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Overwintering Tender Perennials image

Overwintering Tender Perennials

S2 E51 · Hort Culture
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73 Plays2 months ago

Join us as we discusses overwintering tender perennials and other plants through the winter months. We will share advice on protecting various plants, such as figs, chrysanthemums, rosemary, and dahlias, from freezing temperatures. We explore different methods such as bringing plants indoors, providing extra mulch or coverings, and utilizing favorable microclimates. We will also touch upon the differences in hardiness between plants grown in the ground versus containers, and the importance of considering factors like soil moisture and drainage. Finally, we discuss the role of experimentation in determining the best approach for overwintering specific plants.


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Overwintering Container-Grown Ornamentals

Questions/Comments/Feedback/Suggestions for Topics: hortculturepodcast@l.uky.edu

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Transcript

Cold Weather and Plant Care

00:00:16
Alexis
Hi, I'm Alexis and I'm here to tell you if you're cold, they're cold too. You're plants, that is.
00:00:22
Brett
oh
00:00:22
Jessica
If they're cold, bring them in, right?
00:00:22
Alexis
o Bring them inside.
00:00:24
Jessica
What is that saying?
00:00:25
Alexis
Yeah.
00:00:26
Jessica
There's like pictures of raccoons and opossums.
00:00:28
Alexis
yeah I'm like coyotes and people are like, I found this dog outside and you're like, that's a coyote.
00:00:31
Jessica
It is cold.
00:00:32
Plant People
I have a random cat in the other room right now that I've locked out, and it's an outdoor cat. It looks cold, so it's in the other room in my basement right now. It's fine.
00:00:40
Jessica
Oh, you're nicer than I am.
00:00:41
Plant People
It was cold.
00:00:41
Brett
Wow.
00:00:42
Jessica
Our
00:00:42
Plant People
It

Survival of Houseplants in Cold Zones

00:00:43
Jessica
poor little kitten chocolate chip wants to come in and I'm just like, oh, you you're an outside one.
00:00:43
Plant People
was cold.
00:00:46
Alexis
You're an outdoor kitty.
00:00:47
Brett
You'll melt.
00:00:48
Plant People
Yeah.
00:00:49
Jessica
You get to live in the garage with a cat bed and everything.
00:00:52
Alexis
Yeah. Our barn cat is so fluffy right now.
00:00:53
Plant People
yeah
00:00:54
Jessica
But yes, so's it's fluffy and so cute.
00:00:55
Alexis
like So cute.
00:00:56
Plant People
Yeah.
00:00:58
Alexis
They're so fluffy and cute.
00:00:59
Plant People
Yeah.
00:00:59
Alexis
But you know what isn't fluffy and probably not cute? Your houseplants, if you've left them outside and you're in zone seven or above, seven or below, I guess.
00:01:05
Brett
Yeah, too late.
00:01:06
Plant People
I've got a lot of dead caliper coz outside right now.
00:01:06
Jessica
Anything on her.
00:01:08
Brett
and
00:01:08
Jessica
And if they are, please tell us what kind of houseplant that is, if it is surviving in
00:01:11
Plant People
Yeah.

Tender Perennials and Winter Care

00:01:12
Jessica
this weather and also fluffy.
00:01:12
Alexis
Right. Yeah, so we've had nights in the teens already in Kentucky, ah multiple nights in the teens and below freezing and daytime temperatures around freezing.
00:01:14
Brett
It's my living room spruce.
00:01:22
Alexis
So hopefully all of your houseplants are in by now and we've we've had some episodes on houseplants, but I think one thing that I was, well, I, it's timely.
00:01:35
Alexis
I was doing this recently was what I call your tender perennials that I think a lot of people forget about. So it's like one thing I want to talk about was those things that are a little bit extra sensitive.
00:01:45
Alexis
So, uh, I'm looking at you figs. So if you're, if you're a fig person, you need to be giving them some extra TLC. Have you, even though even the name, like with a name like Chicago Hardy needs a little extra.
00:01:53
Plant People
even Even the hardy figs, Alexis? Even the hardy ones?
00:01:57
Jessica
A little.
00:01:59
Plant People
Yeah.
00:02:00
Jessica
It was a turkey turkey brown, brown turkey.
00:02:00
Plant People
That's a good one.
00:02:02
Jessica
What am I saying?
00:02:03
Alexis
Brown turkey. Yeah. Brown turkey.
00:02:04
Plant People
It'll be really brown some years.
00:02:04
Jessica
Right.
00:02:05
Alexis
Yes. Yeah.
00:02:06
Jessica
Yeah.
00:02:07
Alexis
Yes.
00:02:07
Jessica
Yeah. If you don't provide them a little extra coverage.
00:02:09
Alexis
So, and and we call them tender perennials because usually this is a ah case and ah case scenario where they will, the root system might stay alive and they'll come back up from the root system.
00:02:21
Alexis
A good example is fig. Or they are tolerant of the cold, but maybe not tolerant of like wind and drying weather like that.
00:02:31
Plant People
Yeah.
00:02:31
Alexis
So if you're in an area that maybe gets a lot of snow, you might be fine because snow is an insulator. It also keeps

Plant Hardiness and Unexpected Cold

00:02:37
Alexis
moisture into some of those evergreen leaves like rosemary, um you know, sometimes sage.
00:02:42
Alexis
And so that's why we call them tender because they're it's not necessarily like a oak tree, right? That it can get really, really, really cold and or a pine tree and they're going to be fine and they're going to live through that.
00:02:54
Alexis
There are some plants that need something a little bit extra. Uh, and there's some perennials. So like I have heirloom chrysanthemums and I dig mine.
00:03:04
Alexis
and I pop them up and I bring them in as mother plants, but I don't necessarily bring them in and treat them like a house plant, right?
00:03:05
Plant People
um
00:03:10
Alexis
Like I'm not putting them in with light and you know ah a bunch of warmth or whatever. They can stay at 40 degrees, even a little bit lower than 40 degrees, and they kind of go dormant in a way, ah but I need to keep them sort of above freezing and out of that direct wind pressure.
00:03:22
Plant People
Hmm. Hmm.
00:03:28
Alexis
And so I like to bring that up because I feel like that's what people struggle with the most is those plants that are like, Yeah, they're perennial butt.
00:03:34
Plant People
ah And Kentucky is really tough, yeah.
00:03:35
Brett
So first off, first off, can anyone tell that Alexis is excited about this topic?
00:03:35
Alexis
What's y'all's experience?
00:03:35
Jessica
Yeah.
00:03:37
Alexis
Yeah.
00:03:39
Plant People
Yeah.
00:03:40
Brett
And she was shot out of a cannon to start this podcast.
00:03:41
Plant People
She is ready.
00:03:42
Jessica
Yeah.
00:03:43
Alexis
Let's go.
00:03:43
Plant People
We did not get a question about food or anything.
00:03:43
Alexis
let oh Hey, this is a plant podcast.
00:03:45
Jessica
No question today.
00:03:46
Brett
Yeah, she's just like, hey, what's up?
00:03:48
Plant People
Nothing. Straight into it.
00:03:51
Brett
Yeah, if they're cold, you're cold, let's go.
00:03:51
Alexis
We're talking about plants.
00:03:53
Brett
ah so So I think something that would be beneficial to me before we proceed in the conversation
00:03:53
Plant People
Yeah.

Microclimates and Plant Survival

00:03:58
Brett
is can we just sort of word salad some of the things, that the types of plants that you're talking about?
00:04:01
Alexis
Yes.
00:04:03
Brett
So you mentioned fig. ah You mentioned this heirloom and heirloom chrysanthemum. Is that like any chrysanthemum is in that kind of fits that?
00:04:11
Alexis
So um not necessarily so you're like your pot mums, right? A lot of people, they go in the fall in September and August and they buy a mum at the store or at a local, you know, grower's place.
00:04:23
Alexis
Those mums are usually not what we consider hardy mums or they are hardy, but planting them in the fall is not ideal. They're not able to get established long enough. So if you are going to plant mums, I recommend doing that in the springtime.
00:04:33
Plant People
Yeah.
00:04:37
Alexis
and letting them get some time. But there are ones that are considered hearty. And literally, if you go look them up and go to buy some, they are called hearty mums. And they're going to be the ones that I'd recommend for those of you who get freezing temperatures.
00:04:50
Alexis
And they need still a little bit of mulch on them, ah to and they'll come back from a root system. But usually, the mums you're going to buy as pots at the store are not really considered to be a hearty variety.
00:05:02
Alexis
So the heirloom ones are right in the middle between those two.
00:05:02
Plant People
and ah
00:05:05
Plant People
Yeah, and this is a tough conversation for me today because when what year was that you all that we had just the 20 below zero for like a week over a week um It's a really tough conversation for me today because you know people Observe people are good observers They will observe a plant for three or four or five years outside and and it and it does well and they'll say oh that must be hardy it's gonna be a hardy plant and then you'll have a year here in Kentucky and You know, once again, zone six and seven typically, but sometimes we'll get much harsher and sometimes much milder winters than that.
00:05:05
Jessica
Mm hmm.
00:05:13
Brett
yeah
00:05:14
Jessica
Right.
00:05:39
Plant People
But you'll take something like that hardy mum and all of a sudden it's not hardy anymore. So this conversation is a good one today, but it's also a tough one for me because, you know, we got so many calls during that code snap, that unusual code snap where it was 20 below zero.
00:05:53
Plant People
I mean, it killed plants that I consider I'd never seen in my career. had really significantly killed back plants like boxwoods that I'd always considered super consistent, super hardy.
00:05:59
Jessica
All the Knoxwoods.
00:06:01
Brett
Yeah.
00:06:01
Alexis
Mm hmm.
00:06:04
Plant People
And at Lexus, it wiped out those heirloom mums that people had had for years next to the foundation of their homes.
00:06:08
Alexis
Mm hmm.
00:06:11
Plant People
And they were just huge and magnificent. It wiped a bunch of those out. So this is a tough conversation today sometimes for people to either handle on because they will say all of a sudden, well, what happened to my boxwoods?
00:06:23
Plant People
Why did they die? And they've been fine for 30 years.
00:06:25
Jessica
Yeah.
00:06:25
Plant People
ah you know, because we're talking about typical conditions.
00:06:26
Alexis
The answer is always, it depends.
00:06:29
Plant People
Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly.
00:06:29
Jessica
Right. Yeah. And I was thinking the exact same thing, right? Because like when Alexis started talking about like Sage and Rosemary, like when I do an herb class, I'll, we'll talk about them and being like
00:06:32
Plant People
Yeah.
00:06:35
Plant People
Mm hmm.

