I've decided that heartlessness is an asset in greenhouse keeping. I've seen plenty of hobbyist's greenhouses that were more like catacombs, full of overgrown plants, dried out, miserable, unloved and smothered in their own dead foliage. You definitely can't turn your back on a greenhouse; you've got to constantly monitor the temperature, move things around so they don't get chilled or baked in the sun, clean and most importantly cut things back and THROW THEM OUT. I've been hearing the screams from my little 9' round Garden Pod for a couple of weeks now. There was a red mandevilla that had taken over the door and several pots around it with long, twining tendrils, and two planters full of cuttings taken in September that HAD to be potted up. I am a collector of plants, and there are many plants I can't live without. This variegated alpine geranium, this Laguna lobelia with the white eye; dozens of fancy-leaved, dwarf and miniature gerania. There are so many plants to love, and only so much room in the Pod.
The really cool thing about plants is that all you need is a cutting, a snippet, the DNA you're after. I take cuttings while things are growing madly in September, and they root well. But just to be sure, I bring the mother plants in until I'm certain I've got viable rooted cuttings. So the Pod was overstuffed with giant planters, full of giant plants, that were too beautiful to toss out. But there comes a time for everything, and , as beautiful as they were, these mother plants were no longer needed. More than that, they were blocking light from their children, the cuttings that I spent the day potting up. They had to go. So I steeled myself, and tossed out six planters' worth. The snow gently covered them as they lay on the compost heap. Yes, heartlessness is an asset. I'm sorry, mother plants, I truly am, but you're too big now, and I'll carry on with cuttings. Here they are, neatly potted and labeled. Greenhouses should be places of burgeoning growth and renewal, not death and decadence. A contented sigh from the Pod and its heartless keeper. Let it snow. I've got Aruba in my little greenhouse.