Betty: Your in-ground ones come back in spring and do well? What do you do with your "speedlimit" one in winter?
Chrissy: In my area we get several freezes but not rarely below the mid 20sF. Basically never snows. Not sure about where Betty is. ?
Deb
Is this mandevilla?
They are lovely ...we call them spreading petunias....plant and almost ignore them ...they spread well over a metre! I answered your Query in the other thread but I will just repeat ...don't plant it anywhere where the drainage is not perfect.....they don't tolerate wet feet...(Shhhh here is a tip )in the Nursury they grow them in a mix of washed river sand and peat moss to hold some moisture but allow good drainage...if growing in pots make sure that they have the drainage holes that go up the sides not just in the bottom so the water can escape. If you plant water loving plants with the ones that are a bit touchy you can run into trouble...I think you are being too kind to your petunias.....by the way we cut them back when they get a little tired and they just keep coming....I had some that lasted 3 years before they were killed by the severe frost.
Mine always retain their leaves even in the coldest day but they are very proted by other plants and I grow them in a suntrap area...they had a -5 cel., just last week but they are still ok.....I would just make sure it does not freeze....pack the pots into polystyrene boxes to provide the insulation if required (you know those ones from the fruit shops.) and place somewhere that is safe. The ones in the garden ...I don't know enough about but I suggest some form of protection if required...not mulch because it might cause too much moisture....we have tree protecter thingys ...like a plastic wrapped around the three stakes...sort of set up.....good luck
Debin,,
I have tossed all of mine out in the Fall after frost. I only saved one ---one year that was in the planter and I dug it up and put it in a pot and cut it all the way back and put it in my basement under lights. It had a few leaves on it when i brought it out in the spring and then put it in the ground in my backyard but it took forever to grow and bloom and I guess I do not have the patience to wait till August for it to bloom again. I am going to try and mulch the ones in the ground in the backyard this Fall for fun. But I wanted a large one to grow up my arbor and I will probably still buy a larger one next year and just let them grow together. The temperature can get below zero in Louisville, Ky. I am not sure what my zone is. One winter we got to 17 degrees below zero. I will post a picture of the Mandy growing up the arbor this summer.
Betty: Oh, I see. I misunderstood your earlier post. So you treat them as true annuals. That probably saves you alot of anxiety! :) I didn't realize it got that cold in Louisville. Your flowers are beautiful, btw.
Chrissy: That's amazing that you can keep them safe in that cold. I'm going to re-think my winter strategy.
Deb
I suggest you keep yours in pots then.I have some that have lived in pots for years...it will allow you more control over the conditions like setting them out in sun pockets to get them going sooner...in places with reflected heat like off cement or bricks...until the general outdoor heat rises. My pot grown ones grow on a verandah
which is tiled and the get the warmth of the reflected heat off the bricks ....they are under cover so no worries re rain.
Sounds like a great idea!! Wish I lived in a warmer climate like you. What is the lowest the temperature gets in Australia?
Yes, good suggestions, Chrissy. Going to try going with pots. :)
Deb
You know after going off and doing something it occured to me that if you lost your petunias overnight....you don't suppose the neighbourhood dogs are watering them for you do you?....I lost some gardenias like that many years ago in a home with no front yard.....hmmm
they died almost overnight....like being burned.
5 c=32 your F.....s I am not sure what that means exactly ....we had minus 5 just a few days ago....I think that means 0 in yours but I am not sure!...it was our coldest day ever!
0C is equal to 32F, so without actually doing the math, -5C would be ~30F, somewhere around there. If that's your coldest day ever, then you're not doing too bad!
It's really all about what you're used to--I used to live in Ohio in zone 6, and now I live in California in 9b, and if it gets down to 0C/32F at night in the winter I'm freezing to death, but in Ohio that would have been fine!
I think the USDA invented the zones so they're an American thing, but I think a lot of people in the rest of the world (or at least the people who are here on DG!) use them too. Maybe not everywhere though, you say zone 9-11 and here you can only be in one zone, it's not a range like that so maybe yours is something different. If -5C was your coldest day ever, then you're probably in what we would consider zone 10. The USDA zones are only based on winter lows and don't take into account summer high temperatures at all. Since I'm on the west coast, the summers aren't nearly as hot as places in Florida, Texas, etc that are also in zone 9. We'll get temperatures around or a bit over 100F (38C) occasionally, but usually we're between 80-90F (27-32C), but at night it always cools down a lot, and in most of the other parts of the US that are in zone 9 their temps are regularly over 90F during the day and it doesn't cool down as much at night. And they get rain and humidity which we don't have, so even though it's the same zone it's really not the same climate.
