This is the first year I've had potted hardy perennials and it looks like middle TN is about to plunge into low temps. I've got carnations, some form of wandering jew and bee balm. Will they over winter outside in their plastic pots or should I a)plant them or b)bring them inside?
Kate - who finally planted garlic yesterday
Just a personal opinion -- but -- I find the term "wandering jew" so distasteful, that I prefer to use the botanical name. At a nursery I would ask for the plant by its botanical name.
Googling "Wandering Jew" yields:
+++++ Common name: "Zebrina Wandering Jew" Latin name: Tradescantia zebrina - synonym Zebrina pendula +++++Note that the Latin name says nothing about Jews. The meaning is "trailing" or "hanging".
One has to wonder how this unfortunate nomenclature arose.
One has to wonder how unfortunate we are that people like you were not aborted before birth.
hey Kate.......madgardener here (I grew up and lived most of my life in Nashville). Question........the carnations that you have....did you get them at a nursery? Or at Kroger or a grocery in the florist section? And a type of wandering jew? I can say the wandering Jew won't survive the hard frost that is coming your way. Is it all purple? There are several types of wandering vine-like plants in the Tradescantia family. "Wandering Jew" or Inch plant won't hold up to temperatures below 40o You can bring it in and give the long stems a haircut and root them to make another pot or plant them into the soil with the rest of the plants.
The purple one is Setcreasea purpurea known as purple boat or Purple heart. That has to come in as well. I know the nurseries sell it as a ground cover, but it's not hardy I myself have the Siderasis or Brown Spiderwort, which I didn't want to lose so I brought mine in Friday. There is also a variety of Tradescantia called Zebrina which is also known as Wandering Jew, way more colorful with leaves green, silver, edged in pink or green, and purple, or even green, silver, pink and red. These can't survive past 40o outside.
Now the Bee Balm.......Yes, it can survive in a container. But honestly, either plant it today, or heel it in until spring, mounding leaves around the pot to protect the sides against the cold, winds. If you can get a shovel into the ground, you could plunge the pot and all into a hole, but if I were you, I'd plant the Monarda and mark the spot with the lable and whack the stems back to within three inches tall and water it well and forget about it. Come springtime you'll see little triangles coming up where you planted the clump, and before you know it, they will have quietly risen up to become those great stems with the flowers that hummers love so well. I've taken to putting one of those garden grids over mine as they tend to flop due to the raised soil being a bit too rich for them. But in regular and poor soil, they flourish and stand more upright like they're supposed to. I'd even say the second and third year when they start bulking up and spreading, to cut them back when they get to two foot tall to make them branch. They're tough. Members of the mint family.
Hope this helps! madgardener up on the ridge, back in Fairy Holler, overlooking English Mountain in Eastern Tennessee, zone 7, Sunset zone 36
My gardening experience near San Francisco taught me that it will live quite happily at temperatures below 40°. It won't survive a hard freeze, though.
My email address is LLM041103 at earthlink dot net.
I started them from seed this year. They didn't bloom. Hopefully next year. I think they're hardy to zone 3 or 4.
All purple with light purple blooms. A friend gave me cuttings. She has them everywhere and leaves them out, but in great big tubs.
That's it! I guess they do have to come in - rats! (I made the mistake of seperating one of the Aloe from it's pups - now I've got 10 aloes, one bay tree and 2 window boxes of Setcreasea purpurea to over winter inside - groan.)
I know the nurseries sell it as a ground cover,
Thanks, Mad! We got a wee bit of rain this morning and now it's quite balmy. I may just got out and put the balm and carnations in the ground.
Kate
Sorry, didn't mean to offend. The latin name turns out to be Setcreasea purpurea.
Peace,
Kate
Hey Lauren,
Didn't know you were in the Manson family.
When did you get that swastika tattooed on your forehead?
snipppppppppppppp>>>> prune>>>>>>>>>>> whack>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
yeppers, yer dead on there........ sniiiiiiiiiiiiippppppp>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
good to know my extensive research tracked your specific plant down. Now as to the next statement............
Jonathan, here in Eastern Tennessee, they hang in there fairly well below
40o, but they pout and mush out below 38o. The purple one that people buy at Lowes and Home Despot as "tender perennials" are just annuals. they make impressive clumps of color, beautiful little pink flowers nestled at the tips of the purple leaves and darker reddish purple stems, but hardy? nope. not here. We're not in the least like San Francisco. I'm sure you get snow......probably get frosts, and the occaisonal freeze, and if you were to maintain those cold temperatures, you'd find that below 40o the plant would not only suffer but would croak. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~wish we'd gotten some of that rain, but it slid past us here in the foothills of the Smokies. Planting your babies you grew from seed is the best thing for them. You have a window of time to plug them in right now...... sunny spot for both of them by the way......now for Persephone........... you might find it offensive that the common name for some of these plants is 'Wandering Jew', but in my English book, " The Houseplant Expert" written by Dr. D.G. Hessayon, under Tradescantia, the common name for two varieties of these plants be they Tradescantia fluminensis, variegata which is LISTED IN THE BOOK as Tradescantia: Wandering Jew with (Inch Plant) underneath this in parenthesis, on page 221, or Zebrina pendula or purpusii, or Z. pendula quadricolor, which is also listed as Wandering Jew with (Inch Plant) in parenthesis underneath.
