Tropicals & Tender Perennials: Begonia 'Lana' has accidentaly proven its cold hardiness..., 1 by hcmcdole

hcmcdole wrote:
Some canes can handle a few nights of freezing temps without a lot of harm. Even if the soft wood is destroyed they often sprout from the hard wood and also send up sprouts from the roots. I left 3 large canes of Sophie, Irene, and Lana in a 22 inch pot outdoors a couple of winters ago because I had a few pots of each safely tucked indoors. Then in early December I had a change of heart and ripped those 3 canes out of the extra large pot and brought them indoors - one retained most of its woody stems while the other two were destroyed to within a couple of inches of the soil line but they all came back with a flourish.

One winter a few decades ago I took cuttings of all my canes I had planted in the ground and only one of those did not root for me that winter so I lost it. The next spring I had one cane come back from the roots - it was the one that failed to root for me indoors. That was coccinea.

Here is a pan of those 3 canes I brought in a couple of years ago a few weeks later after I cut off the destroyed canes. They stayed in this aluminum pan all winter without any extra soil other than what was attached to their roots.