Re: cold, hardiness, and lies :)

Two thoughts:
-Zone 17 spots I've known are all colder in the winter
than Sunset lets on - except San Francisco and perhaps
downtown Oakland, whose urban heat-island effect (and
SF's peninsular peculiarity) appears to protect
especially tender plants like Cordyline terminalis,
Howea forsteriana, Strelitzia nicolai, etc. Santa
Cruz, Monterey, Fort Ross, Mendocino all seem to
experience much frostier nights than one would expect
from reading Sunset. Maybe nights are warmer along the
Big Sur coast and south, but even Santa Barbara's
weather station exhibits quite cold winter night
temperatures, due, I imagine, to fact that their
winter humidities tend to be lower than ours, and that
particular weather station is in a cold-air canyon
draw.

-Strelitzia reginae is way hardier than Sunset lets
on. I've seen happy plants in the Central Valley. They
must rebound from the roots after getting frozen. It's
ridiculous not to recommend it for Zone 17, and for
other zones as a 'deciduous perennial.'

Cheers,
Jason

PS - For reliable subtropical effects in zone 17, go
Kiwi! Use an abundance of New Zealand natives. And
there are tons of hardy palms available from around
the world (like bromeliads).


--- david feix <davidfeix@yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- Barry Garcia <barry_garcia@csumb.edu> wrote:
> > 
> > I've been reading descriptions of various
> > sub-tropical to tropical plants
> > that most sources claim cant take temps much below
> > freezing, and yet i see
> > these plants in my town. For instance, Strelitzia
> > reginae , i've seen all
> > over my town, and is sold in nurseries here, and
> > i've hardly seen any
> > freeze to death, even in the open. Same with S.
> > nicolai (one of the yards
> > in town has several along a wall). I refuse to
> > believe that theyre that
> > tender.
> 
> Barry,
> In defense of Sunsest's generally conservative
> climatic ratings for plants, they play it safe for
> many things like Strelitzia species based on the
> average temperatures for each zone over 20 year
> periods.  Do not forget that we can get those arctic
> killing freezes even here along the coast every 10
> to
> 20 years, and have had two bad years as recently as
> winter of 1990 and 1998 in the San Francisco Bay
> Area.
>  My one year old garden in Berkeley looked like it
> had
> been hit by a blow torch the week before Christmas,
> and water remained frozen an inch thick for all ten
> days of the freeze here in Berkeley.  By 1998, I had
> been lulled into complacency by a series of mild
> winters, and was surprised to find ice cycles one
> morning on all my Tillandsias planted epiphytically
> on
> my Japanese Plum tree, (I had not turned off my mist
> system, thinking that ice protection would insulate
> them, and learned again the hard way).  Even balmy
> San
> Diego got cold enough to kill many supposedly hardy
> plants in their sunset zones 23/24, USDA zones 9/10,
> with most things surviving in zone 11, except where
> people had wildly pushed the envelope with even more
> tender tropicals.  
> 
> I agree with you that many common things like
> Strelitzia are perfectly hardy here if one is
> willing
> to suffer the occasional damage, cover to protect
> them
> in freezes, etc.  I am more inclined to risk growing
> smaller growing plants, or those which will return
> from the roots such as Brugmansias and Iochromas,
> but
> large palms and trees such as Strelitzia nicholii,
> Archontophoenix or Roystonea here in the Bay Area,
> outside sunset zones 16/17 are a definte risk, and
> are
> you willing to lose something that gets over 15 feet
> tall?  S. nicholii will come back from the roots,
> most
> palms will not.  It is mostly a judgement call, and
> all the points mentioned by Tim and especially Ernie
> play a role as well.
> 
> As the latest winter issue of Pacific Horticulture
> Magazine mentions, coastal California is a good
> match
> for tropical montane, mild temperate and
> mediterannean
> climatic areas around the world, and I find I have
> greater success with growing the tropicals than many
> of the heat and sun loving mediterannean plants in
> my
> local climate.  Especially along the coast, you
> would
> be surprised how many of our commonly grown plants
> come from the Andes, Himalayas, mountains of Mexico
> and Central America and Southeast Asia, etc.
> 
> As to your local area being warmer than you think it
> is, I am always surprised at your references to
> local
> low temperatures there in Seaside, just as I am at
> Nan's in San Diego.  Are you at the mouth of a local
> cold air draining canyon similar to Nan's situation?
> 
> In a zone 17 location, you are in one of the mildest
> winter climatic zones that exist in northern
> California, yet you seem to get regular frost in
> your
> location.  I do remember that the one winter I spent
> in downtown Santa Cruz seemed far colder than nearby
> San Francisco, and the night time cold air draining
> off the Santa Cruz Mountains explained it.  This
> seemed to be more distressing to me than the local
> plants, however, as many subtropicals thrive in
> Santa
> Cruz.  The only local neighborhoods that were
> anywhere
> near as mild as most of San Francisco were the sunny
> foothill slopes or immediately along the ocean, most
> everywhere else was colder at night.  The
> compensating
> advantage was the southern orientation of the coast
> line and balmier winter day time temperatures.  If
> you
> are truly keen on the subtropical look, I'd suggest
> that Santa Barbara or San Diego are better
> locations,
> as they have the higher winter day time temperatures
> necessary for many of the winter blooming species. 
> Even the inland Huntington Botanic Garden which can
> usually get frost, does better with many
> subtropicals
> which need a certain minimum amount of heat units to
> bloom, which we often don't get here in coastal
> northern California.  A couple of examples of this
> come to mind, such as Eranthemum pulchellum and
> Odontonema strictum, both of which grow well here in
> Berkeley, but do not bloom in my garden for lack of
> enough late fall into winter heat, I suspect.  The
> warmer fall/winter temperatures of southern
> California
> also push the blooming season forward by one to two
> months for many things compared to northern
> California.  
> 
> My suggestion for increasing the odds with tender
> subtropicals is to pay close attention to
> microclimates in your garden, and create conditions
> that increase your odds of success; like adding
> trees
> for cover, heat absorbing masonry walls and pavement
> and orientation to south/west for maximum heat gain,
> and efforts to reduce our regular afternoon winds
> with
> screens, walls and using building orientation/mass
> to
> proper advantage.  Not much you can do about the fog
> or your area's absolute lows, but hardening off
> plants
> in late summer by limiting fertilizing, and "goosing
> them" again in spring, is a good general
> prescription
> for handling subtropicals in mediterannean climates,
> and improving drainage characteristics so that you
> don't rot things out with our winter rains.  This is
> especially important with plants coming from summer
> wet/winter dry subtropical or montane tropical
> conditions.    
> 
> 
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