A Winter Purchase For The Container Garden? Yes!

It’s true, winter has finally arrived here in the mountains of Northern Israel, but that doesn’t mean that a plant lover like myself wont be tempted to stop at a nursery on the way back from an orthodontist appointment in the Golan Heights, an hour from our home!

That said I couldn’t resist picking up two cyclamens, which are so lovely this time of year (they love the cold, and should be kept in a spot with no sun), two medium size hedenbergia plants, and a few small succulents to add to my collection. I wrote an article about strings of pearls (above) and strings of bananas, so now I get to try strings of pearls in my own home, indoors that is, while winter temps dip.

Oh, and what is this? A last minute purchase and a plant that is very hardy here surviving the winter no problem. What is it?  Trumpet bush, tecoma stans, and given the prices of some of the other plants, which seemed quite expensive to me, this one was 25 shekels, (about $7) which I gather means it’s quite easy to produce. I just read that it does well in containers, phew!

Oh, and who is this exactly? Another little purchase for indoors that I just couldn’t resist, sanseveria, mother in law’s tongue, which is just about the easiest plant to care for, and is generall killed by over-watering. This is my second sanseveria, and would love even more, they’re that great, assumiing their appearance appeals to you.

That’s all for now, gotta go rescue a few more plants from the garden, as a cold front is apparently moving in, and rain is pouring down, always a fabulous thing here where water is very very precious.

Note: And when I say “winter”, this doesn’t mean the kind of winter that one might experience in New York or Amsterdam, but cold and bone chilling for us just the same, with daytime temps currently around 9C, and nightime dipping lower of course. We do get snow occassionally, so container gardening here has to be with some knowledge, or the kinds of plants that thrive in other warmer locations in Israel will quite simply call it quits once frosts arrive.