Storing Plants for Winter

00:06:39
Jessica
some more of those.
00:06:40
Jessica
I always say like it's hit and miss right because like you might have a location that they might thrive in outside, but they're not always going to be happy there.
00:06:48
Plant People
Yeah.
00:06:49
Jessica
Or if we do get a cold snap, they get completely completely wide wiped out.
00:06:51
Plant People
Yes.
00:06:53
Jessica
So it might be like a better idea to bring that rosemary in you know for the winter or think about different ways to overwintering it.
00:06:57
Plant People
Yes, great example.
00:07:00
Jessica
but then um you know And lavender, lavender is a whole different thing, but just like lavender is a big one where people are like, well, I've planted it and it's always like done well in this one spot.
00:07:05
Plant People
he
00:07:10
Jessica
But then you see where people plan it.
00:07:11
Plant People
What disease did it get? and It's like, well, yeah.
00:07:13
Jessica
And then like by year three, it's gone, right? Like it just doesn't withstand.
00:07:18
Brett
so So another way to talk about these things that these types of plants that we're talking about maybe is is plants that are on a tipping point of hardiness within our zone.
00:07:18
Plant People
and
00:07:28
Brett
Like they could be hardy, they could not be hardy.
00:07:29
Plant People
yeah That's a great way to put it, Brad. Yeah.
00:07:31
Brett
It's not like ah some super crazy cold tolerant thing.
00:07:35
Plant People
I hear the word tender perennial.
00:07:36
Brett
Nor is it, nor is it definitely a house plant. And if it gets below 50, it's going to die. It's like in this range where site selection makes a huge difference.
00:07:43
Plant People
Mm-hmm.
00:07:45
Brett
Like for instance, we have elephant ears that some people have, they'll never be able to sustain elephant ears.
00:07:48
Plant People
Colladions, yep.
00:07:52
Brett
They have to dig them every year. And then we have them. We put them in in 2014. They come back every year. Just, just happens that they're shielded from the, they're shielded from the, uh,
00:07:56
Plant People
Yep.
00:07:56
Jessica
Yeah.
00:07:58
Plant People
Yeah, macro climate's just right.
00:08:00
Jessica
I know people who are trying to kill these big, massive, beautiful canas in their and they're beautiful.
00:08:05
Plant People
I know lilies, yeah.
00:08:05
Brett
Yeah.
00:08:05
Alexis
yeah
00:08:08
Jessica
And they're like, we can't get rid of this. And I'm like, other people plant them and they're like, they dig them up and take care of them.
00:08:11
Alexis
Yeah.
00:08:12
Plant People
Yes.
00:08:13
Alexis
Mm-hm.
00:08:14
Jessica
And you know, you're right. It's just like that, that perfect spot climate.
00:08:17
Plant People
And that this is what makes this conversation so tough for me. Is it the cultivar variety, which a lot of times if they've been there a long time, you may or may not know as a homeowner, the specific cultivar that it was, is was it just a code tolerant type?
00:08:29
Alexis
Mm-hm.
00:08:31
Plant People
Or is it just a microclimate like you just mentioned, Brett, and it really is tough to kind of get to the root of these matters, no pun intended.
00:08:40
Brett
Haha.
00:08:40
Plant People
I know, I was waiting for that one. But it is tough because some of these things you'll read on Cannalilia, you know, and some of these things are like Caladiums and you're like, well, they're not winter hardy, but yet people have been growing them.
00:08:46
Brett
Yep.
00:08:51
Plant People
I know people that have been growing them 25 years and consistent, they come back. So what's the deal?
00:08:56
Alexis
Mm hmm.
00:08:56
Brett
Yeah, we have we have can of lilies in a slightly different spot from our elephant ears and they come back and they were getting so dense that we had to dig everything out divide and
00:09:05
Alexis
Mm hmm.
00:09:07
Plant People
um
00:09:08
Brett
you know, redistribute and we've never dug them out.
00:09:09
Jessica
They're happy.
00:09:11
Plant People
Yeah.
00:09:11
Brett
Um, cause the first year we did them, this is back, we were this 2014, we put them in a friend of Annie's, his dad, her dad who was a gardener and brought us some didn't tell us that we didn't look it up. They didn't tell us anything.
00:09:22
Brett
We just didn't know. And they just kept coming back. And then it was only later that I discovered, Oh, some people actually dig these like as a matter of course.
00:09:28
Plant People
yeah Yeah.
00:09:28
Brett
And, um,
00:09:29
Plant People
Yeah. Normal course of business. Yep.
00:09:31
Brett
And I think for for for us, you know, thinking about like what makes those site selection or those those specific site microclimates. That one is like directly, it's really one of the few directly south facing parts of our property.
00:09:46
Brett
and where they're planted is right up, well, not right up against, but basically right up against the foundation of the house.
00:09:52
Plant People
Mm hmm.
00:09:52
Brett
And so you have this warming kind of heat sink effect
00:09:55
Plant People
Yeah,

Overwintering Strategies

00:09:56
Brett
from the foundation along with the sun coming in and warming that soil just enough to keep them alive.
00:09:57
Plant People
mm hmm.
00:09:58
Jessica
Mm hmm.
00:10:02
Brett
And in the case of the elephant ears, they're really sheltered from the wind in particular. And so that's part of the soil. And it's also kind of up against the house. And so I think it it kind of gets,
00:10:14
Brett
And it gets nice shade during the summer. So it's not in the afternoon. So it's not really like having to fight for its life for the hot part of the year. It's able to kind of thrive in that way. But there's other parts of our place where if we put those out there, there's no way they would make it.
00:10:28
Brett
ah
00:10:29
Plant People
You know, I've seen it in Zone 5, and now there's ah there's a named variety of amaryllis. But in zone five, it overwintered for years. Uh, and it's a red one and I forget the cultivar, but it's a winter hardy amaryllis now and it's marketed. I don't know if you guys are, I've ever seen those, but it was so shocking to see that people in Ohio were growing these things and they consistently come back and it's a amaryllis hapestrium. Uh, but it came back year after year. And here I am religiously bringing those things in and out because.
00:10:59
Plant People
You know, my particular, you know, cultivar does not overwinter, but here there is one and they've kind of marketed this thing now. And it's hardly even into like zone five and it's pretty amazing.
00:11:09
Brett
and And for those who sometimes like me struggle with the zone, when the zone number goes down, that means colder. So zone five is colder than zone six, which is colder than zone seven.
00:11:17
Plant People
Yes.
00:11:19
Plant People
Yes. Thank you.
00:11:20
Brett
And so you're saying it survived.
00:11:21
Plant People
Yeah.
00:11:21
Jessica
Mmhmm.
00:11:22
Brett
You're bringing it in, in a zone six, zone seven situation, and it's surviving in an area that's even colder than that.
00:11:23
Plant People
North of Kentucky. Yeah. Yes.
00:11:28
Brett
That's pretty cool.
00:11:28
Plant People
But it's one of those things that I was just blown away. And that was a, you know, I kind of investigated that and it was a cultivar thing. It was intentional. Now it's marketed as such that it's pretty consistently code tolerant, but it's pretty amazing to me that some of these plants, there's a big variation within the plants, depending on breeding.
00:11:44
Plant People
Some are totally not hardy in one location, whereas a different cultivar within that same grouping of plants is cold hardy. So that does make a big difference too.
00:11:53
Brett
Are dahlias an example?
00:11:57
Alexis
Yeah, so dahlias are typically one that we tell you to dig in, you know, seven is right on the edge to be safe.
00:11:58
Plant People
Yeah.
00:12:05
Plant People
even
00:12:06
Alexis
You know, if you're more, a little bit more cautious, if you've got some specialty varieties, then dig them and store them ah away for the winter.
00:12:07
Plant People
tempting Tempting.
00:12:12
Brett
And when you say, could you just give the snapshot of what DIG means? Because I honestly did not know what that meant until like three years ago.
00:12:17
Plant People
When they say lift, I'm like, what does that mean, lifting?
00:12:18
Alexis
yes Yeah.
00:12:18
Jessica
Mm hmm.
00:12:19
Brett
Yeah, lift lift and separate.
00:12:19
Alexis
Yeah.
00:12:20
Plant People
Lifting, yeah.
00:12:21
Alexis
So, you know, caladiums, you know, canas, gladiolias, dahlias, they all make this of structure, this underground structure. ah So it's either a tuber or

