Big Surprise

[SubRosa]

Now that the snow is gone and spring is starting to think about getting started I was out taking a look around the yard to see what's what and made a pretty cool discovery. I have a 350 gal rainwater vessel that I wintered a few pots on top of. I find that the thermal mass of the water lets me keep plants that don't take a freeze well outside in temps well below freezing, which extends the season a bit on each end, but I never expected the thermal mass to help much through an entire winter. Apparently that's not the case, as the Drosera capillaris that wintered over in this pot of Platanthera cristata shows. They pop up in my pots all the time, to the point where when I decided to winter the Platanthera I probably glanced at the sundew, thought "Via con Dios dude" and walked away. I sure don't remember it now. It looks like crap, but it's alive. It survived in a 6" pot, above ground through a pretty much typical winter here in the Appalachian mountains of PA

 

[bluemax]

'A good trick. I put some of my plants, especially the flytraps, in my tool shed and though it doesn't keep the temps any higher it does stop the wind. This allows for better survivability than just leaving them outside. It also allows me to control the amount of water the plants get as we get rain all winter long - if we don't get snow.

 

[SubRosa]

'A good trick. I put some of my plants, especially the flytraps, in my tool shed and though it doesn't keep the temps any higher it does stop the wind. This allows for better survivability than just leaving them outside. It also allows me to control the amount of water the plants get as we get rain all winter long - if we don't get snow.

It is pretty sweet, but it has limits I'mstill learning. I almost lost a Heliamphora on a night when the temps got into the mid 20s. Between the tall pot and the height of the pitchers, they were outside of the protected zone. The substrate never froze, but from about 1" above it on up the pitchers did.