When will be safe to plant out?

Discussion in 'Propagation This Month' started by Fat Controller, Apr 11, 2013.

  1. Fat Controller

    Fat Controller 'Cuddly' Scottish Admin! Staff Member

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    I have 8 tree lillies in pots, in the greenhouse, that seem to be inching taller every day and they are destined for the back of one of my borders - when will it be safe to plant them out?

    Also, I still have my passiflora in a pot on the kitchen windowsill (it has had great fun climbing up the blind cord all winter) - again, when can I get this into a much bigger pot and get it planted outside (or should I re-pot and leave it in the greenhouse for a while, which is cooler than the house), and should I be planting it any deeper than it already is when I transfer it to its new pot?
     
  2. Spruce

    Spruce Glad to be back .....

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    Hi FC

    Your lilies need to slow down as they will romp away in the greenhouse , put them out in the pots during the day then bring them in each night back into the greenhouse , this will start slowly hardening them off as if they get frosted wont look to pretty with all that soft growth my lily's have only just started to show in the pots in the garden.. Once they look a bit tougher plant out but that will be at least two weeks where you live .

    yes pot the passion flower into a bigger pot and keep in the greenhouse , once well rooted plant out late May after all danger off frosts have gone

    Spruce
     
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    • Fat Controller

      Fat Controller 'Cuddly' Scottish Admin! Staff Member

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      Thanks Spruce :)

      The lillies are beginning to get a right romp on now, right enough - temp in the greenhouse was 18º when I got home, so I shouldn't be surprised; hopefully we have seen the back of frosts now.
       
    • Spruce

      Spruce Glad to be back .....

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      Just thought a tasty treat for slugs as well , I suppose you could plant out sooner and cover with fleece at night time, I had daylilys in the greenhouse in pots , I have had to move them all out and put next to the house wall just to slow them down hopefully they will getting planted out at the weekend.

      Spruce
       
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      • Fat Controller

        Fat Controller 'Cuddly' Scottish Admin! Staff Member

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        I'd have to get some fleece, but that shouldn't be an issue - in fact, I have some silver foil backed bubble wrap that I could use to protect them if I get a frosty night?

        Planting them out would certainly be easier for me than dragging them all out every morning before going to work - plus it would hopefully help them get some good roots established in their final homes?
         
      • Spruce

        Spruce Glad to be back .....

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        I tie a piece of string in the middle easy to take off in the morning
         
      • Kristen

        Kristen Under gardener

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        Doubt it. Plan for frosts until the end of May

        Lilies don't mind frost - but they will if you just take them out of a warm greenhouse and plant them! Hence Spruce's recommendation to harden them off first. You need to do that over a period of two weeks. After a few mild days outside then leave them out for the night if it is forecast to be 10C or so, perhaps cover with fleece even then. What you want to avoid is being in too much of a rush, or exposing them to too much cold / drying/chilly wind until they are ready for it. If in doubt fleece them for the day when you put them out.

        Yeah, its a PITA ... I have over 100 pots to take out each morning, and drag back each night. However, upside is that any that I notice are "light" I water, rather than watering the whole lot - and potentially over watering some of them as a result. They will love being out on days when it rains :)

        If they are not already deep in the pots that may be important. You definitely don't want to disturb the rootball when planting out - if it is well formed the whole thing will stay as-one when you plant out. I pot up Lily bulbs in deep Rose pots, and put sand etc at the bottom, exactly as I would if I was planting them out, so that when I plant them out the soil "arrangement" is as it would be if I planted them direct. Mostly when I plant them in pots its 'coz I'm not ready for some reason, and then I plunge the pots for the first season and actually plant them "as-one" in the Autumn, but that's because I'm a coward! However, it does let me reshuffle them, if necessary, when they flower to be next to things flowering/contrasting/etc at that time and in the right place. Pain to have to water the pots for a whole season though.
         
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        • Fat Controller

          Fat Controller 'Cuddly' Scottish Admin! Staff Member

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          Would they not be relatively hardened anyway, given that they have overwintered in an unheated greenhouse?
           
        • Kristen

          Kristen Under gardener

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          I think they would have needed to come out of the greenhouse sooner than now for that. Any sun / warm days we have had in the last month (and there will have been a few, at least!) will have brought them on, and the nights will have been less harsh than outside, so their growth will be softer than if they had been outside. No drying-wind in the greenhouse for them to have had to contend with either.

          But that's just my thinking ...

          One thing I do know is that whenever I am hasty with hardening off I finish the season thinking that the plant could have done better. In the long term it makes no odds, so next year it will do well ... but if you want best success this season too then best to be gentle and patient with it.

          Much of what I grow is long-term, so I tend to take a cavalier approach - for example splitting & moving plants when in flower, because that enables me to put them where I want them, and match them up with other suitable companion plants. But it puts the plant back a year ...
           
        • Fat Controller

          Fat Controller 'Cuddly' Scottish Admin! Staff Member

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        • Fat Controller

          Fat Controller 'Cuddly' Scottish Admin! Staff Member

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          Right, I need to get round to sorting this passiflora today - its not looking happy at all in the kitchen now, with a load of leaves having dropped off leaving only bare stem; what is best for this - sink it as deep as possible in the bigger pot and hope that it spurs on some growth, or cut it back (meaning hardly any leaves), or pot it at the same depth, feed and hope for the best?
           
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