Curing Plants Post-Frost

00:12:32
Alexis
a quorum. So, you know, something similar to potato or something similar to, you know, garlic, or most people know what gladiolia ah bulb was like tulips right this So they make this underground structure that they store nutrients in and that's how they get started the next spring. So when we say dig or lift, we mean we're pulling that structure out of the ground. ah We're cutting back all the above ground parts. We're pulling that out and then we're storing it just like you would store sweet potatoes in your cabinet kind of thing.
00:12:58
Alexis
ah So something something similar to that you know ah is what we're what we're meaning. We're pulling that out of the ground. We're keeping it above freezing, but usually we're still keeping it below about 50 for most of these.
00:13:09
Plant People
What's the temperature range, Alexis? 40 to 60 for most plants. Some like it more 60, some like it more 40ish, but that's a range in it, like 40 to 60 for storage.
00:13:15
Alexis
from a storage from a storage perspective.
00:13:18
Plant People
Yes.
00:13:19
Alexis
So I think it depends on whether or not you're wanting to keep it um from going dormant. So when you're typically when you're lifting and digging something as a quorum or a tuber, you're just keeping the underground structure of it.
00:13:34
Alexis
And you're not wanting it to to start growing over winter. You just want it to chill. You're going to keep it between like 40 and 50, 38 to 50, basically above freezing but below.
00:13:42
Plant People
Yeah, ah above freezing, yeah.
00:13:44
Alexis
ah a temperature where it's going to actively start growth.
00:13:47
Plant People
Break dormancy, yeah.
00:13:49
Alexis
But there are other cases like scented geranium or heirloom chrysanthemums or even regular geraniums. I know a lot of people ah will pull their regular geraniums out of a pot ah and bring them inside, put them in something else.
00:14:01
Plant People
Mm-hmm.
00:14:05
Alexis
So you might want to keep those growing and you certainly could keep a dahlia growing in your house over winter if you want to. I mean, they're native to Mexico. They grow year round, but um I wouldn't recommend it.
00:14:16
Alexis
It just would get really big and really laggy and really unhappy because of the lack of light. So I wouldn't recommend it. But yeah, that's what we mean. We say dig or lift. We mean pulling out of the fields, the root structure.
00:14:27
Plant People
the root structure. Now, the next step after, oh, go ahead, Jessica, sorry.
00:14:29
Jessica
And you're. Oh, I was, I was just going to say, and you're way more of an expert on this Alexis, the Dahlia kind of stuff, but like they can be left out there and they can survive, but it's not going to be what you think it's going to be when they come back up.
00:14:45
Jessica
Well, if they, if they survive, you know, not getting like too much, but they are not going to look like that same flower that you had the year before.
00:14:46
Alexis
Yeah. Yes. So that's.
00:14:52
Alexis
Well, dahlias

Creating Favorable Microclimates

00:14:53
Jessica
I mean, yeah, but I mean, they'll be like little or, you know, like not as
00:14:53
Alexis
will are true to type um because they're coming back from that.
00:15:00
Plant People
They'll be knocked back some in some cases knock back. Yeah.
00:15:02
Alexis
it Yeah, it kind of it kind of depends. so um i over So I think the key to overwintering a structure such as um elephant ears or dahlias or something that is maybe technically you should dig and like if you got a really cold winter, which you know sometimes happens in Kentucky and various places, you know every few years we get like a really hard winter.
00:15:05
Plant People
you
00:15:24
Alexis
If you're in a place like that where you're right on the verge um I think the key is keeping it dry so a dry tuber doesn't rot I think a lot of the time our tubers Can handle the temp cold temperatures because that soil we know of course is a really good insulator But they can't handle a wet soil right so if you can keep them dry um You can keep them insulated from you know wind in some way So maybe you're mulching them or something which also helps keep the soil more um
00:15:32
Plant People
and Yeah.
00:15:53
Plant People
What's your favorite mulch, Alexis? I know there's a lot of discussion on this with different groups. Number one, it's whatever you have handy, but what's your like what's what some of your favorite types of mulch? it that That is a critical point.
00:16:04
Alexis
Yeah. um My soils, personally, I know are high in phosphorus. So um i I like a leaf mulch because i can it's something that breaks down in the ah in the summer, but it like is mulchy enough during the spring to keep down the weeds.
00:16:09
Plant People
um
00:16:12
Plant People
Yeah.
00:16:19
Alexis
And then it kind of breaks down and ah is more nutrient accessible later than like a wood mulch might be. ah But when I've used a like a just, you know, the tree company drops it off.
00:16:27
Plant People
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
00:16:30
Alexis
I have a giant mound of tree mulch now.
00:16:31
Plant People
Sure.
00:16:34
Plant People
That's a good resource.
00:16:34
Alexis
I'm so excited.
00:16:35
Plant People
That's an amazing resource.
00:16:36
Alexis
I, I just like relish every time I see it. I'm like, oh I'm the queen of mulch.
00:16:39
Plant People
Yeah. That mulch is so important.
00:16:41
Alexis
ah
00:16:42
Plant People
i like It evens out that the temperature fluctuations and the moisture, so good stuff.
00:16:43
Alexis
Yeah.
00:16:46
Alexis
But I really like, ah I tarp my dahlias. So I use a big silage tarp.
00:16:49
Plant People
Mm.
00:16:50
Alexis
And if you're not familiar with that, it's just a tarp that's not woven. So it's not like a blue tarp you would buy at the store where that's like that woven plastic. It's just straight plastic. So it's not permeable, ah which is important because I want, the biggest reason is I want to keep it dry.
00:17:04
Alexis
It's also black on one side. It's white on the other. So I keep the black side up to help keep some of that, get some of that solar gain into the soil. And so um I have mounted beds, which helps the drainage, right? I'm keeping them dry. I'm also covering them with plastic, which helps keeps them dry. And I'm either insulating them with mulch and or that black tarp.
00:17:26
Alexis
on top of them. And so I think that's the key when you're trying to overwinter stuff like Brett was saying, he uses stuff on a south facing, you know, his can has come back but they're south facing so he's keeping them warm.
00:17:37
Alexis
You maybe you mulch that area or and you or it has really probably has really good drainage. So you're keeping them dry or keeping them warm. And I think that's the secret
00:17:45
Plant People
And people, people, when they call in and some of these things they've overwintered, I'm like, huh. And then I start to talk to them more. It's like Brett said, he's recognized that it's next to his foundation. It's probably getting some radiant effect heat.
00:17:57
Plant People
from that foundation at which, but you know, three degrees of protection is incredible for plants.
00:17:58
Jessica
Mm hmm.
00:18:02
Plant People
It may not seem like a lot, but three degrees of, you know, temperature differential is a huge deal to plants. And I've seen people just, and it's always next to the foundation of homes. It seems like where they've got these beautiful mums or, you know, elephant ears or whatever, and that they've had them there.
00:18:18
Plant People
And I'm like, how long have they been there? I don't know, 20 years plus. And I'm like, Oh, but you know, it's, it seems like it's always next to the foundation of homes, Brett. ah that they had got these really cool examples of long-standing plants that they overwinter through Kentucky.
00:18:30
Alexis
Mm hmm.
00:18:30
Brett
Yeah, I mean, it definitely has a has an effect.
00:18:32
Plant People
Awesome.
00:18:33
Brett
And and um so just to real clarify real quick, you're talking about with without those dallies with the silage tarp, you're saying that you're not digging them, you're just covering it with the silage tarp instead as an alternative to digging them.
00:18:39
Alexis
Is it?
00:18:43
Plant People
them in place
00:18:43
Alexis
Right, right. So I will dig a select few um for just just in case so I don't lose that, you know, just think that you never know something bad could happen.
00:18:54
Alexis
And that's the truth anytime
00:18:54
Brett
Sure.