I'm sure Cereus will fill us in as to the location of the originality of these plants, (thanks Fashizzel!), but honestly, if you're offended that someone at sometime back who knows when, decided that a common name for a trailing vine/ground cover would be Wandering Jew, then so what? I swear, I think sometimes that some people are too thin skinned and politically correct. And by the way, JEWS call each other JEWS. It's not like it has a derogatory common name of N. vine.....................(and I won't use that one because it IS offensive to people and I, despite the fact that I am very Southern, will not go there.........) So please lighten up, Persephone. Now I'm gonna duck behind this here bush hoping to avoid the flame or food fight and hope that Zhan comes to my rescue!.............. madgardener up on the ridge, back in Fairy Holler, overlooking English Mountain in Eastern Tennessee, zone 7, Sunset zone 36
Wrong.
Setcreasea purpurea is not an accepted name.
Its correctly named Tradescantia pallida 'Purple Heart', a purple leafed cultivar of the species.
Wrong.
Setcreasea purpurea is not an accepted name.
Its correctly named Tradescantia pallida 'Purple Heart', a purple leafed cultivar of the species.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
but, but, Cereus, in The Houseplant Expert book on page 222, it shows a picture of Setcreasea purpurea in flower, next to it, a water colour drawing (very well done which is the way the original book used to be, but I have both, the older one and the newer edition that came out in the early 90's that has both water colour and real photo's which the original book didn't) of what the plant would look like in a clay pot and underneath that, S. purpurea and underneath THAT Purple Heart, and then a deffinition of "Setcreasea purpurea is a straggly plant which makes up for its untidiness by it's attractive colour-- a rich purple when grown in good light. He leaves are slightly hairy and pink flowers appear in summer". unquote. Next to a most impressive picture and drawing of Siderasis which is S. fuscata or the Brown Spiderwort that I was speaking of earlier, btw. If someone has recently decided that it's not acceptable to call Purple Heart or Purple Boat, which is what I also knew it by (from the old Hyponex houseplant book which was my FIRST plant book, btw, and not by any means my last, as I'm up to over 249 books on gardening now) I'm not surprised, but will continue to call them by both their Latin names as well as their common names.
but that's jess me.....
maddie
"kate" wrote in message ...
Persephone wrote On Sun, 13 Nov 2005 09:41:30 -0600, kate
Understood, YMMV with climate, species, or just the side of the hill you're on.
Snow was very rare; frost was a regular occurrence. In the coldest part of winter, lows were typically around freezing, and highs were
10°-15° higher. But in most winters there were stretches of several days at a time when the temperature did not rise above 40° much, if at all.I will not presume to tell you that wandering Jew will survive winter in Tennessee (if you have hard freezes it certainly won't), but the variety I knew was quite tolerant of temperatures below 40° for periods of days, at least.
My email address is LLM041103 at earthlink dot net.
I would plant the bee balm right into the ground. the carnations we get here ( might be too cold) are just annuals so either enjoy them now till the die off or bring them in. probablt different where you live. I still haven't planted my garlic yet . I did just have fresh carrots and parsnips out of the garden yesterday for a soup, Yum
I sit corrected. Can I just call it a roaming gentile? A meandering muslim? Perhaps not.
The bee balm and carnations are in the ground. I'm still getting okra, tomatoes and peppers (and the rosemary and rue are blooming again.)
You shall be the nattering naybob!!!
They're in the ground and in the sun. This has been a hard growing season here in TN this year, as I'm sure you know. The rain pretty much stopped in July. I lost several white pines and a young blue spruce and I'm still trying to keep 3 douglas firs going. Ah well, I'm a Red Sox fan - there's always next year.
Kate
......now for
I LOVE how you think!!!!!!!!!! ROFLMAO (ignore curmudgeons......althought he is extremely knowledgable) madgardener who refuses to stand corrected when it's in a freaking GARDENING BOOK for crying out loud..........................................
Hate to burst your bubble but most gardening books are crap copied from other gardening books and not the latest scientific literature.
Actually, the reuniting of Setcreasea and other microgenera back into Tradescantia was done quite a few years ago.
Hunt, D.R. (1975) The reunion of Setcreasea and Separotheca with Tradescantia. American Commelinaceae: 1. Kew Bulletin 30 (3): 443-458.
Hunt, D.R. (1976) Notes on Tradescantia pallida. American Commelinaceae: 3. Kew Bulletin 31 (1): 104.
Hunt, D.R. (1980) Sections and series in Tradescantia. American Commelinaceae: 9. Kew Bulletin 35 (2): 437-442.
But who (aside from cutting edge types like yourself) can keep up with the myriad and constant changes in taxonomy? And will there *ever* be a final answer on some of these plants as far as classification goes?
Most casual gardeners are lucky to get the old name spelled correctly, much less know the current one.
-- Toni South Florida USA Zone 10b
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