john_ny

Our last average frost date is supposed to be April 20. Last year, I pushed it a little, and uncovered basjoos on April 17. I had gotten them well covered the previous fall, so they were in good shape; saved all of the p-stems, right to the top. Last autumn, I didn't finish covering them, so I lost some pseudo stems. I had also taken a few plants inside, and stored them semi bare-root. in black garbage bags, in a cool (50°F) room, completely dry, for 5 months. When I looked at them, on April 5, they were starting to grow, so I put them outside (2 weeks ahead of last frost date). We have not had any frost since then, and they're doing fine. Out of four, I had to cut about six inches off one. I also looked at the ones that were in the ground on that date. As I said, I lost some stems, but there were pups, so I uncovered those, also.
On about April 20, I moved some of the other varieties, that had been kept growing over the winter, outside. There were Zebrina, Dwf. Cav.,Minis, and some other plants, like a couple of kinds of Elephant Ears, some Gingers, Mandevillas, etc.
On April 29, I got some plants up from Florida. Among other things, there were nanner varieties Margarita, Siam Ruby, and lasiocarpa. On May 7, it got pretty cold, at night. When I looked at my weather sticker, it said 42°, but that was at 9;30 AM, so it already had some time to warm up. I don't know how low it had gone. When I looked at Bob's sticker, it said 38°. He's about 27 miles NW of here, but I'm on an island, surrounded by water, and he's more inland, so he sometimes gets hotter warm days, and colder cold days.
When I looked at the plants, later that day, the Margaritas, and the Siam Rubys looked pretty sad. I guess they have quite low cold tolerance. I wonder if spraying them with Freez-Pruf would have helped. Anyway, I took them inside, and they seemed to perk up. I'm probably going to lose a bunch of the lower leaves, but the new emerging ones look good.

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John

saltydad

Good luck John. Its getting really hard to tell when its safe to move 'em. I had put an Ensete glauca out in the back. The 1st leaf is coming up now, but with some cold damage. The others that were already growing seem OK; my major damage seems to be sunburn on my tropical hibiscus even with acclimation.

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