THIS WILL NOT HAPPEN NEXT YEAR!

With the threat of a freeze tonight we had to get busy yesterday. First the houseplants. Three large plants have spent the summer outside by the front gate where they receive a little shade from the overhead structure. One of these is now a 6' Euphorbia. This plant has been severely mistreated in the past and I put it out thinking it would likely be its last year. Not so. In fact it loved being out there and quickly fattened up and put out new leaves.

It sits in  10 square inch pot and what scrappy soil and rock was in there is now only 8" And yet it is as green and healthy as can be. A testament to the resilience of such plants. All is forgiven it seems and now I want to keep the plant. How to move it.

Let it be known that this is a plant which has to be protected from itsef. Like many euphorbias it will bleed when damaged and those sharp spines on the outer edges of the stem can do more damage to the plant than to me. To prevent such damage I usually pad between the stems to prevent this.
I wish someone could have taken a video of the procedure. It took the two of us and a dolly to move it. The plant is so lanky with an obvious poor root structure that any movement caused the stems to bend. It had to go down two steps, up two steps, down two steps and up two steps to get it to its final resting place for the winter.

It will bear the scars of this move for the rest of its life.

Finally it is inside for the winter and next spring I will be cutting off the tops and replanting to make a new plant. This time I will be more generous with both pot and soil.
Unfortunately the anole who was sheltering in this plant was evicted more than once. From the Euphorbia, to the rubber plant to the fig. I hope he managed to find a new place to hide during tonight's freeze.