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Help Me Brainstorm How to Keep Plants Through Winter -- Not Inside -- Frugally

  • #21
well the sarracenia, vfts and perhaps some of your sundews are temperate so they should survive the winter.

Not in Pittsburgh..

Tim, ignore all suggestions of keeping your plants outdoors in the winter..Virginia and Oregon climates simply do not apply to you.
what people can do there has zero relation to what you can do in Pittsburgh.

From reading everything you have posted, IMO your best option, by far, is inside the garage for the winter..
put them up against one of the walls that the garage shares with the house, away from the garage door, and they will probably be fine..
MUCH better odds than being outside! dont worry about the cold as garage doors open and close..as long as the doors are closed at all times except when a car is going in or out, thats closed doors 99.9% of the day and night..

Don't worry about light..your plants will be "fully dormant", not growing at all, and will not need light.
(I have been over-wintering my Sarrs and VFT's in complete darkness and 35 degrees F for almost 20 years..they do just fine)

yes, your garage might be a bit too cold, but I bet they will be fine..
the garage is probably much warmer than you think, especially being attached to the house.
If you are still worried about the cold, you could "wrap them up" tight in plastic, like I do, sit the pots up against the "heated" wall (getting warmth from inside the house)
then cover the pots in old blankets or some such material, to hold in what little warmth they get from the wall..
get two or three cheap thermometers and scatter them around the storage area, to keep an eye on things.

for the ideas on the "wrapping up" process, check out my webpage,
here: http://1stclass.mylargescale.com/scottychaos/CP/page2.html

and here: http://1stclass.mylargescale.com/scottychaos/CP/page5c.html

Sarrs and VFT's do fine in the low 30's..and even a light freeze or two wont harm them..
I think your garage will probably work fine..its the best option you have! I bet you can make it work..

Scot
 
  • #22
I didn't have the time to read thru this entire thread,
however I noticed your VFT's are still trying to grow, but lacking in enough light to do them much good.
It shows that they are not yet going dormant enough to stop growth.

Are you going by the pictures of my VFTs last spring, not currently? The pictures in the garage are not current; they were just to show how the shelves are not ideal in the garage because of lack of light. My VFTs haven't been inside yet at all this fall.
 
  • #23
Thanks, Scottychaos. I never trimmed off still-green pitchers for winter before, but I'm going to have to if I intend to fit my plants on a shelving unit.

I do have a few digital thermometers I've used int he past to monitor temps. Even when it does get below freezing, if a hot car comes home from somewhere, it warms it up a bit in the garage, so that should help.

Tell me if this is a problem, though: If I bring them inside in the garage once it gets too cold outside for them, it's going to be warmer inside than they were at outside. Think that matters?

Thanks
 
  • #24
Tell me if this is a problem, though: If I bring them inside in the garage once it gets too cold outside for them, it's going to be warmer inside than they were at outside. Think that matters?

Thanks

No, not a problem..
yes, inside the garage will always be generally warmer than outside the garage, but in the Autumn, temps fluctuate all over the place..you can have one day at 45 degrees and 75 degrees the next, but the plants aren't "fooled" by an autumn warm spell..they generally know what season it is.
So yeah, I see your point, but it simply wont be an issue..

wait until late October, or until the might-time temps start to fall below freezing on a regular basis..if its 10 degrees warmer in the garage in the autumn, that wont be a big deal at all..the important thing is that the garage stays generally 35 to 45 all winter, which it probably will..

Scot
 
  • #25
There's a freeze warning tonight, and I'm wondering which I should bring in. I already brought the nep into the garage. Just being in my sundews, and let the sarrs and VFTs endure the mild freeze? Low is 34 tonight, freeze warning between 2 and 9am.
 
  • #26
I brought in all the sundews and left the VFTs and Sarrs out.
 
  • #27
34 is mild..
even if you get a frost, it will be a very light frost..it wont hurt them..I would leave my plants out with that forecast..
(referring only to VFT's and Sarrs)

I use "29" as my magic number in early spring and autumn when the plants are out on the deck..
If I see a 29 or lower as a forecast overnight low, I put the plants in the garage for the night..

Scot
 
  • #28
Even capensis? This thread led me to believe that D. capensis can't freeze.

Also, unrelated: I watched a video today from Sarracenia Northwest, and saw about harvesting Sarrs seeds. Then I went outside and noticed I have a bunch! I never had any before. Maybe I didn't know what to look for, or cut off flower stalks too soon, but my x catesbaei gave me a bunch of seeds. Who knows if they're crossed with my other Sarrs. Kind of exciting.
 
  • #29
I use 30F as my cut off. Any cooler they go in the garage for the night. I arbitrarily picked that number and it has worked, so I stick with it.
 
  • #30
Hmmm. Why pick a temperature 2 or 3 degrees below freezing? Why not freezing? Just curious.

I get scared, but haven't lost a plant due to temps yet. I've only lost D. adelae because they're fussy, a butterwort because I let it flower and I shouldn't have, a cobra lily from Lowe's because it didn't like my method of caring for plants, and the Sarr right above my mint plant here (around 5 o'clock) has been doing worse and worse all year and I have no idea why:

Plants%2520Fall%25202012%25207.JPG


I'm getting off-topic.
 
  • #31
I do it because it is a pain to move them. They can survive a light frost, so i let them. If you want to bring them in at 34 it would be fine, just not necessary. Your capes will die back to their roots, but come back from them in the spring. They are pretty remarkable plants when you think about it.
 
  • #32
Hmmm. Why pick a temperature 2 or 3 degrees below freezing? Why not freezing? Just curious.

For the same reasons collapse said in the post above..
34 degrees is WAYYY too warm to bother moving them..nothing bad will happen at 34 degrees..
32 degrees is technically freezing..but..for VFT's and Sarrs in the winter, they very often get a light freeze in their native habitats..
32 is fine for them..no real danger at all..

29 is below freezing, and at 29 you can get a light frost..actual frost on the leaves of the plants..
but it would be a very *light* frost, and it would only last a few hours..as soon as the sun comes up, it will quickly rise above freezing, (in October)

a 29 degree low, in the Autumn, here in the "north" is a very "mild" cold night..its the equivalent of an unusually "cold" cold night in the south..
and I figure a light frost actually helps the plants go "fully dormant" so that they are very clearly and deeply "asleep" when
I cut off all their leaves and put them in the basement stairwell for their full winter dormancy..

So I choose "below 29" degrees as my "limit" because I know they can handle 29 just fine..
in fact, one or two 29 degree nights is probably good for them..

There is no real reason to bring them in the garage for "only" 32 degrees..
Because I know they can handle 29 degrees *for a few hours* in an early Autumn morning..
Its the 3 months straight below freezing (around here) that they cant handle..

Scot
 
  • #33
It is worth mentioning that what happens above the soil line is one thing, but what happens below can be much more crucial when it comes to winterizing your container-grown temperate CPs. For many North American plants, a freeze down into the low twenties is inconsequential because the soil doesn't freeze more than a fraction of an inch down. Plants grown in pots, however, can freeze solid all the way through at the same temperature, which is far more damaging to the plants. If you dig a pit to overwinter your potted plants, to insulate the soil, it will be a far easier on the plants and you will have less to worry about.
 
  • #34
All my plants, except the nep, are still outside, with lows dippibg into the low 30s. My question now is, do my sundews need to go dormant now? Do they even go dormant? Or if I bring them inside, will they try to grow all winter?

If I found a friend who'd want to plantsit for a winter, would there be no use, because my sundews would already be fixin' to be dormant (boring to a plantsitter)?
 
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