Temperature Control for Plant Storage

00:18:56
Alexis
of the year, really.
00:18:56
Alexis
So I kind of I'll dig a few of each variety as a safety net. um or ones that maybe are really expensive that I want to expand. The off part about not digging, whether it's dahlias or glads or whatever it is, is that you can't make more.
00:19:11
Alexis
So the beauty of digging those underground structures is usually you can divide those and one plant can become five.
00:19:13
Plant People
a
00:19:15
Jessica
Propagate.
00:19:16
Plant People
Yeah, I'm spacing propagation now.
00:19:19
Alexis
ah So I do lose out on that, but also digging is the worst when you're digging a you know ah several hundred of something. And so yeah, I don't, I leave them in the ground and I hope for the best. And on days when it's like continuously cold and cloudy, I panic. And so if you don't want to panic all winter long, actually you will still panic if you're storing them because you're going to check them and panic about them there, but it's a different style of panic.
00:19:43
Alexis
um
00:19:44
Brett
Yeah, so so just in case anybody's listening, and they're maybe a little confused, or this is new to them. This is different from like things where there's an opportunity of in the year where you can divide them, like Iris, for instance.
00:19:58
Brett
This is something where you know you you are propagating it, you are digging it up and dividing it, but in Irish, you could just leave it in the ground and
00:19:58
Jessica
Hmm.
00:20:06
Brett
It'll be fine, right?
00:20:07
Jessica
yeah
00:20:07
Brett
This is a situation where it's like, you may be digging it up or doing something else just because it needs to stay warm.
00:20:10
Plant People
Yeah.
00:20:12
Brett
And so I think, I think for me, the, again, that mapping of what things fall into the, they can stay in the ground all year, all winter.
00:20:17
Plant People
Super hardy or not?
00:20:19
Brett
It doesn't matter. Nobody cares. And then the stuff that's, uh, that falls into this category.
00:20:23
Plant People
Ify.
00:20:24
Brett
But I mean, I'm thinking, and as I, as I'm hearing you talk about dahlias, I'm hearing you talk about this, uh, we haven't really done much discussion of. Propagation, even a deep dive on dahlias. What time of year are you we typically doing that type of thing?
00:20:34
Plant People
Mm-hmm.
00:20:38
Brett
The the digging them up and dividing them and all that.
00:20:41
Alexis
Yeah, the digging up of most stuff is going to happen actually post frost, it can happen pre frost, but for the most part, any kind of any time right around frost right before right after the beauty of yes.
00:20:46
Plant People
Mhm.
00:20:54
Plant People
And there's a reason for that, right? That timing. There's a really good reason botanically for that.
00:20:58
Alexis
Yeah, so the reason why most of the literature will tell you to do it after frost, the the the research will tell you is because it kind of it
00:20:58
Plant People
Yeah.
00:21:07
Alexis
will kill the above ground growth, but does again, remember the soil is much warmer and that's where the you know that bulb or whatever it is you know is located. so It's going to stay alive. It's going to kill the above ground growth and then that will actually send hormones, certain chemicals down to that root system that says, okay, it's time for us to go to sleep. and so Those tubers and bulbs will start ah thickening up so that like like physically the skin will start to thicken um and doing it'll shut down in ways that enable you to store it and for it to go long, long time without growing.
00:21:42
Plant People
Yeah.
00:21:44
Jessica
Very cool.
00:21:45
Alexis
So it is really cool. ah But I'm saying the literature says says that, but the farm experience
00:21:51
Plant People
In a year like this, it's tough. In a year like this, where things didn't get killed, it was very tough.
00:21:53
Alexis
Yeah, well, yeah, and it's way too long.
00:21:55
Jessica
Right.
00:21:56
Alexis
Right, right. And

Optimizing Growth Environments

00:21:57
Plant People
Yeah.
00:21:57
Alexis
so the um the farmer experience will tell you, and this is where the beauty of, you know, having both, like having both of those ah is talk to those old farmers, go, we've we've said this before, go to the conference, talk to the farmers, talk to the people who have done it, get their vibe, and and then cross reference it with kind of what the research quote unquote says.
00:22:06
Brett
Your former experience may vary.
00:22:19
Alexis
ah which is the research is never as up to date as you wish it was. ah So but you can dig dig a lot of that stuff early and by and you do that by cutting basically becoming the frost.
00:22:29
Plant People
Mm hmm.
00:22:31
Alexis
You cut off all the foliage and you kind of force it to do that and you'll leave it in the ground for a couple weeks to allow that thickening process to happen and then you can and then you can dig them.
00:22:31
Plant People
Yeah.
00:22:36
Plant People
Hmm.
00:22:43
Plant People
You mentioned a process, and we probably should talk our way through this process because in general, there is kind of a prescription or a process that you go through if you're not familiar with doing this. We've already we've just talked about the end game, which is at the end of the season, either dies naturally or you terminate the top portion, leaving the ground for a while. And the next step would be, I hear people refer to the next step as sort of a curing phase, a week or two, is when I see people spreading these things out. Is that what you do as well? You kind of spread things out and What is what's the purpose of that air drying or what?
00:23:17
Alexis
Yeah, I think it really depends on what it is. I mean, Brett, you you've got more you've grown like sweet potatoes and stuff, haven't you?
00:23:19
Plant People
Yeah, it does.
00:23:24
Alexis
And you're your past?
00:23:25
Plant People
Yeah, yeah.
00:23:27
Alexis
like i've I've never grown sweet potatoes, but I know they're a good example of something that like has to be like cured. um Because in the flower world, we don't necessarily have to cure.
00:23:33
Plant People
Yeah.
00:23:38
Alexis
We leave we let them cure underground um for the most part.
00:23:40
Plant People
I see people doing that mainly for drying purposes, but also when I see growers that have a lot of things, they actually sort through and look for defects, I guess, at that time too.
00:23:51
Alexis
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:23:53
Plant People
And this is, ah and you know, they they go through this process, they kind of spread things out. And then that's when they basically start thinking about more of that end storage that you've already started talking about, Alexis, at 40 to 60 degrees, depending on what you have, you know, there's, you know, specific temperature ranges.
00:24:08
Alexis
Yeah, and that could be like a whole episode like if you all are if if you as listeners are interested in storage of various
00:24:09
Jessica
it
00:24:10
Plant People
Yeah, it could, yeah.
00:24:11
Jessica
Yeah. Cause I was like, there's all different tactics.
00:24:12
Plant People
yeah the Very specific. Yeah.
00:24:17
Jessica
Like I've seen so many different growers store them different ways
00:24:18
Plant People
Yes.
00:24:21
Plant People
Yes.

Potted Plant Hardiness

00:24:22
Jessica
throughout their their season, like during that time.
00:24:24
Alexis
Yeah, like garlic versus sweet potato versus onions versus dahlias is all gonna be a little different
00:24:25
Jessica
And I, yeah.
00:24:27
Plant People
Yeah, and it's you know, we make it sound easy when we say keep it at just the right moisture Are you storing it with or without peat moss or with or without wood chips or there's a lot of different ways to store things But you know the toughest thing I find once, you know Whatever process you went through of cleaning or not cleaning the plants knocking off dirt ah however, you get to the storage point but the tough thing for me is
00:24:37
Jessica
no
00:24:50
Plant People
there's There's this whole thing you've you've got to monitor things, especially if you have a large quantity, however you've stored them with or without some kind of medium. is ah you kind't you constantly have to monitor the moisture because you don't want them to get too dry and desiccate, but you don't want them to be wet and rot.
00:25:07
Plant People
And it's like a constant monitoring. If you have a big quantity, you know, even small quantities, you're monitoring these things every now and again, just to kind of check on them. And again, that moisture just right is to me, probably the toughest thing can be.
00:25:17
Alexis
Yeah.
00:25:21
Alexis
And I think the moisture is, like I said, whether you're in field with stuff or you're storing it. To me, moisture, if you can control that, the cold is a little bit more manageable, right?
00:25:35
Plant People
Oh, sure.
00:25:35
Alexis
like um
00:25:35
Plant People
Yeah, it is.
00:25:37
Alexis
outside

Bonsai Winter Care

00:25:38
Plant People
yeah
00:25:38
Alexis
but you know there's yeah it's it's a whole thing now we now okay I've written it down we're gonna have to do a whole episode on storage but I want to kind of yeah it's wild
00:25:46
Plant People
I storage. Yeah, there's a lot of different ways to do that, like you guys are saying.
00:25:48
Brett
Well, even even just the something you you're mentioned the sweet potatoes. So I remember reading about this a couple years ago, just because I was curious. So sweet potatoes are are cured, hot and humid.
00:25:59
Brett
Like it's like it's like they'll have in.
00:26:00
Jessica
because it's yeah the time a year yearre
00:26:02
Plant People
It's the way they, where they generate or came from.
00:26:02
Jessica
yeah
00:26:04
Plant People
Yeah.
00:26:05
Brett
It's like, I mean, it's like 80 degrees or plus and like 90 plus percent humidity. And so like these curing facilities where they do this for storage.
00:26:11
Plant People
yeah
00:26:14
Plant People
Yeah.
00:26:14
Brett
you know, caliber potatoes are like these big hot like warehouses where everything's spread out.
00:26:19
Alexis
Mhmm.
00:26:21
Brett
And even just like the idea that there are like fresh onions and storage onions, and that's like a whole part of the marketing, like, ah you know, you go to the grocery store and it's like, oh, I just want a bag of onions.
00:26:24
Alexis
Mhmm.
00:26:27
Plant People
yeah
00:26:28
Alexis
New potatoes.
00:26:33
Brett
Well, sometimes sometimes they've been cured, sometimes they haven't been.
00:26:34
Alexis
Mhmm.
00:26:36
Brett
um And in most cases, I think in Kentucky, at least in like local markets,
00:26:41
Alexis
Mhmm.
00:26:41
Brett
Most of the stuff that you have had that you have access to has not been cured, which just means that it hasn't been sufficiently dried and enzymatically handled to make it last a really long time.
00:26:54
Alexis
isn't
00:26:54
Plant People
Yeah, like if you've ever had an amaryllis bulb and you forget and put an apple and it was near that in the fridge or, you know, storing something and then it rots immediately and you're like, Oh, you've learned a valuable lesson that storage is not always easy.
00:27:03
Jessica
Kathleen.
00:27:07
Brett
You know.
00:27:07
Alexis
Yeah.
00:27:07
Plant People
Storage is is not easy in some cases.
00:27:08
Jessica
Mm hmm.
00:27:10
Plant People
And like you said, Brett, I mean, there's a whole science behind that. And you can do a whole episode just on specific humidity ranges, temperature ranges, and obviously the bigger the operation, the more you have to pay attention to those things.
00:27:20
Alexis
Well, yeah.
00:27:21
Plant People
But it's fascinating to me all the different ways you can accomplish these things.
00:27:25
Alexis
Yeah, and so I want to jump back because I think that can be a lot for people and a lot of people aren't going to dig or they just want to replace stuff every year, um which is totally fine.
00:27:30
Plant People
Yeah.
00:27:36
Alexis
I know dahlia growers who don't dig because they economic it was economically not
00:27:39
Plant People
Oh, wow. Oh, yeah.
00:27:42
Alexis
Better for them to dig and spend the labor hours to dig and then store Versus and dahlias are expensive like a cheap dahlia tuber that produces one tuber one plant the first year Can is like a minimum of five dollars like buying in bulk?
00:27:44
Jessica
Yeah, the labor that goes into it.
00:27:45
Plant People
evening yeah
00:27:57
Alexis
So, you know, you're you're looking at big prices, but for some people economically it made the most sense which is a whole other fascinating conversation for me, but jumping kind of back out to the
00:28:06
Plant People
Yeah.
00:28:07
Alexis
If you've got stuff outside, like things that you can do for, you know, whether you're a homeowner or going, you know, larger scale, or you're growing things in pots, like whether they be like Brett and they're like bones eyes or yeah,
00:28:08
Plant People
yeah
00:28:16
Plant People
Oh, pots are a whole different thing. Oh, man,

