Hi from Upstate NY

[AshG2385]

Hi, my name is Ashley. I'm 27, married, with 4 kids and 2 German Shepherds. I am originally from southeastern Arizona, but my husband is active duty Army so we move a lot.
Currently, I have 2 typical VFT's. I'm waiting for another 25 assorted in the mail, along with 2 sarracenias (leucophylla and judith hindle) then another S. Rubra, D. Spatulata, and P. Montezumea (sp? lazy and don't want to go look it up). Also some assorted open pollinated Sarracenia seeds and some other seeds I ordered.

I'm located at Fort Drum, NY, which is USDA region 4. Basically, it's really really cold up here from October to June. I didn't even get my tomatoes outside until the first week of June this year, only due to frost!
Being that our weather up here sucks (if it's not cold, it's raining, if it's not raining, it's snowing, if it's not raining or snowing...it's 90 degrees and humid! haha) I have a 250w HPS grow light in my laundry room.

Looking forward to meeting everyone, though I see some from my other forum on here too!

 

[RL7836]

Welcome to TF. There are several folks from the hinterlands (Tony P, Exo, Jim Scott come quickly to mind) on TF and several more beyond that in Canuckville (did I spell that correctly?) (Peatmoss, Devon, Carnivore12 & others) --- so you have lots of cold-country company.

Southern AZ to Northern NY - the military sure has a sense of humor ...

 

[adnedarn]

Hey! We have some stuff in common.... I'm from Tucson, Az... am into CPs... and also have a German Shepard. (Just rehomed her to us about a month ago...)
Welcome to TF!
Andrew

 

[Heli]

Welcome! I am located in Brooklyn, NY.

 

[AshG2385]

Hey! We have some stuff in common.... I'm from Tucson, Az... am into CPs... and also have a German Shepard. (Just rehomed her to us about a month ago...)
Welcome to TF!
Andrew

Haha, I'm from Willcox (ever heard of it) and lived in Sierra Vista for several years, then NY, then Colorado Springs, CO, then back to NY!

Here's my two blithering idiots.

Left is my male, Czech lines, female on the right, Am/German lines.

My mom has one of their pups that's 1 now, huge dogs. Yours is very pretty, nice color.

RL: They sure do. The first time I moved up here was from AZ, February 1st, 2008. Sense of humor for sure, I went from wearing a light jacket (maybe, if that) to freezing to death with snow banks taller than me - granted, that's not really tall, but still, quite a shock.
I still am not very good at driving in snow.

 

[adnedarn]

Yep, go to Wilcox every now and then, and have some friends down in Sierra Vista.

haha your dogs look like they have the energy of mine... our 8yo blind miniature Poodle really isn't up to it though. Your dogs look great, mine is coated (obviously) and has lazy ears... they stand up some times.... but mostly down. I guess it fits that name that came with her (Diva) more "pretty" and girlie with them down. But her bark and attention (with ears up) makes anything think twice about this Diva

Andrew

 

[Iwest]

Welcome to TerraForums Luckily, your temperate sarrs and VFTs shouldn't have too much of a problem with cold winters, they'll just go dormant and sleep right through the snow!

 

[AshG2385]

Haha, not quite. When it hits -10 or lower I think they can't handle that. We don't get too much above 20F all winter, I'm just a bit south of Kingston, Ontario, Canada - maybe a 45 minute drive. They're coming indoors before the end of the month. You never can tell, last year was nice, but the year before, my kids were trick or treating in snow boots in 1 ft of snow.

 

[scottychaos]

Hi Ashley, welcome to the group!
you are correct..your plants cant handle the upstate NY winters outdoors..
also, you shouldn't be growing them indoors..at all..ever.
and unfortunately, you picked the worst time of year to be ordering a bunch of new plants..
Spring is best, so they can spend a full Spring-Summer-Autumn season outdoors before going dormant in the fall..
but since you have already ordered them, it can be made to work! its just not the ideal situation..

What you do with your new plants this winter depends totally on where you ordered them from.
if its a "good" nursery that was growing the plants outdoors, the plants should be dormant when you get them!
(this would be a very good thing)
and you will need to devise a system for keeping them dormant until spring..

If on the other hand you ordered plants from a nursery that sells plants right out of tissue-culture, they will *not* be dormant,
they will not be ready for dormancy this winter, and you will probably need to keep them indoors this winter, (not ideal, but workable for one winter season)
then put them outside in the Spring..they will be outside next spring/summer/autumn, *then* you will need to devise a system of dormancy for next winter.

so let us know what kind of plants you bought! if you know..how they have been growing for the past year will make a HUGE
difference for what you need to do with them once you get them..
meanwhile, check out my CP pages for ideas about dormancy in a cold upstate-NY climate!
(im in Rochester NY..we get virtually the same winters as you..)

http://1stclass.mylargescale.com/scottychaos/CP/

check out page 2 specifically for dormancy info..

