This certainly helps.
I keep records of min/max temperatures of air and soil temperatures
(5-6"below surface of soil) I just checked some records. The hotest
summer we had for some time was 2007. Even though we had 5 days in a
row with max temp over 35C, we only had three days all summer when min
temp was over 18C.
The windbreak helps. Are there any geographic features nearby that
might work on balancing temperature?
I would encourage you to get a thermometer to record temperature. there
are a number of inexpensive min/max digital thermometers. The records
need to be recoded daily. There are more expensive ones that can
record data for a month and then download to a computer. You may indeed
have a micro climate wher you are. Roses can surcome to damage to
wood from temperatures or a combination of drying out plus cold. Iris
plants are tucked in nicely for winter, and if they have white mulch,
will even be more protected.
This past year I noted bud set and bloom on Queen Dorathy following 4
days of min temp over 15C. It was several weeks after before we got 7
days of min above 15C. This was followed shortly by more rebloom,
including Immortality. Immortality was primed to bloom (had a mature
leaf count) but needed the 6+ days to set bud. I also noted the sharp
increase in growth of increases co-related with the bud initiation.
Thus keeping this data will help with20the project.
Chuck Chapman
Re: Northern/cold weather hardiness
Posted by: "SandraB"
bardraj2003@yahoo.ca
bardraj2
Wed Apr 1, 2009 11:10 am (PDT)
Other than I tend to neglect them more than most people
would, I am not sure
what exactly I am doing differently. I don't have any iris beds right
against the house. I have TB's beds on the east, south, and west sides
of
the house ranging from about 3 feet from the house to about 20-30 feet
away-
so other than wind protection I don't think they are getting any extra
heat
from the house. It doesn't seem to make much difference where the
irises
are planted in the beds because I have tried moving some irises like
Clarence to different beds. El says I have a hot spot - I don't know
about
that. I do have a Zone 4 rose -Madame Hardy) in my west bed that I
have
never mulched over the winter and it has lasted over five winters and
blooms
consistently. Other zone 4 plants I have tried I have lost over the
winter.
I
generally have just iris beds rather than a mix of irises and other
plants
which probably is different than a lot of p
eople.
When I first started with TB's the main reason I lost irises was due to
rot,
for e.g.. pulling the dead leaves off in early spring when it was still
wet.
Since I don't do a lot of weeding/cleaning anymore I don't
lose irises to rot. I do tend to like buying from the west coast so a
lot
of the irises I get will have five or more good sized increases by the
end
of year of planting, this may help since the increases will survive
when the
main rhizome sometimes does not (usually when planted in August again
will I
encounter the main rhizome dying). I don't plant the rhizome deeply
because
of my soil/rot but I have tried covering
the rhizome with a two inch mound of sand when I get the rhizomes in
mid
August. I plant toe down because that is the end that usually comes up
from
the soil when you get freezing/thawing - the heel more
anchored down by the roots. I did that when I got a order from
Pennsylvania
in mid August one year and other than one extremely small rhizomes of
Renown
I didn't lose more than one and that one lasted
the winter but was extremely crowded by the others so I am not really
sure
it is dead but since it never bloomed it may as well be.
For irises that don't bloom consistently - I think I have one of B
Blyth's
TB's in a SD
B bed (farther than 30 feet from the house - more like 50
feet -
I ran out of room that year) I almost always get increase instead and
then
one year when they do decide to bloom they I get the entire clump
blooming.
As to temperature, depending on what your definition of summer is - if
you
are using July and August, then rarely would we not have a summer where
sometime in there there was a period of over
15 C or 59 F for six nights, conversely again rarely would we have a
period
where the temperatures was not less than 21C or 70F for 6 nights in a
row
( I could be mistaken on this but that is what I
remember). Basically, I guess you are saying we need a six day period
of
nights in the 60's F and that usually happens later in August although
with
the variability of our weather lately it could happen in July
as well.
Hope that helps answer your question.
Sandra
SE Manitoba