Microclimates and Extreme Weather

00:28:20
Alexis
like Brett and I were talking about this this morning and there's just like a fascinating, there's so many different levels based on what that plant's kind of hardiness is, you know, and if it's, and yeah.
00:28:20
Jessica
Mm hmm.
00:28:21
Plant People
pots are tough.
00:28:29
Plant People
And then when you stick it in a pot, that changes, right? Like completely if you stick it.
00:28:32
Jessica
Right.
00:28:33
Plant People
And I'm sure you're really in tune with that, Brett. But yeah, and we've had a lot of discussion. Well, why did this die? It was a hearty plan. It was like, where did you have it? And they had said, well, we had it in a big container outside. I'm like, oh, OK.
00:28:45
Brett
Yeah, generally speaking, in the same way that the the um foundation wall of your house is this is this moderate has this moderating effect and this kind of ah it's a heat sink that can store heat and bank heat and it can ah it just moderates the temperature.
00:28:45
Plant People
Let's talk about that.
00:29:03
Brett
The soil system in addition to its water column effects of pulling water and all the other fun, interesting stuff with with that. It also, it acts as this giant thermal sink.
00:29:14
Alexis
Mm hmm.
00:29:15
Brett
And so ah a tree in the ground is sort of the, or a plant in the ground is sort of the the norm or it's like, that's where it's expecting to be. And what you're doing is you're pulling it up out of that environment and you're you're taking a theoretically you know massive ah heat sink of the soil as far as its roots can stretch.
00:29:38
Brett
And you're converting it into even a large pot, you're converting it into a much smaller, yeah, a much smaller environment. And so I think in general, if you have a tree in a pot, it will be let or us if you have a plant in a pot, you can tell I think about trees mostly, but if you have a plant in a pot,
00:29:52
Alexis
hey
00:29:54
Brett
it's gonna be less cold hardy than it would be in the ground. Full stop.
00:29:56
Jessica
Yeah.
00:29:57
Alexis
Yeah, I think at least like zone two.
00:29:57
Jessica
There's.
00:29:57
Plant People
Yeah, absolutely.
00:29:59
Alexis
So if like the plant says it's hardy to zone six, then it's probably in a pot might only be hardy to zone seven, unless it's like a specifically pot grown, like bent for a pot type of situation.
00:30:06
Plant People
Yeah.
00:30:09
Plant People
Well, if you think about that sole column, I mean, you know, we think about, oh, the ground's frozen hard solid.
00:30:10
Brett
Right.
00:30:16
Plant People
But really, how many inches down does the ground freeze? And then it's unfrozen under that. a tree or a plant that grows out in a natural soil column, there's only a certain portion, a thin portion of that soil line that actually freezes, but in a pot, it freezes through and through and through.
00:30:21
Jessica
Mm hmm.
00:30:32
Plant People
Not only that, but if you've got something like an Alberta spruce or an evergreen or something that we'd see those a lot in pots, is that, you know, that pot, which is probably filled full of some artificial medium ah that's appropriate for growth in a pot, it dries out incredibly.
00:30:46
Plant People
So you have a very dry environment, very cold, frozen environment.
00:30:46
Jessica
Yeah.
00:30:48
Alexis
That's true.
00:30:50
Plant People
And all of these things are working against you, especially with things like evergreens that lose a lot of you know moisture in the wintertime with drying wind. So there's a lot of things working against you. And I love that what you just said, and I've heard it referred to that way before with other folks that work with these things is that you lose a ah couple of numbers on that hardiness scale.
00:31:09
Plant People
If we're in zone seven, it's more like hardiness to zone nine. If you're sticking a pot all of a sudden, you're losing one to two zones in the pot.
00:31:17
Alexis
Yeah.
00:31:17
Jessica
Yeah.
00:31:17
Plant People
And I thought that was a cool way of putting that.
00:31:19
Brett
And I think generally speaking within, you know, the bigger the pot, the or the smaller the pot, the more you lose, or the the the more that things swing.
00:31:26
Plant People
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
00:31:28
Brett
It's just like, you know, trying to heat, imagine heating a pot of water that has a couple of cups of water in it versus a big gumbo pot that has several gallons.
00:31:28
Jessica
um
00:31:36
Brett
It takes a lot longer time to heat and cool that larger amount. And so the swings are, and the ground is the largest pot of all.
00:31:45
Plant People
And many years ago, we worked with ah i I don't know if you guys heard of pot and pot nursery container production.
00:31:45
Brett
um
00:31:49
Jessica
Yes, yeah.
00:31:50
Brett
Oh yeah.
00:31:50
Plant People
But that's above ground, but we actually worked with a system on reclaimed strip mines. I don't know, it was many years ago. But it was actually, we sunk containers, we lined them with copper to ah manage root development and escape. But we put the the liner pot in the ground, and it made such a huge difference for survivability of nursery crops. It was almost to the point to where it was the same as in-ground native
00:32:13
Jessica
Mm hmm.
00:32:14
Plant People
planted nursery stock and that was the pot and pot system but buried in the ground and it made that big of a difference and there's some other benefits too it's very labor intensive so it's not widely used to today to my knowledge that some nurseries use it but that was so cool and it really just enforced the fact that there's a lot of benefits of having that insulative effect of having the plant in the ground but as like bonsai growers Brett do

Bonsai Climate Adaptation

00:32:40
Plant People
any does anybody kind of manage like bonsai or plants by actually sinking them in the ground or healing them in in the wintertime?
00:32:47
Plant People
How's that dealt with?
00:32:48
Brett
there's There's definitely a healing in practice that a lot of people do and you'll stop me if you've heard this one before it's recommended, you know, this is ah I Need to clear or I need to put a caveat on this that I've told Alexis has heard me say this before but there's someone along the way referred to a rickety bridge between the world of horticultural science and bonsai and so there's
00:32:52
Plant People
know
00:33:09
Jessica
Mm-hm.
00:33:09
Plant People
It's got broken slats.
00:33:11
Brett
There's a connection, but there's some things about it. that so So as I talk about this, I'm talking about common practices in the world of bonsai. There's not a lot of ah research as far as extension research based information like we put out about it because it's not commercially all that viable in the United States.
00:33:28
Alexis
It's more of an art form, yeah.
00:33:30
Brett
It's not a big industry. In Japan it is, ah but in the United States it's not. But anyway, so yeah, so a tip one typical way of doing it is a healing in. So it's like H-E-E-L. So you're like, I don't know why they exactly call it that, but you're kind of pushing soil or mulch or some sort of insulative thing up around the base and even maybe covering it so that it looks like a little tiny tree planted in the ground.
00:33:59
Alexis
Mm-hm.
00:33:59
Brett
Typically, you would do that on a south-facing site of some sort so that it has access to the sun, so the sun can kind of warm it. Some people will just pull them into unheated greenhouses so that it keeps the temperature between 30 and 40 the whole time.
00:34:18
Brett
ah

