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Would they survive

Hey all, maybe you can tell me something.

I was thinking of taking an undrained pot and put a bunch of differnt sarrs in it outside. The problem is that i dont really have a good place to put them inside during winter and i was wondering if they would survive the freezing winters i get here in Michigan. The whole pot would freeze solid, because like i said its going to stay out all winter. Would this kill the plants? i know the native S.purpurea would be ok, but what about other sarrs? or even other cps that could handle being froze. Any thoughts would be great.

Thanks in advance
Ktulu
 
I dont know first hand but in the book Savage Garden it says they are tolerant of Light frosts and Brief freezes. If your winters are like Ohios, I wouldnt try leaving them out.
 
my experiences when living in a colder climate is leave them outside as long as there is not a prolonged freeze. If it's still 35 during the day, 25 at night, they should survive. You want to watch out for extended freezes, as well as temps below 20. If you only have 1 pot, it shouldn't be a big deal to put them in a garage or on a window sill, or a sunporch or a basement or something like that during the really cold snaps. I had about 25 pots when i lived in Missouri. That got annoying!! Another thing you can supposedly do is put them in the fridge for the winter. I've never tried it, but supposedly it works as long as they're not in a spot where they'll freeze.
 
Sarracenias can freeze.

I keep mine outside in pots in CT, where winters typically get below 0 but only rarely reach -10.  What I do to protect them is to dig a broad, shallow hole and set all the pots in it, filling around them with dirt.  I leave about 1" of each pot above ground.  Then I begin covering them with oak leaves until there's 12" of leaves.  Don't use maple or other leaves that mat down.

This year, for the first time, I added a lean-to over the leaf pile to keep snow off and the plants did even better.  The pots are frozen solid during midwinter, but the insulating leaf pile minimizes freeze-thaw cycling.
 
I had the same experience as herenorthere this winter in NY. We had some COLD days in January. Round about late Nov. I sunk the pot into the ground (also leaving a little sticking out), and I mulched it with, beleive it or not, cedar bedding meant for reptile cages! Low and behold, I only lost one sar out of three (which was on it's way out anyway, so I wasn't surprised), and no VFT's! They all made it just fine.
 
I had some sarrs in a bog in the ground.  I covered it with straw over the winter.  When I uncovered it in the spring, the top of the soil was covered with solid layer of ice.  So far all the larger ones have started pitchering and some of the medium and small ones have also started.  I think most of the sarrs are quite a bit more hardy than we typically think they are.

       -buckeye
 
The southern Sarracenias are Zone 8 plants, so Zone 6 here in CT isn't such a challenge. I figure the major thing to avoid is repeated freezing and thawing. That probably kills more plants than the cold.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (schloaty @ April 12 2004,10:04)]We had some COLD days in January.  
It`s a cold day in july.......Lol. for some reason your post reminded me of that song.
tounge.gif
 
I left a pot of Sarrs outside on my Balcony all winter..
not buried in the ground, no special cover, just left it sitting in the open..
(I did it that way on purpose as an experiment)
most of the winter the pot was buried under many feet of snow..and it got COLD..below-zero cold for a few stretches..
these are all southern Sarr's..not purpurea.
so far they look ok..but I cant tell if they survived or not, but its still too early for new growth anyway..I will keep you posted!
Scot
 
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