CULT: HYB: tenting tonight

I mentioned about a week ago that I have a seedling of SLOVAK PRINCE X
ROMANIA, ROMANIA that's trying for maiden bloom in the face of the freezes
that have already begun here.  The first freeze, a light one, hit just as the
stalk was emerging from the fan, so I gave it no protection.  Last week,
though, we had two nights of 24 and 25-degree weather, and the stalk was too
short to cut, so I fashioned a "tent" for it by draping an old parka over some
shortened tomato stakes placed around it.  Its bed is close enough to the
house that I can run a 50-foot extension cord to it and place a couple of
Christmas tree lights underneath it, but not touching the plant.  The parka is
taken off in the morning when the temperature climbs above freezing.  The
stalk is about a foot high now, and so far, so good.  The challenge will be to
keep up with the stalk's growth, lengthening the stakes and adding bulbs as it
gains height.  One might say that this is a lot of attention to pay to one
seedling, but I may learn something from the experiment, and if it works, I'll
have some more fragrance in the house, as well as some pollen.  In past years,
I have noticed a number of seedlings which, frozen in their attempt to bloom
in late fall, didn't bloom the following spring, so their use in hybridizing
was put off by at least another year.  064G1 has just finished blooming
inside, and a cut stalk of 04C3 (maiden bloom last fall, but didn't bloom this
spring) is showing color.

One might use a cardboard box, well secured against the wind (and if one tall
enough can be found), instead of the "tent" described above,  but my seedlings
are planted close enough together that the foliage presents a problem for
seating a box on the ground, which is necessary to prevent the heat escaping
at the base.  I mention both of these methods in case anyone else is facing
what seems to be the inevitable loss of some stalks to freezing and wants to
try to save them.  Perhaps someone has used this or a similar gimmick before,
but I don't remember seeing it in our postings.  --  Griff

Zone 7 along the tidal Potomac near Mount Vernon, in Virginia

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