Freezing bulbs: Duration vs. low temperature

Peter Taggart petersirises@gmail.com
Sun, 20 Jan 2013 13:07:04 PST
Plants kept on the dry side survive frost much better than those which are
wet. Massonias, Alstromerias,Freesias, Lachenalias, Ferrarias, Ixias.....
can survive down to minus 15 c provided that they are fairly dry. Yes they
do suffer from the drought, but they survvived for me this way. Minus 18 c
in an even colder winter did more damage and few of the frozen bulbs of a
more tender nature survived. That year the frost also came with less
warning and the plants were wetter. If plants are turgid they are a lot
less frost hardy from Loderi Rhododendrons to Opuntias to Alstromerias.
Peter (UK)

On Wed, Jan 16, 2013 at 8:21 PM, Nathan Lange <plantsman@comcast.net> wrote:

>
> Don't forget to water your plants. Plants are generally more
> susceptible to cold damage if they are also water stressed. Cold
> weather arrives with dry air and this has certainly been the case
> this past week in California. I watered a lot of dry plants
> yesterday. Remember to water early in the day and keep all water off
> the foliage at night. Any water left on leaves at night can freeze
> and do significant damage. The alternative is to pretend that you are
> growing citrus and run the water overhead all night long to keep the
> temperature of the ice from going too far below freezing. Of course,
> controlled water stress *prior* to cold can generate some beneficial
> tolerance to cold temperatures in some species but this should not be
> confused with water stress *during* the cold period.
>
>



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