Growing Olive Trees in Cold Climates

00:34:19
Brett
some people even But this is to that point of like the the earth and the effect that it has.
00:34:25
Alexis
This is cool.
00:34:27
Brett
So even so like in the the world of in the world of bonsai, a typical way of displaying the tree is to have it on a bench.
00:34:27
Plant People
ah
00:34:34
Brett
And it's like, oh, you put it there because it looks nice.
00:34:35
Jessica
Mm hmm.
00:34:37
Brett
That's true. But it's also the opposite of what we were just talking about, where the ground has this thermal mass. It actually helps the tree grow better, be stronger, et cetera. When you put it on the bench, it actually slows it down even more because that's what most of bonsai is about, is about slowing the tree so it doesn't grow.
00:34:51
Plant People
Um.
00:34:53
Brett
So for instance, in my, what I do is when, when the temperature hits 28 degrees, the only real intervention that I have to take is to just take the tree off the bench and just sit it on the ground.
00:34:54
Plant People
Um.
00:35:05
Jessica
Oh, cool.
00:35:05
Plant People
Hmm.
00:35:06
Brett
And that makes a huge amount of difference.
00:35:06
Plant People
Oh, well.
00:35:08
Brett
Just that that contact with the earth, no covering or anything at that point.
00:35:10
Plant People
No covering or anything. Just sitting that on the ground. Gotcha.
00:35:13
Jessica
That's awesome.
00:35:14
Plant People
Yeah.
00:35:14
Brett
and then and um And there's some really high level people who do that that way. And then, you know, as it moves down and down and into the teens, I do more like covering and and that sort of thing. but But it is amazing in a world of technology and all this crazy stuff, just like being on or in the ground is like a solution to a lot of these problems.
00:35:29
Jessica
yeah That's awesome.
00:35:30
Plant People
Yeah, an absolute game changer that that I didn't realize that you could just sit like them on the ground. That is pretty cool. Like you're not even healing them in like you just discussed. And yeah, that's really cool.
00:35:41
Jessica
That's really neat, yeah
00:35:43
Plant People
Um, I guess so that's the two ways of, uh, that I deal with pots is either you sink that you can sink the pot in the ground, even as a homeowner with a single pot of something that's going to help a lot, or you can group them together.
00:35:53
Jessica
yeah.
00:35:54
Plant People
If you're like a nursery, a lot of times when you heal in plants, you heal them in in groups.
00:35:55
Alexis
Mhm.
00:35:55
Jessica
hu
00:35:58
Alexis
Mhm.
00:35:59
Brett
Yeah, definitely.
00:35:59
Plant People
and you kind of bring them together and then you cover them with something, some kind of substrate mulch or something. You can usually potting soil or

Overwintering Citrus Plants

00:36:07
Plant People
peat moss or, you know, whatever.
00:36:08
Brett
So let me, ah let me, um I'm sorry.
00:36:09
Jessica
something oh and
00:36:10
Brett
I was going to say, let me, let me ask you this Ray or or who the the squad. So I've got, let's say I've got a Alberta spruce in a pot that I got from Home Depot and it was ah you know on sale. It was a Christmas tree and I kept it for a couple of years. can't Why don't I just bring it in and keep it in my living room all winter?
00:36:27
Plant People
Mm hmm. Tough one.
00:36:29
Alexis
The humidity.
00:36:29
Plant People
ah
00:36:30
Jessica
It's not going to like that dry air.
00:36:32
Plant People
Yeah.
00:36:33
Alexis
it It will drop all of its needles.
00:36:34
Jessica
You will not be happy.
00:36:34
Alexis
Ask me how I know.
00:36:34
Plant People
The colder it is, the more needles it's going to drop. ah And who was telling me that? Was it about figs that if you do that with a plant that it's critical for like a couple of weeks or very important for a couple of weeks if you I mean, with an evergreen, there's odd they've already said it.
00:36:52
Plant People
that's a The humidity is going to just really be tough on that.
00:36:53
Jessica
Mm-hmm.
00:36:55
Plant People
But they were saying that if you bring in a plant like a fig, if it's one of those things you can bring in and out, to put it in the shade for a couple of weeks, to get it used to the different environment.
00:37:03
Alexis
Acclimate it.
00:37:04
Plant People
I mean, have you guys done anything like that?
00:37:05
Jessica
Yeah.
00:37:06
Plant People
I have not.
00:37:07
Jessica
I overwinter citrus. I have a little inventory and, um, yeah, I just kind of like slowly acclimated in.
00:37:10
Plant People
Oh, cool. A lemon tree.
00:37:16
Plant People
That's right.
00:37:16
Jessica
big they' Yeah, they'll drop it and then, you know,
00:37:16
Plant People
They drop their leaves like a bunch if you just move them from outside the inside.
00:37:21
Jessica
Um, I'm lucky that I have like really large windows. I get a lot of bright and direct light a and they'll get pretty content and happy in that spot.
00:37:28
Brett
Thank you.
00:37:30
Jessica
But then I they can definitely tell the difference. If I have to move it around and it's not getting that bright light, it starts to drop, um, drop its leaves.
00:37:33
Plant People
and So do you kind of transition that by like doing the shade of transition thing like intentionally?
00:37:35
Brett
That's so funny.
00:37:41
Jessica
Yeah. And I leave, I leave it out pretty long for like cooler nights because the citrus can, so certain types can withstand cooler, like way cooler temperatures than I think. Like most people think they can, it's like they can go to almost freezing, right?
00:37:52
Alexis
Yeah, I looked it up the other day because I was stressed about mine. Well, the the mo like a Meyer lemon can go down to like 28 for a couple hours, like just a couple hours, but I was shocked at that.
00:37:56
Plant People
Oh, citrus can, wow.
00:37:58
Jessica
Yeah. Yeah.
00:38:02
Jessica
right So I kind of like leave mine out a little bit to make it a little heartier, I guess, in a way, like let it have that fluctuation.
00:38:08
Plant People
Oh, yeah.
00:38:10
Jessica
And then just like the natural, I also feel like, like how we talked about in our holiday plant kind of thing, the natural daylight changing, you know, and it's getting acclimated that way until I ah absolutely have to bring it in, right?
00:38:17
Plant People
Oh, yeah, yeah, the seasonal.
00:38:24
Plant People
How many ah how old is it? Is it you said it's a few years old your lemon tree?
00:38:27
Jessica
This one is just a year old. We had, I had a, a really large one and it, unfortunately it was a big tree with no roots basically.
00:38:29
Plant People
That's him.
00:38:37
Plant People
Oh, yeah.
00:38:38
Jessica
And like, we got it to survive almost through the winter. And then I took it out in the spring to repot it. And when I pulled it out of that pot, I was like, there are no roots on this thing.
00:38:47
Plant People
Oh, gosh.
00:38:47
Jessica
And so like, I tried to prune it back and, you know, make the ratio work well, but it just did not.
00:38:49
Plant People
Yeah.
00:38:50
Alexis
Shocked it.
00:38:53
Jessica
So I would suggest starting off with some of the smaller ones, you know, they're, they're easy.
00:38:55
Alexis
Yeah.
00:38:56
Plant People
Yeah, I always forget about citrus and that's so cool. And I've never grown those myself much, but I mean, that's such a cool thing that you can move in and out. Are there smaller citrus plants? It's just showing my lack of knowledge in the area, but is there like dwarfing varieties that you can move in and out and like more easily for Meyer lemons?
00:39:07
Jessica
Yeah, like the um There's different, like Alexis mentioned, the Meyer lemons, I think are the easiest ones to take care of. There's, uh, different limes that you can get.
00:39:19
Plant People
Mm hmm.
00:39:19
Jessica
There's different, I've not done any of the oranges. There's like one variety of orange, but I know it's like not that tasty to eat, right? Like whatever variety that is.
00:39:28
Plant People
Not that like we would get from our more southern states.
00:39:28
Alexis
little bit more bitter. yeah I would say um even the non quote unquote dwarf varieties because it's not they're not always easy to find.
00:39:30
Jessica
Yeah.
00:39:36
Alexis
So if you do find one, um don't be scared of it because most like it's
00:39:37
Jessica
Right.
00:39:41
Alexis
it will be so slow in the pot and the fact that you're bringing it inside that you're probably never going to have an issue with it being too large a unless you were growing it in like a greenhouse environment, which like mine
00:39:43
Jessica
Right.
00:39:48
Jessica
A tree.
00:39:51
Plant People
Gotcha.
00:39:52
Jessica
Right. ive i've

Container Plant Overwintering

00:39:54
Alexis
came from someone with a greenhouse and it is literally in a huge stock tank.
00:39:57
Alexis
And it's, I have to, I have to put it on a cart that I have to like two people at the pool.
00:39:57
Jessica
Yeah, hers is a tree.
00:39:59
Jessica
Like, really.
00:40:03
Alexis
So that's a little bit of a different, but if you're just like someone who
00:40:04
Jessica
its
00:40:06
Alexis
wants to keep it as a like quote-unquote houseplants and you get an occasional lemon around Christmas which is always super fun.
00:40:12
Jessica
And the flowers smell amazing.
00:40:13
Alexis
Don't- Oh, the flowers smell amazing. You can put it anywhere. um So yeah, I think just kind of I just wanted to talk about this, thank you all for indulging me on it because ah it was something that I was dealing with like personally and just kind of sending out reminders that even even if it has been really cold and you're like, oh no, maybe I killed this. If it's something that's semi-hardy here, ah you know it's the kind of the start of winter.
00:40:40
Alexis
It might have died back above ground, but you can probably still like dig it if it, especially if it's like a root or a bulb or a corm or a tuber, dahlia, stuff like that. A lot of the time, if they've not gotten too wet, they're still viable. You can bring those in if you want, but even something like um you know your rosemary that maybe is not in a good spot and it's getting a lot of wind pressure.
00:41:01
Alexis
ah can be dug or if it's in a pot, even just moving it into the garage. ah If it's dormant, like a fig, for example, wants to go dormant, lose its leaves. If it's in a pot, which I think is a great idea, you can just put it in the like garage, it doesn't have to have light because it's not photosynthesizing.
00:41:16
Jessica
I'm glad you mentioned that because a call that I get a lot and it's really popular right now um are blueberries and pots because they're selling like the container
00:41:17
Alexis
So that's like the other thing. Yeah.
00:41:25
Alexis
yeah

