Single Brug mini-greenhouse

I have only one Brug planted in the ground — Audrey Hepburn. I have been experimenting on her. I want to find a way to keep her from dying down to the ground every winter. Reason: Once she starts to blooms, her flushes overlap so she appears as if she's almost always in bloom. So I want to get her blooming earlier in the year.

I planted her in the ground last year because she had outgrown her 18" pot. Last winter, I covered her with some burlap and bubble wrap. Bubble wrap (The way I used it last winter.) didn't work. I would run out on the day freezing weather was predicted and wrap her. First with burlap and then with bubble wrap. The hard winds would blow sections of wrap off exposing the bare branches or the tape would lose its adhesiveness and the bubble wrap sloughed off. Winter seemed to go on forever, I froze my hands and feet off and in the end I had nothing to show for it. She froze to within a few inches of the ground. She didn't start blooming until late August this summer.

This is my attempt at keeping her alive this winter: a mini-greenhouse. I don't have an outlet nearby and my DH has balked at installing one so I'm having to improvise other methods of keeping her warm. The frame is made from 3/4" PVC piping. The cover consists of one inner layer of bubble wrap strips (taped together with duct tape because I have lost track of the greenhouse film repair tape which should retain its adhesiveness in freezing weather) and 1 outer layer of thick plastic. I plan to clip heavy weight frost cloth to the inner side of the PVC frame trapping a dead zone of air in between. The main trunks and first 2 "Y"s of each will be covered with pipe insulation. I'll spray Freeze-Pruf on the rest of the plant. I know I'm using the present and future tense, but there is a reason for that. Winter and freezing temperatures arrived early and I haven't had a chance to implement all parts of my plan.

This opening is only temporary. A better constructed flap should allow me to open it on warm days to vent the excess heat build-up.

Freezing weather arrived early and dropped the temperature to between 23º and 25ºF. Outdoor temperature sensor died and a replacement hasn't arrived yet so I'm using NOAA's temperature readings for the 2 closest official sites. We are somewhere in between. The mini-greenhouse measures 5' x 5' x 6'. I stuffed as many plastic tubs inside and filled them with well water. Then threw the frost cloth over Audrey and the tubs and hoped for the best. She survived! Her blooms were damaged slightly, but that's all the damage she incurred.

As you can see, even small buds survived.

That looks great! You did a good job of covering it, and anchoring. I think when DH is distracted, you should run an extension cord or two out there for Xmas lights for the next freeze, tho. (You know I like ext. cords). I think we got a pass this time because the ground was still warm.

Pipe insulation. As you can see, I didn't get a chance to put it all on. One of my cats objected to being at the vets. He bit and scratched me when I attempted to help get him out of the carrier. My hand got infected and was so swollen it looked like a frog's foot. I had to quit when I couldn't handle the pain any more. Then the doctor read me the riot act and sentenced me to inactivity for a few days. I'll get the rest of the insulation later in the week.

I was going to suggest Christmas lights also. If you could get extension cords out there a small heater would be great.

LOL, I was going to mention it when I posted this last photo. You're right about the soil. As it cools off, it won't help as much. I could make the water a bit warmer, maybe? I could throw an extension cord out the window nearby. Then stuff towels in the opening. I can't use the outside outlet. It's got all the load it can handle and I don't want to trip the circuit breaker. The heater to the small greenhouse and the controller to the propane heater for the other greenhouse are plugged in to that outlet. I'd have to unplug the Christmas lights every other weekend though.

I have two of the 4 main trunks wrapped most of the way and some of the other two done.

Wow!! that is a great idea. I am too lazy for all of that work. LOL But i may have to try one like that. If I can talk hubby into doing it for me. LOL When it comes time to uncover it in the spring, how will you harden it off to prevent sun shock, or sun burn?

Janice

Could you use pine straw or leaves for insulation?
The hardware stores carry several kinds of insulation, maybe you can find something.
Best of luck with the brug.
Charleen

Janice, I'm interested in saving the 4 trunks and the first 2 layers of "Y"s on each trunk. Leaving the rest of the top on is part of the experiment. I want to see how much I can save and it also helps provide a bit of protection to the trunks. The plastic and bubble wrap are clear and the frost allows most of the light through. My plan was to remove the pipe insulation while the Brug was still inside the mini-greenhouse.

