Remember my post about fall container planting? It’s already time to bring those plants inside or to compost them.
Certainly I could have left this lovely grass outside longer. But with containers this time of year, it’s a question of annoyance: do I want to listen to the Spoiler whining about having to blow leaves around them or do I just want to compost a week or two early and not deal with it?
After many years, I just compost early. I have tried other compromises–I would sweep around the containers for example (honestly, the use of a broom in autumn is vastly under-rated. It’s quiet, and environmentally friendly and you get a gentle workout.) But this year, I have too many lectures and articles at the same time. So no time to listen to whining.
So here are the plants that I saved. I was able to save half of them, so that’s something. The potted ones will go onto my porch, although I think the cordyline has to come in for the winter. Everything else can winter there.
The oregano is going into my edibles garden and the coral bells is going into a container on my stairs with others like it. They do winter over in containers outdoors for me.
And that container is large enough that at least I don’t have to listen to whining from the Spoiler about blowing leaves!
Gardendaze 
That is precisely why I don’t like those mixed urns much. I plant a mix of a few succulents around plants that I want to contain until I find a new home for them, such as my (rather large) windmill palm, but we are fortunate that we can leave such plants outside all year, and only prune them back when they get overgrown.
There was a time when I did dozens of these every season. I love the creativity in being able to do that–but it’s completely unsustainable because at least half of it needs to be composted. So now I try to restrain myself to just a couple. And normally I would never do them in fall. This was just because I got asked to do so for a lecture.
Karla