Flower power

When the frost sets in, put bedding plants in a pot and rehouse them indoors, writes James Wong. 

I know as a garden writer I am supposed to wax lyrical about the change of seasons, finding joy in the crisp air and falling leaves. But I have to confess, as someone who loves growing things, that to me the start of autumn only means one thing - the end of summer. The impending threat of frost does, however, have an upside - the chance of free houseplants. It's a way to make summer flowers last forever indoors, and here's how to do it.

Many of the most popular bedding plants, whose subtropical origins mean they have little to no defence against frost, also happen to make excellent houseplants.

In a season when they are normally ripped out and binned to make way for the new, rehoming them indoors not only gives you houseplants for free, but helps lessen the impact of what can be an extremely wasteful gardening practice.

Also, as varieties of bedding plants can come and go in a surprisingly short space of time, sometimes disappearing from catalogues with no notice from one year to the next, if you are particularly in love with a variety, this can be a sure-fire way of keeping it in your collection.

As the threat of frost looms, which can be any time from the beginning of April, I lift most bedding plants, such as impatiens, begonias, pelargoniums, fuchsias and solenostemon, pot them up in peat-free houseplant compost and give them a good water. If they suffer any broken roots during the process of being yanked out, I might give them a light trim to encourage new growth, but usually they don't even need that. All they require is a bright spot indoors, and they will recover within as little as a week or two to provide you with colour year-round.

OK, I admit I usually have far too many plants to rehome my entire collection indoors, but extras always make really personal (and affordable) gifts for all my mates. I have experimented with dozens of species and find pretty much any of the more compact-sized bedding varieties work well indoors. Just avoid very large, light-hungry species such as dahlias and cannas, and you will be fine.

Perhaps an even easier, and more space efficient, way to allow your bedding plants to live on indoors is via cuttings. This is, after all, how the vast majority of bedding plants are propagated commercially - selected specially because they are easy to take cuttings from. This means you can get material from friends and neighbours, or, as I have done more than once, unashamedly fishing material from skips that has been binned from council bedding schemes.

You can do this either the traditional way - dipping the cut end in rooting hormone, then planting it up in a pot of seed and cutting compost that is kept humid by sealing it in a plastic bag - or experiment by shoving the cuttings in little vases of water. This works a treat with all sorts of candidates, from impatiens to begonias. You will not only make plants for free but have a pretty windowsill display at the same time. A nifty way to get the joy of summer flowers well into the dark depths of winter. - Guardian News and Media