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So. 60+mph gusts all day and night yesterday. Almost tornado force. I live on a hill with no tree cover. I'm at work--came home to find my greenhouse up in the air almost vertical. Greenhouse door wrenched open and turned it into a giant polycarb tumbleweed. Lifted off in one piece--with the foundation. I caulked and screwed all the panels on so well it remained square and unbroken in any way. I set it back down enough to insulate the remainder of my collection last night. Augered through the wooden part of the foundation and sledgehammered in 3 feet worth of rebar in several places. All my shelves crashed over. Heavy casualties. I didn't take photos because honestly it looks like a giant puddle of mud on top of gravel. Broken pots, mud, crushed cacti everywhere. I had some sundews outside that escaped. Sarrs weren't in the GH.

I lost:
D. regia plantlets from root cuttings
Drosophyllum (the same babies that are posted in my thread here). I found one. It's broken to smithereens. Soil completely knocked from the roots. I have one strand of black root attached to a couple of the new curly leaves. I imagine it will die--I sterilized the crap out of the media initially by microwaving but it hit the ground and is now probably infected with god-knows-what. I repotted it and it made it through today. I was hoping to play with that plant with feeding and such so I could tell you guys. Not much hope for that now.
Lots of seeds and seedlings from ICPS. I had so much stuff come up and was protecting them and hoping to generate seeds for the seedbank for everyone. Sorry.

It definitely is an inspiration to collect hardy plants.
 
On the one hand I rather wish you had take a picture before bolting it back down. Sounds like it would have been quite a startling sight. But in the main, my reaction was "Aww, ----! That really blows."

Hope you can salvage most of your plants. If anything I sent you bit or bites the dust, let me know and I'll start some divisions for you.
 
I'm really sorry to hear of your losses. I remember your thread about Drosophyllum and thinking how it was going to be very helpful to people growing them once you did your experiment. I hope the one that made it through can survive at least. I wish your plants a speedy recovery.

The winds were pretty fierce the last couple of days here in Berkeley too.
 
Wow. We get some nasty winds out here on occasion, but I don't have any structures at risk at the moment..... hope there are at least a few things salvageable.
 
THE... DROSOPHYLLUM...IS...STILL...ALIVE!!!!!
I snipped all the leaves in half with my fingernail. Figured with the root loss I'd treat it sort of like a cutting. It had only a single strand of black root--no soil was attached at all!! I watered it in and it stayed hydrated that first night, and has remained perfectly fine for the past four days running. I didn't even give it shade. It's even getting dewy again!! I am speechless.

I was so depressed that day I almost left it for dead because I'd been fully convinced it couldn't survive being so violently uprooted. My wife was the one who convinced me to keep it.

I have no idea why it's still alive. This defies everything in the literature. The only thing I've done differently is carefully control its feeding. I regularly spray-feed it and root-feed it with 2 different chemical fertilizers. Perhaps it's able to quickly regenerate root hairs with what I'm giving it. I really do hope this is evidence that my hypothesis could be right. I may try to find some people here with seeds to start a larger experiment.

I also spent hours sifting through peaty muck to find my ICPS seedlings. They were green nubs as small as the periods in these sentences. I have saved at least two individuals of the following for crosses to generate seeds:
Drosera capensis (Botrivier, ZA)
Drosera aliciae (Constantia Nek, ZA)
Drosera binata (Coromandel, NZ)
Drosera indica
All in all about 4 other CP species were lost completely. I lost a fair amount of cacti/mesemb seeds/seedlings too. Thankfully most of the non-crushed cacti, even with some cuts, will probably make it.
 
That is good to hear! I've heard that when younger, Drosophyllum is able to survive being transplanted, but that it is sure to cause death in older individuals. Although given that your seedling lost almost all of its roots, it is really surprising that it lived. I hope you are able to continue with your experiment.
 
Sorry to hear man. I am glad that you have some survivors. Good luck with the other plants man...I hope they make it. Keep going at it and hopefully you should be able to rebuild your collection.
 
Happened to me last year! luckily just like 2 sarracenia pots were in there I had just moved everything out!! I was very scary though panels went flying everywhere what kind of greenhouse was it?
 
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