Re: cold, hardiness, and lies
- Subject: Re: cold, hardiness, and lies
- From: W* B*
- Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2001 08:31:27 -0700 (PDT)
Ernie, Your message makes sense. I remember one mind-boggling experience
on a garden tour outside Victoria, B.C. at a North American Rock Garden
conference in February. One garden had a greek laurel (Laurus nobilis) in
the ground which had only been nipped on its leaf edges after one of the
most severe frosts we had along the whole Pacific Coast of western north
america. It was planted under the extensive eaves of the house, facing
east, in a U-shaped patio. The owner felt it survived because of the
protection of the eaves and the radiant heat from the house, as well as
her attempts to harden it off during the fall. She also felt that it
benefited from not being exposed to the warmer western sun in the
afternoon, so that the overall plant temperature did not fluctuate too
greatly. If memory serves, this was theat bad freeze in 1990.
Elly
On Wed, 24 Oct 2001, Ernie Wasson wrote:
> Barry,
> Rating hardiness of plants by temperature is a tricky business. Some plants
> die from heavy wet soils in the winter, some plants take much lower
> temperatures when they are slowly harden off by progressive cooler temps as
> opposed to sudden drops in temperature and of course then there is the
> geographic location/elevation of where your specific plant originally was
> collected in the wild, which can make a huge difference. And then we need to
> look at micro climates, humidity, wind, mulching, what kind of fertilizers
> where applied to the plant in summer/fall and who knows what other factors
> are involved. Horticulture is often described as an art and a science and
> this is a perfect example of why rating a plant by an exact temperature range
> is as clear as a summer time view in the heavy fog along the California
> coast.
>
> When I lived in Arcata, Calfornia, which is way up in Humboldt County one
> county away from the Oregon border I often walked by a garden that had
> unusual and uncommon plants for that part of California. When I asked the
> owner how she determined what she could grow in her garden, she told me "I
> looked it up in the Sunset Western Garden book and if they said it wouldn't
> grow here, then I planted it." I suspect that many of us in the Medit Plant
> group are always testing the hardiness range of plants and coming up with
> results that would rewrite most garden books. Perhaps our questioning and
> testing of whether a specific plant will grow where we live and garden is one
> of the most rewarding aspects of gardening.
>
> Ernie Wasson
> California Central Coast
> Aptos, CA
>
>
