Look At These Forecast Lows 1-12/1-13!!! And we're crazy?

Ditto here estiva. Its just raining right now and its 40 degree outside. The lowest it has got this year was about 9-10 degrees back those few days in Dec. Tomorrow its supposed to be 34. Few more weeks and we are out of the woods. Did you notice days are slightly getting longer? Estiva hows did the light bulb work for you so far this winter? I have 3 halogens in my tent with no heat and they are doing the job so far.

I have one T. Takil and one smaller T Fortunei I am overwintering using supplemental heat.

They are both going through their 2nd winter in the ground. Last winter, we had a minimum low of -16F. I had low-wattage (40w and 25w respectively) bulbs that would turn on at dusk, and then back on at dawn; reasononing was that any sun during the day would do the trick.

Both plants defoliated--in fact I really though the Fortunei was dead, but both shot up a new spear in May.

This year, I'm upping the wattage on the smaller Fortunei to 60w (keeping it on continously unless we have all-day sun), and for the larger Takil, I have a micro space heater thermostatically controlled from 35F to 45F. Some days the low never gets to 35F so the heater doesn't even come on.

My goal is for them to keep most if not all their leaves so they won't be playing "catchup" in the summer.

As we speak, the outside temperature is 23F and the inside temp for the Fortunei with the bulb is 60.3F (both using wiress sensors).

I use a very low tech, semi-clear containers (you can get these at Target, etc.), wrapped in bubble wrap and then covered with 1mil sheeting material. Then I cover the edges with mulch (and now snow). They are cheap, reusable and work great. You have no worry about drying winds.

For keeping up the humidity, I also supplement with an open container of water. To help with the heating, and to moderate the temperature, I spray-painted black 1-gallon milk jugs (higher heat absorption).

It sounds like a lot of bother, but it really hasn't been, and I can reuse the containers until they outgrow them. That will be a good problem to have.

This Spring I think I'm going for the big 15 gal. Trachy, although that will entail building a structure.

If you havn't already, sprinkle the crown with a copper-based fungicide, once now and then at least once again around late Feb/early March. This should prevent spear rot, many times the ultimate winter killer. Good luck.

Estiva 😀

By the way, when I said it doen't get down to 35F, that's the temperature inside the structure. And, the milk jugs have water in them with their caps filled about 80%.

Estiva use the copper sparingly. Copper can cause more damage if you use too much.

Estiva,

Post some pics of your hardies for us to look at....

Palmettoman z6-Ajax, On

I hope the weather holds out for you 😀 It would be nice if your weather stays above the zero mark.

Laaz--Thanks for the tip, I did not know that.

Palmetto Man--I will as soon as I can get some pics. These are small-they were both 3-gal, and last winter they totally defoliated, so they're not real imprssive. My Takil has about seven leaves incuding the spear, my Fortunei, one.

Desert--It's not too uncommon for us not to get below 0 for the season, although we've only been to 6F so far, there's a ways to go.

Estiva.