Here's a hint about USDA zones; unless you're growing something unprotected on a big flat plot of dirt, yearly low doesn't really mean much about your conditions. It's a hypersimplification designed specifically for large-scale agricultural use. Anybody who is concerned about wintertime temperatures can save themselves a lot of trouble by thumbing through a primer on permaculture; according to many permaculture advocates you can bump your local conditions up by one or two zones by selecting the proper location and doing a little planning ahead.
if someone from Mississippi says "just lighty cover the plants, they will be fine"
There's a tremendous difference between "lightly covered" and using a mulchpile or a snowdrift. Perhaps you didn't follow the directions properly?
putting a normal CP pot out on the deck, only protected from wind, I guarentee you will result in absolute death..I tried it..it doesnt work..
Pro tip: this is the wrong way. Plants don't live on wooden decks suspended in the air. That's a non-argument.
sorry, but you really cant give advice to Idaho based on how you grow in Mississippi..it just doesnt work..
(just curious..where are you getting zone 6 in Mississippi? all the USDA zone maps show zones 7, 8 and 9 for Mississippi)
Well, Mississippi is actually closer to Idaho than New York. Maybe back2eight can see Idaho from her kitchen window? I can from my bedroom.
Most USDA zone maps you see are about twenty years old, based on data that was already old when they were published (it's like a fifty year average, after all.) 0F is the border between zone 6b and 7a, which is right around the average winter low for northern Mississippi.
While we're on the topic of regions; I'm further north than all of you. Yes, on the Puget Sound, I have an excellent buffer that gives me near-Mediterranean conditions, but thirty miles east of here is chaparral and steppe, part of a huge belt of valleys and prarie that extends north into Canada, along the foothills of the Cascades. The wind usually comes from the southwest at my house, making it nice and mild. Something like zone 7/8. Down at my friends' place outside Centrailia, southeast of here, winds blow from the mountains, and conditions are firmly zone 6; they see temperatures in the teens nightly in winter, and dip below zero for a while almost every year. Regional maps say it's zone 7a, but it's colder. According to my friends, who've been there about 20 years, it gets colder every winter. The two pitcher plants I gave them survived two such winters, in the care of very uninformed growers (the first winter they were kept on the second-story balcony with little more than the side of the house to shelter them from wind.) I'm confident the only reason those plants aren't still alive is because they became a snack for my friends' 200lb wolfdog.
yes I know, VFT and Sarrs *can* survivie outdoors if properly prepared..we have all been over that a million times..but thats not what im debating in this thread.
Apparently not. But the rest of us do seem to be debating that, because mcantrell reports losing plants in fridge. Exactly what
are you arguing for? I'm getting a lot of negatives from you and very few affirmations. I think your points about fungicide (was that you?) and timing (pretty sure that one was) are good and useful, but there's still a major question in my mind as to whether or not the fridge is necessary or optimal. Even if outside isn't the best approach, there are options other than the fridge - which you yourself point out.
I remember reading, on numerous occasions, your pic threads where you describe your fridge method. I've referred people to it many times, in fact. When you used the fridge, you had mold issues you had to guard against, tricky timing related to breaking dormancy, and I believe you said that your partner/fianceé(/wife now?) objected to it on top of the technical problems. (I also seem to remember some tongue-in-cheek comments about not having space for food.) You lost plants each season, on top of all that. Now you're using an unheated room for dormancy instead. I think it's odd that you so vehemently insist that others stick to a system that you yourself have abandoned.
If you are indeed concerned about helping people with cold problems, how is it that so many of these threads get derailed after you jump in? It's not because of the advice you're giving; it's because you're boldly confrontational and tend to take an, "I'm right, you're wrong," stance while often ignoring the specific details of the original post or the discussion at hand. I admire your confidence, but you take it pretty far most of the time, and that rubs people the wrong way.
Especially when people start out in partial agreement with you. (That's the impression that I get, at least. It certainly makes me see red on occasion, as I'm sure you've surmised.)
outdoor bog methods simply dont apply to this thread..thats all..
And what leads you to believe this? I don't recall you offering any justification other than informally likening the conditions in Idaho to your own, without any actual quantification.
I honestly dont think so..the fact that that particular method failed is not a matter of opinion..its now a confirmed fact..and we all know why it failed..(it failed because "Idaho is too cold" for that particular dormancy method)
Um, did you read the original post or not? The plants were in the fridge, not outside. The "particular method" that you describe as to have "failed"
is fridge dormancy. I guess, if your intent is to kill some of your plants each season, than yes, the fridge is the right method.
Also: what you're stating is an opinion. You believe that Idaho is too cold to grow plants outside. It's cool to have an opinion, but if you're trying to justify it in an argument, magically graduating it to fact and then referring to it as such doesn't mean that you're done. Maybe I missed something along the way? It helps to refer back to your data when summarizing your argument, especially when lots of people are throwing in.
A number of very successful growers from harsher conditions point out to you, every single year, that they do their dormancy outside or in an unheated shelter. There are qualifiers to this argument, such as using big pots, the proper amount of mulch, and placing the pots away from wind, but you throw them out in your own counterpoint. Cars don't drive without gas. Mail doesn't reach its destination without a stamp. You need to follow directions if you want something to work; all of the directions, as instructed.
You can't just pick-and-choose the parts that suit you at the moment and expect everything to work out like normal. If you ignore the instructions and do things your own way, your experiences don't reflect the method, but rather what you actually did.
I don't think I'll be replying to this thread anymore, but I'm curious about your logic. If you have any reasons other than, "that's the way it is," and "it's a fact," I'll be looking for them.
Whoops! I just checked the almanac for back2eight's conditions. Her seasons are closer to mcantrell's than yours, with harsher temperatures that are actually lower than your own. Have you ever heard of the jet stream? Sorry; I think I just broke the crux of your argument. If you'd like, I can start posting graphs, but I'd prefer to be getting paid for doing onerous research like this. We can start with conditions in the native ranges of the "warm-loving" Sarracenia and work our way north.
~Joe