Cold hardiness of potted plants left outdoors in winter

David Pilling pbs@pilling.demon.co.uk
Tue, 09 Oct 2012 04:16:43 PDT
Hi,

A fresh look at ebay, revealed that temperature loggers are now 
available at low cost. They're a small device which will run for a year 
off an internal battery recording the temperature every so often and 
they can be plugged into a USB port to read off the data.

So discovering how low the temperatures underground go is now practical.

Oddly I recall an undergraduate problem I was given which gave a 
mathematical model of temperature variation in the ground - a lot must 
already be known, but of course not under anyone's precise 
circumstances.

I doubt it would be of much interest if I carried out this experiment, I 
have a poor man's version, I leave dahlia tubers just under the surface, 
and these usually survive.

In the two "worst winter for 30 years", 2009-10 and 2010-11, I lost a 
lot of bulbs on shelves in the greenhouse, but the bulbs I would expect 
to survive, narcissus, galanthus, tulips, crocus in pots all survived. I 
still think they are hardier than others.

However in those desperate winters, the minimum temperature was around 
minus 5C, that's with living close to the sea in North West England.


-- 
David Pilling
email: david@pilling.demon.co.uk
   web: http://www.davidpilling.net/




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