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Post by samuel123 on May 20, 2012 20:19:23 GMT -5
i live in niagara falls and i keep mine out doors all year long what i do is when winter comes i get lots of pine needles(from i pine tree) and i cover em with them. this helps protect them and the needles also have some kind of acidicness to em and the plants seem to love it hope i could help sam
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Post by Raymond on May 20, 2012 22:29:23 GMT -5
*form i pine tree samuel... ;D I realize that growing plant out side opposed to inside is great beside the fact the you have to go in blazing hot weather in summer just to look at your plants and there probably is bug flying around too so good and the bad ;D and here is another question how van you get so much pine needle don't pine tree keep most of their leave's
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Post by lloyd on May 21, 2012 15:29:26 GMT -5
Look under any coniferous tree and you will see tons of needles. Evergreen means they lose their leaves continuously, not all at once in the fall.
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Post by Apoplast on May 21, 2012 18:31:51 GMT -5
Hi Lloyd - Technically "evergreen" means that the plant doesn't loose all of its leaves at once. Evergreen species may still have seasonal leaf/needle drop. The reason conifers have thick duff layers beneath them is that their needles rot slowly (for a variety of reasons that I can elaborate upon if desired).
All - I hadn't read this thread until now. I don't have much experience with sarrs, but in response to Brian's suggestions for cold hardy sarrs from "Savage Garden". I've left seedlings of S. rubra jonesii and S. oreophila in small pots on my porch through winter in Minnesota. The temperature got down to about -20C causing the entire pot and root ball to freeze solid. They also went through many, many freeze thaw cycles. The S. r. jonesii made it; the S. oreophila turned into mush.
I've been told that a bunch of the hybrids made with purps use southern strains. I would think that hybrids made with northern purps might be cold hardy. Has anyone compiled a comprehensive cold hardiness list for sarr species, varieties, and hybrids? Seems like that would make lots of people really happy.
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Post by nwflytrap on May 21, 2012 19:53:08 GMT -5
My S purprea var purpurea made it through the winter fine with no intervention on my part. I just let the leaves from the maple drop on it. Seemed to cover it nicely. Even the D rotundifolia survived in the same pot. Most conifers (in central Canada) keep their needles for 2 years before shedding them. Right now we have massive winter browning occurring through the region from our unusually warm March followed by a severe cold snap. All the conifers are brown right now, with just the new buds starting to emerge showing green.
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Post by Apoplast on May 30, 2012 8:58:25 GMT -5
Hi James - Wow, that's interesting. We have not had the same problem here. I guess we do have slightly different species between here and Thunder Bay. Still, I'm a little surprised. I'm glad to hear they are going to pull through, that could have been a disaster otherwise.
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Post by H2O on May 30, 2012 18:55:50 GMT -5
Hi Lloyd - Technically "evergreen" means that the plant doesn't loose all of its leaves at once. Evergreen species may still have seasonal leaf/needle drop. The reason conifers have thick duff layers beneath them is that their needles rot slowly (for a variety of reasons that I can elaborate upon if desired). All - I hadn't read this thread until now. I don't have much experience with sarrs, but in response to Brian's suggestions for cold hardy sarrs from "Savage Garden". I've left seedlings of S. rubra jonesii and S. oreophila in small pots on my porch through winter in Minnesota. The temperature got down to about -20C causing the entire pot and root ball to freeze solid. They also went through many, many freeze thaw cycles. The S. r. jonesii made it; the S. oreophila turned into mush. I've been told that a bunch of the hybrids made with purps use southern strains. I would think that hybrids made with northern purps might be cold hardy. Has anyone compiled a comprehensive cold hardiness list for sarr species, varieties, and hybrids? Seems like that would make lots of people really happy. Sorry I missed this before. I've never seen any lists of cold hardiness before but pretty much all Sarrs can live many zones below what they naturally grow. Most of the time it isn't the cold that kills Sarrs, it two main things. The first one it freeze thaw, when plants are kept in pots the plants just aren't meant to freeze thaw that quickly. If you were to do that to an Iris that was hardy to zone 2 it would still die from the freeze thaw even if it wasn't cold. The next thing is moisture, two things happen to people that kill sarrs a lot, the first one is that the wind dries out the pots or bogs and literally freeze dries your plants or the top freezes and the excess water doesn't drain and they rot. If you keep these things in mind I'm sure you could grow Sarrs into zone 3 and 4 if you mulched, maybe even colder. A friend of mine planted a S. xcourtii into a northern bog in Ontario a couple years ago and it lives every winter without any protection. I think the lack of knowledge about how cold tolerant Sarrs are comes from people not wanting to risk their collection outside in Canada, I know I wouldn't want to risk it with rare stuff. We just need to get some Manitoba friends to try growing them outside and see how it works haha
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Post by Apoplast on Jun 1, 2012 21:48:23 GMT -5
Hi H2O - Thanks for the detailed response. I knew that most sarrs can survive much colder winter temperatures that their native ranges would imply, and that freeze thaw cycles are murder on most plants (which is why I was so impressed with my little S. r. jonesii).
Quick question. Do you think sarrs are actually withstanding very low temperatures, or are the cultivation practices (mulching, etc.) preventing the extremes from reaching the rhizomes? Functionally, it probably doesn't matter, but the difference could have practical implications for cultivation at the edge of the plants' physiological tolerances. Plus, I'm just curious.
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Post by H2O on Jun 2, 2012 12:13:45 GMT -5
Hey Apoplast, I'm also impressed that you S. r. jonesii made it through the winter (and glad to see you also consider it a ssp. of S. rubra ) It also goes to show that rare plants aren't always the hardest to grow! Thats a great questions and one I've thought about myself. I really think is a combination of both when it comes to overwintering all the species in very cold climates. I think that if the rhizomes are a constant temperature and don't have wild swings they'll fair pretty well, the problem is that most northern winters don't stay that constant haha Mulching has been proven to help overwinter stuff and probably skews our idea our how cold tolerant they are. I think we're going to have to start experimenting with how cold tolerant each species really is
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Zyra
New Member
Feel the thorn's embrace...
Posts: 7
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Post by Zyra on May 26, 2013 0:40:24 GMT -5
Sarracenia Purpurea is a very easy and Canada-friendly pitcher to try out in terms of over-winter plants.
One of my Sarracenia x Wrigleyana (Scarlet Belle) I leave outside, it is planted along a west-facing wall so it has the house to help shield it from extreme cold and very strong sunlight to keep temperatures higher than elsewhere around my yard.
If you want to try to grow other Sarra like the ones listed above, when the plants hit dormancy cover them as much as you can with thick burlap and then lots of mulch or pine needles on top. Pine needles work exceedingly well, and in the spring after the frosts are no longer a threat, use the burlap to lift away the pine needles and hope for the best. This appears to work quite well for me.
If you wish, you can keep various Sarra in pots and then move them into a garage or shed for the winter if you want to avoid bringing them inside. They will not need much cover and can be easily transported back out in the spring. If the goal is to have the plant outside planted directly into the ground, then you will need to do a lot of covering.
Best of luck!
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