Challenges of Plant Hardiness Zones

00:41:26
Jessica
like I don't know if you've all seen that it's great but I've actually had like
00:41:27
Alexis
Which is a great idea actually for blueberries, if you I only want a couple.
00:41:32
Jessica
a few people messaged me this fall about like, Oh, I saw these blueberry plants that were at like Lowe's or Home Depot that they're selling them that are meant for containers.
00:41:42
Jessica
And now I have them. And what do I do with them in the fall? Cause I'm afraid about them freezing. And luckily most of the people I'm like, Oh, you can put them in your garage, right?
00:41:46
Alexis
Right.
00:41:49
Jessica
Cause like, yeah, just make sure they have some water, don't over water, you know, and check them to be ready to move them out.
00:41:50
Alexis
Or shed, or yeah, anyway.
00:41:54
Plant People
Protect them.
00:41:56
Alexis
Like once a month water it.
00:41:56
Plant People
Yeah.
00:41:57
Jessica
Yeah.
00:41:57
Brett
Yeah, and I think something I would add, you know, when I was asking about the, why not just bring the spruce inside, uh, with, with some of these trees that are, they're not only cold hardy, they're like expecting cold.
00:42:11
Brett
And so if you bring it into an environment that's 60, 70 degrees, it actually doesn't have enough
00:42:11
Plant People
Yeah.
00:42:11
Jessica
Right.
00:42:13
Plant People
Very disruptive.
00:42:17
Brett
Chilling cold days to complete its normal annual cycle, which is why some trees like yeah the the, um, the, uh, the hardiness zones work both ways.
00:42:18
Plant People
Yeah.
00:42:29
Plant People
Yes.
00:42:30
Brett
you know try to take ah ah something that's really warm that needs needs warm and is very sensitive to cold and move it up north, it won't do well. But there's also spruces and other kinds of really super cold hardies, the larches for instance.
00:42:44
Brett
We're kind of on a tipping point of where they don't really like it anymore because it doesn't stay cold for long enough and it gets way too hot.
00:42:50
Jessica
Mmhmm.
00:42:51
Plant People
Yeah.
00:42:51
Brett
And so like that that's another aspect of it too where it's I actually have somebody who's just gotten into bonsai and we were talking about and I was like, I mean, you could bring it in for like a couple of days, but I would not leave a juniper, for instance, inside in ti your house. That's why i like the heated greenhouse kind of environment or the good garage or things like that is a very common. But the cold, they they do need some cold.
00:43:14
Plant People
A better option there, Brett, would be, do you think either to heal that in or sink it in the grass? Like if you're worried about it freezing, I mean, that's a, that's a great point. I mean, but you have to address that. If like, if you see negative 20 degree temps coming, you've got a moderate sized pot.
00:43:28
Plant People
I guess you, I mean, what I'm thinking what could you do?
00:43:31
Brett
If it was minus 20, I would be, I don't know, I would be very nervous.
00:43:36
Plant People
and
00:43:36
Jessica
Yeah.
00:43:37
Brett
If it was, if it was in the, yeah, in the, in the teens, I, in the teens is when I start to like, take some, some, um, intervention.
00:43:38
Plant People
All bets are off. All bets are off. Yeah. Yeah.
00:43:46
Brett
And so for me, I take, and I have a bunch of trees and I and i put them into these little like, uh,
00:43:46
Plant People
Yeah.
00:43:51
Brett
And they're not little, I don't know why I said that. they're They're like these tray kind of tube but made out of two by fours, they're about three feet by five feet with ah with a grate on the bottom. And so they're just trays that I can carry a bunch, with another person, I can carry a bunch of plants at once. So I pull those up onto my patio, underneath ah overhang, and then cover them with a tarp or some sort of other thing. And the the heat the effect of the ground plus the trapping of the heat is is enough in those in for me and those kinds of,
00:44:19
Plant People
In the tarp, you're like making sure it's in contact with the ground, gets all that ready and heat.
00:44:20
Jessica
um
00:44:22
Brett
Correct. Yeah.
00:44:23
Plant People
Gotcha.
00:44:23
Brett
and Literally every time that I do that, I hear Alexis's voice in my, in my head saying like, if it's not in con, I see, you'll see a tree and it'll just be like a ghost where the sheet is hanging over it and it's not touching the ground.
00:44:24
Plant People
Gotcha.
00:44:27
Plant People
Yes, yes. Same.
00:44:33
Plant People
Don't make it a lollipop.
00:44:33
Alexis
yeah
00:44:34
Jessica
Yep, yep.
00:44:36
Brett
And I'm like, okay, I'm going to tell they, they could touch the ground even though it's a pain to do that.
00:44:36
Plant People
Yeah.
00:44:40
Alexis
Yeah, yeah, well.
00:44:40
Plant People
Yes.
00:44:41
Brett
Um, so yeah.
00:44:43
Alexis
but
00:44:43
Jessica
Y'all will have to remind me in the spring to let you know my in-laws have planted an olive tree in their backyard.
00:44:49
Brett
Oh.
00:44:49
Plant People
Oh, wow.
00:44:51
Jessica
So it's kind of up near the house. I saw it the other night while there was snow on the ground and I said, oh, is that an olive tree right there?
00:44:58
Alexis
Did you know it was an olive tree?
00:44:59
Plant People
Not an olive. It's a real olive.
00:45:01
Brett
well yeah Oh, Wow.
00:45:02
Plant People
Yeah.
00:45:02
Jessica
and So they were saying, oh yeah, we're going to try to put a lot of like compost and stuff around it and see what happens. So it's like, all right.
00:45:09
Alexis
Hope for the pellets.
00:45:11
Plant People
I've seen people do that with figs.
00:45:11
Jessica
So it's right next to the house and we'll see.
00:45:14
Alexis
Yeah, experimentation is...
00:45:15
Brett
There's like a ah mulch snowman almost around it.
00:45:18
Alexis
yeah.
00:45:18
Jessica
Right.
00:45:19
Plant People
I've seen straw bells, if you guys ever observed, like I'd could be on farms and here's a stack of straw bells in a place that makes no sense and like it'd be a fig right in the middle of it.
00:45:26
Alexis
Yeah. Yeah.
00:45:28
Jessica
yeah
00:45:28
Plant People
And like, it's amazing.
00:45:28
Brett
Yeah.
00:45:29
Plant People
They've that like dude they've done all this elaborate hours worth of work, like building a structure in place around the fig to insulate.
00:45:36
Jessica
I have only seen one time olive trees that were being in containers and like overwintered and only moved in to a greenhouse if like absolutely needed.
00:45:40
Plant People
I've never seen them.
00:45:47
Jessica
um It was a restaurant owner in Louisville. We got to visit his farm in a previous job where he had like 12 foot high or higher fences around the property to keep deer out.
00:45:56
Brett
Oh, wow.
00:45:57
Jessica
And he was growing olives and he was like wrapping those containers and doing all these steps, but they were decent sized trees. id never

