Thanks Bea, I'll remember that.
A surprise at my house
echoes your flowers especially the Clivia are wonderful. Lovely colour needed for the wet winters here.
Bea, I left out my ginger, and my passifloras, they made it through last year, but I don't think they'll make it through this winter. I do have an abutilion, it's a deep red and nabob is it's name, so I'm wondering if they are the same with a mislabel somewhere. It's on the covered unheated deck, and I think it's OK so far.
editted to say that I knew when the fish pond had a 1/2' layer of ice on it I should've done something to the plants still in the water. I lost a black taro, and 3 alocasias, as well as my lotus. My lotus never bloomed, so I'm really not missing much.
Linda
This message was edited Jan 23, 2007 10:59 PM
echoes
Jan 25, 2007
Hi Linda. Yes a Clivia is wonderful. Especially when you don't expect it to bloom. Won't your passiflora survive a bit of frost? I wouldn't be surprised if it and the Abutilon survive. As for the others - what a shame. I hope you can replace some of your favourites.
Linda.... my mistake you are right about the spelling, my red abutilon is called nabob. I bet that it will survive especially since it is on the deck. Everything I put on the deck does much better and I assume that is because it gets heat from the house. If I push the pots of geraniums up to the house they will even stay green.
Half of my gingers are in the ground and the other half in pots in the greenhouse that has been heated only on those cold days we had to keep it at 32 to 35 F.The small heater I have wouldn't keep it any warmer so I prayed a lot:) In the greenhouse they are not growing but have green tops. The ones in the ground froze back in Oct just before Halloween. The day after that first frost I removed the black and dead tops and put down a sheet of plastic to keep some of the rain out. I also put a layer of straw on top of the plastic. Gingers are pretty much like cannas in that it is our wet, very wet winters that will cause them to rot. That is why I put the sheet of plastic on the ground, to deflect some of the rain. Both are hardy to zones 7 and 8 with the exception of a few tropical ones for zone 9 and10. The best I can tell is we are zone 8b to 9a. Don't loose heart I bet your gingers and abutilon will make it.
I am sorry to hear about the ponds plants:( I have some lotus seeds if you would like to try those this year.
Bea