Well the weather sucks a big nasty one!!! October is usually a pretty nice month for us,it can get a bit cool at nights but nothing major to speak of.
Our forecast low for last night and tonight was to be around 49-50F. No problem! I left all 3 gh's open last night and had planned on doing the same again tonight. Well those plans got canceled a while ago.
I had the tv on and tuned into the weather channel for a minute to catch the local on the 8's and now we have gone from a supposed low of 49-50 to having a frost warning in effect for our area.
Seems that conditions are favorable for it to drop down to the low to mid 30's tonight and tomorrow night so they are calling for frost both nights. Talk about going outside and scrambling around to find places for plants to go well I did just that.
For the most part everything was already in a gh. I didn't bring much out this year except for a few brugmansias and all of my plumerias. I have a problem though. my double peach brug,growing in a pot is about 11ft tall and I dont want to cut it or have it killed by frost so i've got a problem!!
I also had one heck of a time regrouping to find a place for a monster plumeria. The trunk on that sucker is as big and round as my arm and it must be at least 6ft tall and equally as wide.
dmichael
cold temps
Dmichael, I have a similar story. There I was nestled in bed with a glass of wine, watching the 11:00 news. I was pretty comfy, mind you, because the forecast ALL week had been low 40's. No worries. I heard the weathergirl say "frost warning in effect tonight....". I jumped up, hair in a disarray, threw on my winter coat, grabbed the flashlight and raced outside to retrieve those that were left behind. LOL It was not pretty, funny, but not pretty!
GH
David, tip those babies on there side and haul them in the GH. I bet your brug is just beautiful.
GH did you spill any wine? That would be the real catastropy.. :)
Were are already 4 frost ahead of you guys, my stuff is all tucked under the house with the exception of my asparagus ferns.
LOL, Tami- Of THAT I was very careful. LOL I managed not to spill the nightcap. :)
GH
Wow just hearing how everyone is scrambling to bring their plants inside just brings a tear to my eye:-). Here I am with all those hoyas hanging outside under the orange trees, enjoying this 75 degree weather. As always my offer to house your hoyas in Arizona for the winter still stands:-)
Blessings,
Awanda in the sunshine state
Awanda, the crazy thing about this forecast is the fact that it was 70F today!! Yeah I said 70 and now they are talking frost tonight and tomorrow night. It just doesnt frost here in october. something is wrong with this picture!! No one will ever convince me that the world and the climate is not changing and I fear that change is probably for the worst .
It's scary to because I live less than a mile form the ocean and a special that I saw on tv last week said that the polar ice caps will melt in our lifetime. And what makes it extremely scary is the fact that i've drempt more than one time about this entire area being completely consumed by water.
Tammy, I thought about cutting the brug but my heart wouldnt let me do it. I kept tellingm yself all summer long that I was going to come down about 8ft from the top and airlayer it so I could put it into a neww pot and have it a bit more managable. Did I ever get that done? No! This is why I have a problem now.
Double peach is a fairly common brug and might even be cold hardy here for me. I have pampered it al spring and summer to keep it growing as a nice straight single trunk. The only way i'd ever get it into the gh would be to dig a 3ft deep hole and sink the pot and all into it and if push comes to shove I may just do that.
I'm not turning on the gh heaters though unless I absoulutely have to ,i'm not ready to fire them up yet!!
dmichael
David....If you can wrap it in some burlap or sheets and pin them on with clothspins or some such thing (maybe bee-clips..ha ha) then they will be ok in a little frost. It will probably not last longer than a couple of hours if it is like here, so if you can just keep the moisture from off the plant, it may be OK. That is what we did with a mango tree we have in the yard one year when we got some frost. Just pinned some burlap around it & it was fine.
I have stocked up on a bunch of it in the garage + bags of clothspins just for in case of such predictions. There are just too many things here that I cannot bring into the house.