Charleen, one of the major problems here in Texas is the wildly fluxuating temperature swings we cen get. So I have to be able to vent the greenhouse on hot days as well as insulate against the cold ones. As for using pine straw or leaves ... About 20% of the ranch is wooded. Leaves accumulate in only two very small areas of the woods, but they are inaccessible to anything bigger than a cow. It's too dangerous to pick up the leaf litter by hand. Coral snakes like to hide in it. The hard winter wind blows all the other leaves away. I could buy pine straw, but I really don't want to provide a haven for water moccasins or copperheads to overwinter. That's another reason why I want to attach the frost cloth to the greenhouse itself. Christmas lights would be the ideal way to go, but ...

I don't want you snakebit. I read on one of these things peafowl are good at killing smakes.
I know my chickens will sure kill and eat a mouse. Won't the snakes crawl in to the warmth of the lights too??
they should be hibernating now. They have shaving at wal-mart for animals but you don't want to use that either if you attract snakes.
What about wrapping the plant with the light?? Girl, you need a greenhouse.
Charleen

I do, but this one's in the ground. I wold need battery powered lights! LOL. What I need is an outdoor outlet near the front of the house. That entails running a line from the circuir breaker, then underneath the house and out the wall on the other side. That's what DH is balking at. He says why go through all that trouble when we are talking with a builder about building a house on another part of the ranch. He doesn't get it. That's a year or two down the line. I need this now! I'll have to find some other way of increasing the R value on what I have.

Men, are a pain sometime.
Maybe it will sink in sooner or later.
Charleen

bettydee,

Maybe you can try the foam sheathing that GordonHawk uses. They have it at Home Depot or Lowe's.

Tami :)

Tell him that is what you want for christmas!!!

GAgirl, LOL. I was planning on asking for a temporary addition 10' of greenhouse space.
I got back from Austin about an hour ago and went back through my credit card statements. I found the vendor from whom I bought the frost cloth. It is supposed to protect plants down to 24ºF. Berry Hill Irrigation sells heavier frost cloths that give better protection, but when I bought it, I was really more interested in the amount of light transmitted by the cloth since at the time I was trying to protect my Brugs from grasshoppers. If (1) the temperature stay above 24ºF, (2) I use the Freeze-Pruf which adds 3º - 5º cold tolerance (manufacturer claims 9º added cold tolerance.) and (3) I put barrels of warm water in the mini-greenhouse, that just might be enough to keep my Brug safe. I wonder if I get added protection if I were to use 2 layers of frost cloth instead of one. The Brug would get less light, but it might be a good trade-off.
http://www.berryhillirrigation.com/SPD/gg-34--1-0-oz--row-cover--800017C6-1218134782.jsp?submit=View+Sizes%2FOptions

Well you are definately taking care of that 'baby'. I would think it will be ok. Usually, here where I live, our coldest is 30 - 32. Last winter was exceptionally cold, there were 3 or 4 nights it got down to 17 & 18. Needless to say I have some planted in the ground and they had NO protection, not even mulch. They came back and at present are about 10 feet tall and blooming like crazy. So far the coldest we have had, has been about 43.
So with any luck, it will be fine. I like your idea of the pipe insulation.

Have you tried the "Wall O' Water" I have seen those advertised for tomato plants.Never used one tho-- I use black 55 gal barrels full of water in my GH for the passive solar properties--if you could find the W-O-W and paint it black?? If your water barrels are black that might help too. also-- layers of anything with dead airspace provide good insulation. Last year I used cheap painters drop cloths to add dead air space in my GH. I am very new to brugs--but work hard every year to keep the rest of my babies from freezing. As an added note-- THANKS to everyone for all the good info in this forum-- I have rooted my first brugs-- and i thnk i may be addicted.

You know you're addicted when you spend this much time and money to save one Brug even though you have a daughter plant safe in the greenhouse. I know Audrey Hepburn will come back. She did after last winter. This is an experiment which if it works, may get me earlier blooms next year.

"Wall O' Water" is too small The volume of water in the barrels has to be big enough to release heat all night long. My blue tubs aren't big enough either, but I hadn't been paying attention to the weather forecasts. So this freeze took me by surprise. I was in Home Depot yesterday and didn't see any large garbage cans. I'll have to try Wally World and Lowes next. I have 4 black garbage cans filled with water in my little greenhouse, but I'm reluctant to take any since the greenhouse is stuffed with plants.

