<em>Dipladenia</em> in winter: protecting it from the cold

When to overwinter dipladenia?

Hardiness of dipladenias varies slightly between varieties. Be cautious and keep an eye on the thermometer once the warm season ends : when temperatures fall below 10°C at night, it’s time to bring your dipladenia indoors. This necessarily varies by region; in cold climates, plan to overwinter them at the end of October.

How to overwinter a dipladenia?

Overwintering dipladenia involves 3 stages :

• cleaning,
• winter pruning,
• storage or overwintering.

Step 1: cleaning

Before storing your dipladenia, it is important to clean it. On some varieties, leaves may yellow; make sure to remove them to keep dipladenia healthy.

Also keep an eye out for any pests that may be present. Most commonly these are aphids and scale insects. To eliminate them, nothing is more effective than traditional black soap mixed with water, applied by direct spraying.

Step 2: winter pruning

A winter pruning can be carried out: cut back stems to the 3^rd or 4^th node; spring flowering will be stimulated.

Step 3: storage

Even in winter, dipladenia has a vital need for light but must be kept at a moderate temperature (between 10 and 15 °C).

You can therefore store your pot in one of the following places :

• in a greenhouse that can be heated,
• in a conservatory,
• or in any other cool but bright room.

Remember that overwintering location for your dipladenia should be bright but only moderately heated.

During overwintering, it does not need much watering: let the substrate dry out thoroughly over winter before watering again. Avoid stagnant water in the outer pot or saucer.

Adding fertiliser is unnecessary at this time.

Dipladenia benefits from regular spraying of water, preferably soft water to avoid whitish marks on the foliage. Well placed in a sunny position, your plant may even produce some new flowering shoots which you can train onto a stake.

And when winter is over?

Once warm weather returns, don’t be too eager to put your dipladenia outside. Wait until night-time temperatures rise above 10°C before putting it back outside.

Caution: take it out gradually to reacclimatise it gently, first for a few hours during the day, then for a full day… and remember to bring it in at night!