Agaves and aloes from the deserts and bananas from rain-forestcountry are all easy to keep over winter in the house if they aregiven almost no water.
Although some plants would promptly die under this regimen, asurprising number will thrive (or at least survive) almost bone dryfrom November until April.
The agaves live in 12-inch pots throughout the year. They are apain to carry in and out, in April and November, and they get biggerevery year. They all started with an agave somebody threw out onefall. Of course this was retrieved, and since then it has pupped,and now I cannot say which is the original and which are theoffspring.
Anyway, each pot gets about a cup of water once every six weeks.Our house is colder than most and stays in the 50s most of the day.This suits the agaves, aloes, barrel cactus, several palms,monsteras, fiddle leaf fig and rubber tree quite well.
The poor fiddle leaf fig is almost exhausted by spring, butrevives in our warm, wet spring and summer.
A dracaena came to us in 1970 in a 4-inch pot. It graduated tolarger things, but for the past 10 years has lived in a 10-inch pot.It is about 6 feet high, with four stems, and has not grown foryears. That is because I do not give it a larger pot. The soil inthe pot is unchanged for at least 10 years. In the house it gets acup of water once a month, or whenever its leaves start lookingunhappy.
The schefflera is equally starved, but equally green, and hasshown displeasure by producing quite small leaves. It suits me finethat way.
The sago palm or cycad (Cycas revoluta) is much at home in theCarolina low country and thrives with endless floods of water throughthe summer, but it does quite well in the house in dim light andalmost dust-dry soil through the winter. When it goes out in Aprilyou almost can see it revving itself up for a great burst of newgrowth after its months of enforced drought.
I think of all these creatures as so many green bears, abidingquietly in their cave until the stronger light of February wakensthem. The bananas are the first to revive, sending out tentativepale leaves in January (if you weaken and give them a cup of water),and you soon learn to give them just enough to keep the leaves fromdying but not enough to encourage them into full growth. Once theyfruit, the main stem dies, but there are two or three young plantsgrowing at the base.
One of the most difficult things to do is nurse along youngrosebushes in the house. In general, it is best to plant the roseoutside, despite the hazards of winter.
Unfortunately the bud was plump, and I was sure it would sproutduring the mild weather before Christmas and then be wrenched looseby the gales of winter. So I have it in the house.
The bud has sprouted, and I cut the top off the stock into whichit was set. (None of this need concern gardeners who get their rosesthe usual way, as 2-year-old field-grown plants. With them, the workhas all been tended to long before they are sold, and all you do isplant them outdoors in November-December or February-March.)
The hazard, in the house, is insufficient light. I keep the newmusk rose under a lamp at night, hoping to pull it through untilspring. This rose is notable for its scent, but the flowers aresmallish and fairly shapeless, white, and they have a bad habit ofturning brown when they fade and (in wet weather) just hanging on thebush.
It is a different plant from the huge climber commonly sold asthe musk rose. The one I refer to as the true musk is supposed tohave come from the border of France and Spain.
It starts blooming at the end of July in England and continuesuntil cold weather. Its chief claim to glory is that it is supposedto be the rose from which the noisettes were bred, and through themits genes may well be in many modern roses.
You notice I say "supposed to be" a good bit. Roses are easilygrown from seed and easily pollinated by other roses. Over thecenturies, without clear records, the best an honest scholar (letalone an amateur like me) can do is make an informed guess.
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