Scot

 

[jimscott]

Hi Ash and welcome to TF! I'm in Western NY, near Buffalo.

 

[AshG2385]

You're right, we do have weather similar to Rochester, I hate living in a snow belt and lake effect snow. But we're USDA zone 4, looks like you're a bit warmer down there in zone 6. I know you guys get tons of snow too though, my best friend from AZ was from Rochester originally (my family is originally from a bit south of here in Syracuse). Do you get lake effect snow too? I hate that, the huge drifts that the plows can't keep up with. Luckily I have a big 4x4 SUV this time, the first time, I drove my Mustang all winter here. I swear, I only wiped it out twice, lol.

I got some typical VFT's (coming from Oregon, reputable seller they are kept outdoors) and a drosera spatulata, pinguicula moctezumae, and S. Rubra that are coming from southern California (also reputable seller who sent me the same fact sheet and warned about full sunlight being necessary and to put them outside - I did my homework there after getting a death cube VFT that is still alive, but not thriving).

When I say they are coming inside soon (before first freeze) they are going in to my unheated room for the winter...not to hang out in my living room (that stays 80F all winter, hey I'm an Arizona native! I don't do cold.) We expect first hard freeze by end of September, early October. I'm leaving them out as long as I can get away with, but before it freezes or we get snow. This is my 4th winter here at Drum and only once have I not seen snow before Halloween, lol. My garage seems to get too cold (sometimes the snow on the car doesn't melt off, just sits there all night) so they're going in my unheated laundry room that stays pretty chilly all winter. I don't have the refrigerator space (I have 4 children, my refrigerator is full almost all the time) or room for another refrigerator, so a cold room is going to have to suffice.

I'll also be moving into a house (instead of this townhouse from Hell) sometime this winter, and probably back out of NY by fall of next year (if I'm lucky). Hopefully back to Arizona or even Colorado again. The houses I'll move into are better insulated so the garage is probably going to be where they get to winter it out.

I'm working on reading your blog. Thanks for the link, it's a good read so far (4 pages or so in)

ETA: Oh dear God, I saw your "updated" sun based season...bwhaha! Cracked me up. For up here, you could drag the blue winter months to the end of April most of the time. This year, my tomatoes got outside like June 5th, after the last good freeze (which was like June 1st). I don't know how people do it, I really don't. I wouldn't live up here if it was my decision and not Uncle Sam's. Pretty sure my family felt the same way, my mother was born in Syracuse and my grandparents moved to Arizona when she was 4.

 

[scottychaos]

Ashley,
sounds like you already have the dormancy thing under control then!
good deal..
glad you like the webpage!
Scot

 

[AshG2385]

I don't know if I'd use the term "under control" but a basic idea of what I need to do for success...possibly.
Your webpage is very helpful, I like to see how others do it in this specific area. On my other forum, a good portion of the members are on the west coast (this is me being jealous right here) and have fantastic weather to leave them outdoors in for winter. The ones that are in the east seem to be in better growing regions, but still in the 6's and 7's. All the same, I find that it's difficult to leave anything outdoors in the winter here.

My first winter here, I had a lawnmower. No room in the garage for it, so I left it on my back patio all winter. That didn't seem to be much of a problem, except when I moved at the end of April, it was frozen to the ground and I bent the handle prying it up. Oddly enough it started without a hitch, but it left a lasting impression on leaving anything outdoors.
Even the dogs with all their fur don't want to stay out in it for long and whine to come in, or skip their potty break because they're cold, haha.

 

[jimscott]

Perhaps we can work out a trade someday...

 

[AshG2385]

Oh sure, I'm always up for trading if I have something someone wants, not likely right now considering my limited CP's though.

 

[jimscott]

What is your grow list?

 

[Rball]

welcome the TF i too live in NY, saranac lake to be exact

 

[AshG2385]

Added my grow list in today - link in signature.

MWR at Fort Drum does couples retreats to Lake Placid every fall, we were thinking about going this year, since I haven't been to that area yet - that's pretty close to Saranac lake isn't it?

 

[Exo]

Hey there! I live over here in Albion, between Jimscott and Scottychaos.

I grow some of my CPs outside year-round, but my winters reach only -10 and I use a foot of leaves as mulch. It works pretty well though, and I only loose shallow rooted plants like D.intermedia (the freezing pushes em right out of the ground)

 

[jimscott]

I can easily supplement your collection...