As long as the temperatures stay above 24ºF. my Brug should be safe. At least for now.

All I can say is you are very dedicated to this brug. The things we will do to feed the need for the blooms & smell. LOL That is the addiction in control!!
I leave most of mine in the ground except a few of the picky ones. But then I have a few that I know if they do not dye back during the winter they will start blooming again in May. So for these I dig them out of the ground, trim the roots to fit (with room for new roots to grow) in a 3 gallon container.Then trim the top three leaf nodes above the y and put them in the greenhouse. In April I move them out of the greenhouse to an area that they will have frost protection (under pine trees) and they get a little morning sun to harden off.

Good luck. I am very curious to see how the ends. You have a very brilliant plan. I am just not that creative.

Janice

Thanks, Janice. I am attached to her. She is a survivor. I lost all but 5 of my Brugs back in 2007 when I was too ill to go out and water them. Audrey Hepburn was one of the few that survived. Besides that, she has many good traits: few pests, bloom flushes are so close she looks like she's in continuous bloom, fragrance can be smelled throughout the garden and I just love this particular shape. The white blooms attract lots of sphinx moths so if there are other Brug flowers open, she gets pollinated. I'd like to have her in a variety of colors. LOL.

You may have to try to coss her with another Favorite.
She is beautiful.

Here is a site with barrels for $15. http://www.hhydro.com/55-Gallon-Drum-Barrel.html I don't know what the shipping would run.



Edited: Never mind. I should have read it before I posted. They are in Michigan and it is store pick-up only for the barrels.


This message was edited Dec 9, 2009 7:38 PM

I was just thinking about this Betty. My grandfather used to make a hot frame by digging down into the ground a couple of feet and putting fresh horse manure and straw and then a layer of soil and then the small pots to raise plants in. It was covered by a glass frame about 18 inches high. He started many plants in there and the decomposing horse manure kept the soil, and thus the frame warm. He lived in zone 4. I'm not suggest you do that, but I wonder about composting in tubs to give off warmth? Hmm.

I suppose it might work, but oh, the smell it would create. I just looked up temperature ranges in compost and it could be used as a heat source. In the ground, the manure gets some air circulated through it. Tubs, would prevent air from getting in through the sides and bottom so you would have anaerobic decomposition instead of aerobic decomposition. I don't know how that would affect composting temperatures. If temperatures don't get high enough, weed seeds and pests aren't killed making the end product useless. There is one way to find out and that is to try it. Watering the Brug would have to be done using a very, very long watering wand. LOL

I need to do some repair work on the greenhouse. The bubble wrap strips have come apart on the top of the mini-greenhouse and are just hanging there. The duct tape doesn't always hold even on the sides. I've ordered greenhouse repair tape hoping that will work. One, more expensive solution would be to buy a solar pool blanket.

Yes, I think the compost might not work, but I was just trying to think of an alternative energy solution. I'm not sure that manure feet beneath the ground gets that much air, but you are right, in a tub it would become more like a slurry. :o( Not so good.

How is Audrey Hepburn doing after the artic blast? With all of the work you put into this, I really hope all is well.

Janice

Hi Janice,

It survived the first 2 hard freezes without a leaf lost, but then the first hard wind blew the plastic and the bubble wrap off, so I had to come with something else. I doubled the frost cloth over the top and wrapped cold hardy duct tape around it in time to weather a cold rain. Even though the temperature didn't get below 26ºF, she lost most of her leaves and flower buds. There were only a few still green down toward the bottom.

