You move the houseplants in, you move the houseplants out.
You check the forecast for the evening.
You move the houseplants in…
Redquarters is currently over-wintering four dormant roses that are napping in the garage. Or are supposed to be napping, because they are all putting out shoots, darn it. Also in the garage is a pot of kangaroo paws, because MomRed wants to keep them. And the succulent that MomRed won a few years ago and that just won’t quit. No, we don’t know what kind of plant it is, nor have we looked it up. It’s just “the succulent,” as in “Do we need to move the succulent closer to the wall for the night? It’s supposed to be down to 30.” And two three-foot-long troughs of assorted herbs.
Everything but the herbs seems content to hang out in the back of the garage and doze. The herbs have to get moved in and out and in and out and in and out. They are not heavy, but the length is awkward, and dropping them is not an option.
Why are some of these not in the house? Athena T. Cat. She loves kangaroo paws. Delights in kangaroo paws. Devours them to the roots kangaroo paws. Which is why we have one pot, not two. She nibbled the second pot down to a nubbin and it never really recovered. The succulent needs room that we don’t have, ditto the herbs. And Athena might like the herbs. Granted, basil breath would be better than her current cat-food breath, but MomRed would be unhappy. And with my luck she’d eat the chives and I’d wake up to feline onion breath and feline onion blood problems.
So whenever we have a warm spell with a cold chaser, it’s the houseplant hokey-pokey once more.
Cat Rotator's Quarterly 
Chuckles. After the second tray drop, I changed my mind about what to save and what gets hardened. The rosemary is dying off, and will join the rest in the jar or in an oil infusion. I can replace that soon. Just glad that the cat has no interest in plants. Yarn skeins and balls, though, started late in life; at this rate, there may be a skein of cat yarn shortly, along with an aggrieved expression.
We do the In-n-out routine when my wife starts our tomatoes and zucchini. The sunroom is great during the day, but it’s usually too cold at night in the high country. Seedlings go in the ground June 1, but April and May are plant-shuttling months.
Anyone who plants tomatoes down here before May 15 (or when the mesquite blooms) is going to be replanting tomatoes.
“I’d wake up to feline onion breath”
Try waking up to feline twelve-hours-since-drinking-tuna-can-juice breath. It’s . . . indescribable.
😆
I’m sorry, I can’t.
I have to walk the houseplants.
don’t they have their own pram?
Old Boojum (RIP) was a great cat, but he not only liked to play with and chew on the house plants, he would dig them up. Early in his tenure with us my wife brought in a big pot of geraniums on evening, probably a two or three gallon pot, put it on the kitchen counter. Next morning we discovered Boojum had excavated the entire pot! Sheer luck there was a trash basket just below that part of the counter and most of the dirt ended up in it…along with most of the plant.
He was a terrific foster daddy to several generations of kittens, but a scourge to any potted plant.
I have heretofore failed to appreciate how much having a black thumb for indoor plants has simplified my life. Haven’t dealt with a houseplant since I actually managed to kill the office spider plant many years ago, after being assured that you couldn’t kill those plants with anything less than a small nuke. They really shouldn’t have gone out of town and left me in charge of watering…
Thanks for the reminder! As our weather forecast fluctuates I shall sit back and enjoy not doing anything about it.
And THIS is why I don’t have any plants around my house… LOL I managed to kill a cactus once, if that’s any indication of my ‘capability’ to keep plants alive! 🙂