Experimenting with Plant Hardiness

00:46:06
Jessica
He was growing them here in Kentucky.
00:46:07
Jessica
He was like in Shelby County.
00:46:08
Plant People
He's found he found found the formula.
00:46:09
Brett
Yeah.
00:46:10
Jessica
Yep.
00:46:11
Alexis
Yeah.
00:46:11
Brett
Alexis, were you gonna say something about experimentation? Because I if you weren't denied would
00:46:14
Alexis
Yeah, no, I was gonna say definitely experiment and and a good place to start when you're thinking about experimenting is looking at the native range of the plant and so like
00:46:15
Plant People
Big experimentation.
00:46:24
Alexis
Brett was saying like some plants need the cold, some plants don't. So if it's native to Mexico or if it's native to, you know, Canada.
00:46:31
Plant People
Yeah.
00:46:33
Alexis
you might you know try and think about how do I help those situations.
00:46:37
Plant People
How do we mimic the natural range? yeah
00:46:38
Alexis
right But like I think it's really, really easy to experiment with things that are on one side or the other of your zone. So if you're zone six, then experimenting with seven and five, maybe even into the other ones, if you can you know give it a little extra protection.
00:46:49
Plant People
Yeah.
00:46:53
Alexis
But um experiment a little bit and and see stuff. you know If you get a plan on sale, extra good. Because if you kill it, you're not out that much. So, or or take more than one, my my thing is like always take more than one cutting and so that you can experiment with some and then others you can do by the book and you see what works.
00:47:05
Jessica
Thank you.
00:47:12
Alexis
And so, so you know, start more seeds, take more cuttings, ah you know, all those kinds of things. And you'll never know what you might figure out on the way that will help you with lots of stuff.
00:47:21
Plant People
Nice pun intended to figure out like I hope that was intentional figure it out.
00:47:24
Jessica
who
00:47:25
Brett
Yeah.
00:47:26
Alexis
Figure out.
00:47:26
Brett
Well, I think, I mean, I think for me, this type of stuff, this propagation, just thinking about those types of things, in extension, we're, we're ah limited or empowered, I don't know which one by the fact that we kind of have to base what we're talking about on some sort of factual basis.
00:47:45
Brett
And what that ends up doing is it it makes what you say relatively conservative and with regard to like, you know, planting dates, for instance, I remember when we came out with the planting date calendar,
00:47:50
Jessica
Mm-hmm.
00:47:51
Alexis
Oh yeah.
00:47:52
Jessica
Mm-hmm.
00:47:56
Brett
We said we don't want to come out with it because there's all kinds of microclimates. Everything's variable.
00:47:59
Alexis
Yeah.
00:48:00
Brett
It's hard to really pin down exactly when you can plant tomatoes.
00:48:01
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:48:04
Brett
And so what we're going to say is it's probably safe to plant tomatoes at this date. And nevertheless, people wanted it. People wanted it on our CCD site. We have these planting, planting date calendars now, and it was not two weeks after we came out with them.
00:48:18
Brett
The comments started coming in. Well, I can plant my tomatoes way earlier than this.
00:48:21
Alexis
Good for you.
00:48:21
Plant People
Yeah.
00:48:23
Brett
I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, this is a starting point.
00:48:24
Alexis
like No, but like really good for you.
00:48:25
Brett
um but and and And that's where one of those were like, I really, if you're able to experiment, and I personally do experiment, and there's a lot in the, butt I mentioned the rickety bridge that allows a lot of bonsai people to just do wild stuff, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
00:48:26
Alexis
but
00:48:39
Plant People
Well, the more risk you're willing to take, the more you can experiment. But I think that's the key, is you have to know the more you go to the fringe, the more risk you you know the more you get away from the law of averages.
00:48:48
Alexis
No risk, no reward.
00:48:49
Plant People
so Big risk, big reward.
00:48:51
Alexis
um
00:48:51
Brett
Yeah.
00:48:52
Plant People
Yeah.
00:48:52
Brett
There's a reason why in some aspects of the types of fields that we work in, growers are the ones who are leading on the cutting edge of trying new things because they're wanting, able to, whatever, going to go for, okay, I'm going to try something different, see if it works.
00:49:02
Jessica
Right.
00:49:03
Alexis
Exactly.
00:49:09
Plant People
Yeah.
00:49:10
Brett
That's a really cool part of the culture of horticulture in this regard is the Cause at some point we didn't know a lot of the things that we quote unquote know now and people experimented and de did weird stuff and here we are.
00:49:24
Plant People
It's the not until we do it and that we know.
00:49:25
Jessica
Yep.
00:49:25
Brett
It's just pretty fun.
00:49:29
Plant People
And I have a bit of a confessional right now and a question. Do any of you guys need banana plants? Because I was told that they were not supposed to be hardy.
00:49:39
Plant People
So what did I do? I got a baby banana plant three years ago, maybe four years ago. And I was like, what could it hurt? I'm going to put it next to the foundation. right on the corner of my fence. Well, I have a banana grove now with the largest banana plants being about eight inches through.
00:49:52
Plant People
They're massive.
00:49:53
Jessica
Wow.
00:49:54
Plant People
They are
00:49:54
Alexis
When

Future Podcast Topics and Listener Engagement

00:49:55
Alexis
do they produce bananas?
00:49:55
Plant People
huge and they're probably 10 to 12 feet tall.
00:49:57
Plant People
What's that?
00:49:58
Alexis
Do they ever produce, but will they ever produce bananas?
00:49:59
Plant People
No, I mean, they don't overwinter. The tops don't, but they have gotten massive.
00:50:02
Alexis
Oh, okay.
00:50:04
Plant People
They're in the perfect little microclimate. And I keep waiting for the winter to kill them because now they're a pain.
00:50:08
Alexis
Would she just andt die already?
00:50:09
Plant People
They're, they're lifting one end of my fence and they're growing. And now that they produce, it they're producing their own microclimate, kind of like the blob it's starting to take over. But it's one of those plants I thought I was fairly safe in planting because, you know, the weather would normally thin it out, but it's at the foundation, like you mentioned, Brad.
00:50:22
Jessica
Yeah.
00:50:24
Brett
Yeah, it's like a three-year perennial.
00:50:26
Plant People
yeah Yeah, now it's going on a four year perennial and I'm nervous because I've given to everybody I know and now there's 50 of them growing in a growth small Grove and I've got issues.
00:50:27
Brett
Every three years, it's going to get knocked back.
00:50:35
Brett
I'm trying to invite others into your problem situation.
00:50:37
Plant People
Yeah, it this is a problem. It's a problem. I was too successful because of that.
00:50:42
Brett
It's too good.
00:50:42
Jessica
Look at you.
00:50:42
Plant People
I think microclimate, but no, it's not a good thing in this case because I only wanted one and now there's 50 there in a small Grove and it's an issue.
00:50:43
Brett
It is too good.
00:50:49
Brett
Oh, wow.
00:50:50
Plant People
It is. It is an issue. So banana plants.
00:50:52
Alexis
I moral of the story.
00:50:53
Plant People
Be careful. Don't plant them unless you love them. Because they may be hardier than you think, friends. Maybe harder than you think. Just one of those case scenarios.
00:51:03
Plant People
Yeah. So if any of you guys want banana plants, I've got plenty and they're large. So just let me know. I'll hook you up.
00:51:08
Brett
Well, I do you think we uncovered a lot of potential future topics in this discussion.
00:51:13
Jessica
yeah real
00:51:14
Brett
Propagation is one of them that we have not talked about at all, and I would love to talk more about that.
00:51:14
Plant People
Yeah. Yeah. Propagation, storage. Yeah. that that's a That's a really good one.
00:51:21
Brett
I think it's like the most magical part of horticulture.
00:51:21
Plant People
Yeah.
00:51:24
Alexis
This brings me so much joy.
00:51:25
Brett
It's so fun.
00:51:26
Alexis
Like you thought I was excited today, man. Don't get me started about propagation.
00:51:29
Brett
Oh Lord. So we'll put that one off.
00:51:30
Alexis
I'm like, let's go. And you need to save that for a day. I'm not going to be here if you want to be able to talk at all.
00:51:36
Plant People
Save it for a day where you've not had caffeine, maybe.
00:51:36
Alexis
but
00:51:38
Brett
But I think we could do probably a whole Dalia episode at some point um or or even multiple like doubt like following the crop throughout the year Dalia or something like that could be cool.
00:51:39
Jessica
Yeah, for real.
00:51:42
Plant People
Yeah.
00:51:42
Jessica
yeah
00:51:42
Alexis
Yeah.
00:51:46
Alexis
Yeah, we should we've there's some really great dia growers in Kentucky. So I'd well in like on the borders, it's Kentucky as well. So we'd love to get them in to give their knowledge because I still like constantly I'm learning about dia's and hope I'm hoping hoping that the next time we talk about dia's I could be like mine made it through the winter because I am risking and hoping for reward here people so experimentation.
00:51:54
Brett
Could be fun.
00:52:07
Plant People
Yeah.
00:52:08
Brett
one There you go experimentation and and the grower in the winter mindset, the grower comes through here and does a little experimentation.
00:52:12
Alexis
Yeah.
00:52:15
Alexis
yeah
00:52:17
Brett
But yeah, I mean, I ah would just, you know, I'm not going to do the outro because that's Alexis's thing. And she, ah she really last time she wouldn't let me in, in the office.
00:52:26
Alexis
Afterwards, I like threaten them a little bit.
00:52:26
Jessica
Well, and if you listened to Ray and I in the last episodes, we really, wait we did a great job at the Altro.
00:52:30
Plant People
We were lost.
00:52:31
Alexis
What do we do?
00:52:32
Plant People
I was like, how do we end this awkwardly?
00:52:34
Jessica
We're like, Instagram, listen to us.
00:52:36
Alexis
All of mine are are awkward, and I ramble, so join the club.
00:52:37
Jessica
We, we are fun. Please come back.
00:52:40
Plant People
like Yeah, I was like, this is my voice. This is not, this is not Alexis.
00:52:42
Alexis
It's it's harder than you would think, right?
00:52:44
Jessica
Yeah. He's like, he's like, I am not Alexis.
00:52:44
Alexis
like I don't know why it becomes difficult.
00:52:47
Jessica
This is Ray.
00:52:47
Plant People
I did. I ended with that. This is not Alexis. Have a great day. That's how I ended it.
00:52:53
Brett
This is not a drill.
00:52:53
Jessica
oh like Leave comments that are nice and like us, please.
00:52:54
Brett
This is not Alexis.
00:52:57
Alexis
so
00:52:58
Plant People
Yes.
00:52:58
Alexis
Tell us you love Yeah, you can leave us a review and tell us that you want to hear more about XYZ or you can shoot us an email, which is also in the show notes and we all see those emails.
00:52:58
Brett
But if something came up in the course of this episode that you would like to hear us talk more about, um this is definitely something I think Alexis in particular, but the rest of us too have some some knowledge about and certainly and some enthusiasm about.
00:52:58
Plant People
Oh, it was awkward.
00:53:12
Brett
So yeah, this was fun.
00:53:15
Plant People
Yes, good stuff.
00:53:25
Alexis
And so one of us will get back to you after we've conferred or whoever's most excited about your question will often get back to you. So we we do answer those if you've got, if you've got them. So feel free to reach out there.
00:53:37
Alexis
You can also find us on Instagram at Hort Culture Pod, and you can follow us and see cool stuff. We'll link all of these cool ah you know guests we have coming on on there, and if you can shoot us a message as well if that is an easier easier way for you to do so.
00:53:54
Alexis
We understand, but ah we hope that you keep listening. We hope that as we grow this podcast, you grow with us. Join us next time. See ya.