    • You can treat it like a mother plant and take cuttings from it.
      • Put the cuttings in water in indirect light, as well, and plant them when you are ready. Keep in indirect light until they are ready to put out in the spring.
• Summer bulbs or tubers: Sweet potato vines, dahlias, cannas, and calls
  • How do you properly bring them indoors?
    • Dig them up and shake the dirt loose, but don't wash the tubers or introduce any moisture to them.
  • How do you store them for the winter?
    • Store them in a cool, dark place until February or so; then you can divide the tubers with a clean sharp knife and create even more plants than you started with.
• If you are looking for unusual or special bulbs, corms or tubers, now is the good time to look at online resources. Most mail-order places have a better variety than local stores and they will ship them in time for you to pot them up.
• Dahlia May Flower Farm will start taking orders soon: We encourage you to support smaller growers in your area and buy your plants from them.

Down the Garden Path Podcast

Each week on Down The Garden Path, professional landscape designers Joanne Shaw and Matthew Dressing discuss down-to-earth tips and advice for your plants, gardens and landscapes.

As the owner of Down2Earth Landscape Design, Joanne Shaw has been designing beautiful gardens for homeowners east of Toronto for over a decade. A horticulturist and landscape designer, Matthew Dressing owns Natural Affinity Garden Design, a landscape design and garden maintenance firm servicing Toronto and the Eastern GTA. Together, they do their best to bring you interesting, relevant and useful topics to help you keep your garden as low maintenance as possible.

In their new book, Down the Garden Path: A Step-By-Step Guide to Your Ontario Garden, Joanne and Matthew distill their horticultural and design expertise and their combined experiences in helping others create and maintain thriving gardens into one easy-to-read monthly reference guide. It's now available on Amazon.