So I had a crazy idea come to me today. What if you could bury something in the soil around your plants to heat the soil during the winter to keep the roots warm so that conventional winter protection would be minimized or unnecessary. I had several ideas as to the logistics of it from circulating warm water or air to some sort of heating elements like radiant heating used in homes.
So I did some search engine research and found this product:
Charley's Greenhouse & Garden Value Heating Cables 12 ft P5010 12
Has anyone used anything like this before? It seems pretty legitimate. Obviously, it would be a pain to do any digging in beds with this buried in them, but I could see it possibly working out well in some applications. Also, it wouldn't help protect any pseudostem unless used in combination with some sort of other covering/shelter (which this would be an excellent addition to, IMO), but it would keep the corm from freezing to ensure the plants would come back nicely in the spring each year with minimal 'overwintering' effort.
Ideas? Discussion?
Oh...and though it may seem a bit expensive for 12 feet, it seems that the majority of that price is for the thermostat and plug because every additional 12 feet added only adds $5 to the price....so if you buy the longer cables, you really do get a pretty good value.