Hoping my impatiens survive the next Polar Vortex

impatiensI potted these fleurs Memorial Day weekend, like I pretty much always do these days. A tribute to The Commander, if you will. There is plenty of beautiful plant life on the shores of Gitchee Gumee but most seasons you have to get up close and personal to see much of anything besides a billion shades of green and brown. Unless you pot colorful flowers, like these impatiens.

I can’t remember when The Comm began setting out these big pots of impatiens but she did it for many years, including the last spring of her life. I think she liked to add a bit of vibrant color to the beautiful woods. I figured if impatiens could survive the rugged weather conditions at Gitchee Gumee, they might survive my black thumb, so I started potting them here in the Landfill back yard. Lo and behold, I was successful! (Except for the year a virus killed them.) I plant them here at the Landfill every year now on Mother’s Day. Since Lizard Breath has moved back here to Detroit, she always brings me plants from the Eastern Market. Love. Also, nowadays I make it a point to pot some at the moominbeach.

It is a bit dicey to pot flowers like this as early as Memorial Day in the yooperland on the shores of Gitchee Gumee. Last year (2013) it was so [frickin’] cold that we brought them *inside* at night. This year, the weather was fine Memorial Day weekend but we didn’t plan on being back up there for a month and who knew what kind of Polar Vortex might dip down onto the Great Lakes before then. It can be damn cold in June. When I was staying up at the moomincabin a few years ago during the vortex surrounding my mother, I was wearing long pants and socks to bed and sometimes a polartech jacket and I was sleeping downstairs in the room next to the bathroom. This year, we stashed the impatiens on the ground behind the back deck when we left after Memorial Day. Water (rain) and sun there. I was nervous upon driving in the 3rd of July. Did they survive? Yes, they did, in spades! I hoisted them up onto the deck and there they be. I betcha Pooh will water them if they look dry but I bet they won’t need watering.

We are being threatened by none other than a Polar Vortex next week. As I think the article states, that doesn’t mean we will have frost, just wimpy high temperatures. I also think that using the term Polar Vortex to describe this forecast is a bit of hype (although I generally like this weather guy). In the Great Lake State, we are surrounded by huge bodies of water and they like to play with the jet stream and about a billion other bits and pieces of whatever makes the weather. It isn’t all that unusual to have chilly weather in July. We’ll see what happens.

P. S. The moominbeach impatiens are thriving. My impatiens down here on The Planet Ann Arbor are threatening to take over the world!

One Response to “Hoping my impatiens survive the next Polar Vortex”

  1. Margaret Says:

    Those are beautiful. I’ve had nothing but trouble with my impatiens. I think it might be too sunny where I have them. You have your summer “polar vortex” and we will be in the 90s! Can we swap??