If you were monitoring this forum last year you might have seen this Blue Dawn Flower growing up the handrail.
I did not expect it to survive the winter but, as you can see, here it is!
Possible reasons for survival:
- Mild winter;
- Close to house;
- Did not clean out flower bed till Spring so it was under a bunch of dead Siberian Iris and mulch.
And here are the ones I overwintered in the basement/spare room. They looked pretty sickly for most of the time they were in there. But they have bounced back. I'll be re-potting these shortly and sticking them under the hickory tree again.
Hey Kevin - Glad to see that the plants outside survived the winter...just curious as to which plants were outside...the clonal stock or the plants that were started from seed(?)
TTY,...
Ron
Ron, it was the clonal from E that survived outside. -kt
Good news, good report. Thanks for posting it . Frank
I should probably clarify how I am overwintering these.
Except for the one I planted at the base of the stairs, last year I grew these in a couple of whiskey barrels filled with potting soil. I do this because the place where I want to grow them is at the base of a tree which has shallow roots or along a fence with very poor soil. I have tried growing other MGs in the soil there several times but they end up sickly and stunted.
The Usual Sunny Room Overwintering:
In the fall, I pull up some runners that have taken root and placed them into some pots filled with potting soil without cutting them loose from the plant. The runners seem to readily re-root in the pot. Before the first frost, I cut the runner and place the smaller pot in my spare bedroom which gets plenty of light.
From experience, I know NOT to put them directly next to the window because so much light will cause the plant to keep growing like crazy! I have learned to put them on the other side of the room so they never get direct sunlight. (Direct sunlight in this room is reserved for my Habanero plants, anyway). Also, they do not need to be watered very much. But they still do grow somewhat during this time.
In the spring, I move them outside, repot them into the now empty whiskey barrel and start watering them and they immediately take off with new growth.
Overwintering in the Basement Experiment:
Now backup to the fall. Usually, I just write off the plants in the whiskey barrels after cutting the runners loose because the plants in the barrels are potbound and they are a tangled mess full of hickory nuts and leaves and who knows what the squirrels buried there.
Last fall, just to see what would happen, after cutting the runners loose as discussed above, I cut off most the growth from these ones still in the whiskey barrels and dragged them into a corner in the basement (which, being climate controlled does not get below 50). I did not water them at all after this. The only light was from a fluorescent light which was usually turned off.
However, there was new growth over the winter! The growth was a light greenish/sickly yellowish. As things started to warm up outside I pulled the barrels out of the basement into the driveway where you see it in the photo above and watered it. The growth accelerated dramatically and turned the nice healthy green as you can see.
We are still having nights in the low 50s here so I pull them into the garage at night and back into the sunny driveway in the morning. But Sunday, I will probably repot these and put them into their Summer home under the Hickory tree.
I sure wish I had thought to bring some roots with us when we moved.. had I know they might even survive winter outside, I would have. It is supposed to be zone 8 here, but it is 7/8 in my opinion and it sounds as if they might just have had a chance.
A.
