Re: Crinum

In a message dated 3/21/02 5:46:01 PM Eastern Standard Time, Meum71@aol.com 
writes:

<< You must have plenty of space, I have a few in the fridge and thetas it.  
 Except the Teucrum scorodonia which has turned out to be a real nice house 
 plant?!>>>>

Paul, we have two moderate sized and one large cold frame.  Also our house is 
built on a mountainside so the cellar or basement or  whatever is walked into 
from the lower side of the house.  You can put pots on wagons and roll them 
right into the cellar. The cellar is heat controlled and can be kept cool and 
above freezing.  We did not plan this but it resulted in a good plan for 
keeping lots of pots with bulbs and dormant plants.  Ed can actually back his 
truck into the cellar with some of the big pots because of the sloped 
construction.

Bear in mind, the mountainside is also nearly solid rock so there are 
negatives as well.
 
 <<<<We have had the warmest winter and being Minnesota there has to be a 
 twist-its been the one of the coldest March's on record.  It will be at 
least 
 four weeks before I can start to uncover some of the pots under the tarps.  
 My Helleborus were nice and green up till about three weeks ago when we got 
a 
 good freeze after a warm spell and now all the leaves are wasted away. >>>>

We had a warm winter also, that is one with no below zero temps and mostly 
above 20 degrees all winter.  Yesterday we had a snow, rain and ice storm so 
now have snow cover again.  I had viola corsica, snowdrops and crocus in 
bloom earlier and they will be trashed now.  No zone 4 gardener wants to 
believe Mother Nature has forgotten to give us our share of winter misery.

On the Hellebores - do you not cover these plants in fall?  I do with round 
wire forms made here and filled solidly with leaves.  I don't uncover them 
until late April and they are usually green and crisp looking.  Hellebores 
don't bloom here until early May, maybe later. They survive easily but if not 
covered look awful in the spring.

We thought the garden soil was not frozen deeply this year until trying to 
put in some onions and found the top several inches soft but a foot of ice 
beneath.  So the "warm" winter was not as warm as we thought.

Claire Peplowski
NYS z4

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