Since my DH didn't have the time to help me put the marine shrink wrap I bought on the frame (and its a 2-person job), I removed the frost cloth and placed 4 black 45 gallon garbage cans and a 75 gallon rain barrel (all I had) next to the trunk and branches and filled them with warm well water. Then I cover all that with 1 layer of frost cloth and 2 layers of plastic and taped and stapled until I had a large white cocoon. She weathered another arctic blast that way, but with hours of below freezing temperatures, I knew there was no way that water alone would keep here safe ... So while the cat's away ... the mouse slipped an extension cord out through the kitchen window, crawled under the cocoon and strung 2 sets of Christmas lights around the branches and hung a temperature/humidity sensor to keep track of everything. I meant to buy 2 C-7 sets, but ended up with one C-7 and one C-9. She stayed a toasty 55º under the cocoon the entire 4 days. Friday got down to 13.7ºF. Saturday down to 18.8ºF and last night it was down to 22.4ºF. I unplugged the lights during the day yesterday. It could be that the white cocoon insulates both ways because the temperatures inside were in the low 70s. If we get a hot day I will have to find a way to vent the cocoon. Here's a photo of the cocoon:

That is Great!! I love mices.

That was one smart mouse to do all of that for you!

I am exhausted just reading all that you did to protect this brug. I am glad to read that it is doing well. I thought about your plant while the temps were so cold. I would hate to see all of your hard work go to waste.


The heater in my greenhouse picked the coldest night to quit. Thank goodness all of my plants will live, I just lost seed pods and leaves. I was really sad to loose the seed pods, but I will have another chance to try again.

Janice

Charleen and Carol, the cat comes home this week-end. LOL.

Janice I'm glad your plants will be OK. The heater in the larger of my 2 greenhouses ran out of propane Thursday night. We had a freeze that night too, but it wasn't a really bad one. It's a good thing we have well water because I ran a sprinkler all night long in there and that kept the temperature above freezing. My little greenhouse is only 8 x 8 x 8 and is heated by an electric heater and 4 large water filled garbage cans. It's harder to keep that greenhouse warm so I keep hardier plants in that one.

Saturday night was a different story. I forgot to set the minimum temperature alarms for the sensors I have in the 2 greenhouses. By the time I noticed, the larger greenhouse temperature was down to 30.4ºF. I went out and switched tanks and hoped the damage wasn't too wide spread. I went out yesterday morning to have a peek. The Brugs around the western and northwestern perimeter lost their blooms and will lose their leaves. I have some sad looking leaves on those Brugs, but I think the plants will be OK.

Hey, I just happen to think!!! Ohmy Gosh !we are in trouble☺
You have garbage cans full of water, could you put a bird water heater in ther to warm up the water? And a waterpump to circulate the water and get more into the air?? There has to be a way to circulate the warm air in the greenhouse.
Since I don't have a gh I really don't know but it may be interesting to see if it helped the plants.

Saturday night is the night my heater went out also. Of course I had to listen to dh saying "I told you so". Last spring we were in Lowes and he saw heaters on sale. He reminded me that mine is 13 yrs old and suggested that I replace it while they were on sale. I did not listen to him, so he had to go to Lowes early Sunday morning and pay full price for a new one. I will never live this one down. LOL

Janice

That seems to be the way heaters always do it. Have had kerosene heater failures of that type(coldest night of the year) at least twice. We weathered the cold ok this time--if you don't count the water being frozen since last week.

Charleen, I had though of using an aquarium heater, but the cheap ones are rated for indoor use only and I've already spent a lot of money on this experiment.

Even though the garbage can lids are on (No lid on the rain barrel), the humidity is very high under the plastic. The idea is a slow steady heat release. Otherwise, you could lose all the heat stored in the water before daylight. Passive heat release works as long as the sun shines and the temperature rises during the day to reheat the water.

Janice, you should have taken him up on the offer. My DH would never have made the offer. I would have had to ask for one.

If we are going to get more cold weather these 4 days, I need a bigger propane tank and have the gas delivered. The problem has been that this plastic covered greenhouse was a temporary solution almost 7 years ago. The re-enforced plastic is worn and thin and has developed small tears in places

Maybe it will start warming up, I hope so.
34 here, so it seems to be better.

Yes you have spent alot of money on this experiment. Not to mention hours of work. I am just not that creative. I would have just pulled it out of the ground, put it in a pot, and put it in the greenhouse.

Temp solution 7 years ago. Sounds like it is time to start over with a permanent solution.

DH is quick to replace anything that gets a little aged and I never have to ask. I hope he does not realize how old I am. LOL

I left one in the ground and it looks like just a stick standing there. I don't know if it will make it or not. It had no protection, but it was a noid. so I'll see if sprouts come up this Spring. Brugs keep us on our toes in desperation to keep them alive and blooming. Love 'em...