In the Summer it stays up in the mid to high twenties overnight but quite often it will be in the 30's (in the old days that temp would mean around your late 90's up to 105 to110...around Jan to Feb.Today is warmish.....and Spring is in the air.....we have our first 30sC in the first few days of Oct.Our pumpkins and passionfruit continue to grow overnight in the hot humid heat of our Summer nights.In a way it is the best of both worlds I can grow a great range of things .....finding mini micro climates on my property.
chrissy,
Yes my petunias may have been killed by a cat that wanders the neighborhood and I have seen her in my yard more than once. You may have solved this mystery. Now I need to tell the neighbor to keep her cat out of my yard. It could also have been the possum that was in my yard until about a month ago when I trapped him in a live animal trap and transported him to the woods. He was digging up one of my gardens big time and I lost 3 plants but was able to replant the begonias.
Chrissy and ecrane---You both have great climates to live in!!!Chrissy have you ever had snow in Australia? I just hate winter here and long to live where I can grow flowers all year long.
Ha ha ha Australia is a big place and like the US we have snow in some places and desert in others ...some mild coastal and some tropical.....I think that our countries are very similar.I was on a train once going to a place called Broken Hill and one fence (someones property line) ran for almost the whole day!...in the outback there are farms that are the size of whole cities.I think you have that too don't you? a couple of weeks ago there were a few flakes of "fluffy rain" lol for about half an hour.I have never seen snow in my life.This is a shot of a recent wedding in my family taken in our Sydney botanical gardens.....not too bad for Winter.
Hi Chrissy,
This is kind of strange. Right before I clicked onto DG I was emailing John on the Proven Winners Website, who was trying to help me solve the problem of my Bubblegum Petunia dying. I shared with him that I was communicating with you last night and that I believe you solved the problem, saying it was a dog or cat. That cat behind me is in my yard a lot. And the possum was in my yard up until a month ago. This new petunia is strange in that it smells like cat urine when you water it. I smell this even on the potted ones that are super healthy. They have a bad odor about them when they are being watered and that smell is what is probably attracting the cat to go potty there. You are so smart!!! Not even the ones at Proven Winners could solve the problem of my dying Bubblegum petunias.
That is a beautiful wedding party. You have lovely relatives and that scene is so beautiful---hard to believe it is winter!! How blessed you are. Wish I were there and I truly love your accent at least the ones I hear speaking on TV that are from Australia.
Who Moi?ha ha ha Strewth you sure are a ripper sheila...see ya later mate ha ha ha..........I hope you can get rid of your problem ...here we have a Pzzzz Offf plant....that seems to work
it has a citrinella componant and it seems to do the trick.Animal urine on a hot day can cause a lot of things to drop dead.heavy mulching could help buffer the concentration of the urine.
Yes my Italian in- laws are very beautiful people and so is the Botanical garden.......it was 22/23 c that Winter day.Our Winter
days are usually wonderful after the sun really gets up.
chrissy
So funny! LOL. Thanks, I will use heavy mulch.
A degree celcius = 9/5 of a Fahrenheit degree. Degrees Fahrenheit = 32 + Degrees Celcius times 1.8. Here's a calculator: http://www.wbuf.noaa.gov/tempfc.htm . Chrissy, 23 F qualifies that very cold night as a hard freeze by US standards. What kind of damage occured to the local plants? That had to be rough on just about anything that wasn't close to some sort of heat source. :(
Was it that cold in the city? If so, how cold did it get out in the surrounding countryside? :(((
-Joe
Hi guys. Just to add to the celsius/farenheit hints....
The best quicky way I know to covert C to F is to double it and add 30.
EX: 20C X 2 = 40, plus 30 = 70F.
Reverse just subtract 30 and divide by 2.
This one will not be exact, but within a degree or two.
Deb
Hi Guys,
I just googled the weather forecast for today for Sydney, Australia and it is 64F Degrees high and 46F Degrees for the low. I could live with those temperatures for winter.
Happy Wattle Day (well it is here in Australia) August the first.
The temp today? a beautiful 23 cel.I live in a more inland area that is always a few degrees hotter in the Summer and a few degrees cooler in winter.Our Autumn (fall ) is my favourite...then Winter days are usually just lovely....Spring is gone in a minute and then the Hot hot Summer sees me gardening very early say 5.30 to about 8am after that it is too hot! with pumpkins passionfruits etc growing as much as a foot overnight.I garden after the sun goes down in the Summer...using lights......I hide inside in the day.
Have a lovely day! (picture of our Cootamundra wattle)
Acacia Baileyana....now in full flower ....lighting up our Winter gardens all over Australia.
chrissy100,
Sounds like you are having beautiful winter weather. It is already Aug 1 there and it is still July 31 here. My this summer is flying by for me. The flower you posted is beautiful---love the bright yellow!! Have a great day in Sydney.
Happy Wattle Day Chrissy! Still hard to imagine that it's winter anywhere! :)
Deb
Chrissy,
All of us are going to want to move to Australia, if we keep seeing pictures like that and hearing about your great weather!!!!
Hi Chrissy,
Looks and sounds very inviting. which one is you in the picture and which one is your husband?