Marcy
David -As Marcy wrote , sheets work well for frost-----I use them in the Spring up here in N.Idaho to cover fruit trees and also to cover all my planted yard pots ... Another thing people do is wrap things with the little strings of lites. Seems there is enough heat from them to keep the frost off.
Sandy
Oh good idea Sandy, I had forgotten about that. I used to string my peach trees with Christmas lights with a timmer on them. Worked good.
Tami....why would you need lights on peach trees ??
Peach trees go dormate in winter. I had peach trees in Indiana (where it used to go down to 20 below some winters), and they were all fine come spring.
Marcy it was in the spring when we get are late frost. The trees have already flowered and the fruit has formed. Arizona is famous, well my part of the woods for there very late frost.
My aunt in Parkersburg,WV has the same problem. It'll warm up a bit, the grape vines bud out, all the fruit and nut tress bud out and then BAM the first week of June they can get a frost and things get damaged if you're not ready.
I was born and raised here on the east coast in S.C.. our winters are for the most part pretty mild compared to most of you all's. I love it up in teh ountains and hav always said that if and when I ever move from here,WV or KY would be where i'd go.
Thing is I love my plants too much and dont know if I could stand living in a place where they get frost 9 months out of the year. They can and do get frost starting in september and can get it up until June. I love my long spring and summer growing season too much.
dmichael
We're unusually cold here, too...but installed a furnace (propane) to keep the greenhouse warm this winter....and it has run several nights already! Now, just need to get a generator in case we lose power.....yikes, what a thought!!
Awanda...sister, you crack me up - you never give up, do you??? Of course, if you DIDN'T offer to "care for" everyone else's hoyas, we wouldn't recognize you!!! Karen
Best to be prepared Karen, it would be terrible to lose all your plants. LOL wouldn't you like to see the look on Awanda's face if we all pulled up and started unloading hoya's. I would die laughing !!!!
Karen I"m just shocked:-) as usual I'm just trying to be helpful...rotflmbo!! Hey someone just might take me up on my offer, especially if you all stop warning the new people! And you Ms. Tami, you live too close to be laughing, I can be at your house in less than 90 minutes. Be afraid...be very afraid:-).
Blessings,
Awanda
ROFLMBO......
Awanda, Us Oregonians would be happy to return the favor to you next July and August :~) I know you wouldn't want to intentionaly over stress those green babies in all that heat, yea that's the ticket, Ann and I could come pick up yours and, as you said, be at Tammy's house in less than 90 minutes to get her green babies and bring them back to Oregon for a nice warm- not hot- summer or longer.....
Ann, any ideas on how to get all those plants in the van?
Just trying to be helpful, God bless, -joanne
Geeze joanne thanks so much for the offer, but my hoyas just love the summers here. With the evaporative cooler in the greenhouse and the heat and high humdity they think they are in the rain forest:-). You might be able to talk Tami into sending you her hoyas now, she had a freeze last night, unlike where I live it was a nice 65, isn't that right Tami!!...hee...hee!
Blessings,
Awanda
David, I guess you can see that we get NO PITY from Awanda!
It frosted here as well and all my Brugs are toast. AND the double peach you sent me last year has Y'ed and loaded with buds. I am taking in only a fraction of my Brugs this year as I am about over them and totally out of room.
Mel
I meant to mention this last time I got there catalog but spaced it out as usual... But FarmTek has those water wall frames for sale. There not cheap either.... I wish I could find some feed back about these. There also having some screaming deals on Greenhouses. Carol your idea of the tomatoe wall of water is way cheaper, and seems just as good.
Well Joanne I would really like to send my hoya's your way in the summer, But I would miss my green babies. We stay alot cooler than Awanda in Mesa. But I will keep my eye out for two hoya crazed ladies in an Oregon plated Van. Be on the look out Awanda, ya never know what this addiction can lead too.
Mel to bad about your Brugs, girl I don't know how you could of stuffed anything more in that GH.