With temps dropping to the single digits, easily the coldest weather we’ve had in years (especially after last year’s non-winter), I am wondering how things look inside the garage.
Clustered around a chicken coop heater in the left rear corner are my Gloire de Dijon, Papa Meilland, and the other potted plants. I now doubt the heater has been enough to keep them more than ten degrees warmer than the outdoor temperature, but we’ll see how hardy they really are.
Despite repeated frosts in October and November, this caged lion not only refused to go dormant, it actually was still growing, albeit at a slower rate. Impressive from one of the only plants in my collection that also shrugged off searing 100 degree heat. I had to force it into dormancy by first rolling it into the garage (that giant planter is on casters for this very reason), and then plucking it like a Thanksgiving turkey.
Gloire is, as far as I’ve read, barely hardly in zone 7, but in the garage it is at least sheltered from the elements. With an additional week of this weather before temps again start popping above freezing, I’ll soon know if the experiment worked.