On 10/15/2007 1:00 PM, Phisherman wrote:
How do you treat your houseplants that have been outdoors all summer?

Except for a cymbidium orchid, I leave them outside all winter.

I bring the orchid inside around Thanksgiving, to protect it from frost.
I give it no special outdoor versus indoor treatment. Indoors, I keep
it in the dining room with the drapes open in the daytime (northern
window) to give it enough light.

We had record breaking cold in January the beginning of this year. All
my potted plants outside survived the Great Freeze of '07, although some
had damage that required pruning later in the year. I replaced the
potted Ficus benjamina because it would take too long for new growth to
compensate for the damage. In the ground, I lost all my statice (sea
lavender, Limonium perezii) and one (of 20) wax-leaf begonia. All the
dwarf citrus survived; my dear, old dwarf lemon was already dead or
dying before the freeze. Everything else recovered, only for much of it
to be destroyed this summer by the construction equipment needed to
repair my hill from a mud slide that happened in January 2005.

--
David E. Ross
Climate: California Mediterranean
Sunset Zone: 21 -- interior Santa Monica Mountains with some ocean
influence (USDA 10a, very close to Sunset Zone 19)
Gardening pages at http://www.rossde.com/garden/