Alright folks, its freezing here... literally.
Its not officially winter yet, but it sure does feel like it! I'm getting a little nervous here...
The cacti and Acacia are still outside. Its been getting colder steadily every night- in F, 33, 30, 28, 27. day temps have been in the 40s. tonight and tomorrow are supposed to get pretty chilly, says 25 tonight, 24 tomorrow. were breaching the record for these exact plants, i brought them in early last year because i left town for the holidays and wouldn't be around to monitor, and then there's data I posted about a page back in this same thread for Dec 2016, says they survived -2C or 28F for extended time.
I am being lazy, and debating leaving the plants outside. its just for a few hours, then temps will turn around and work back into the 40s. 10 day forecast says after these two nights, temps will bump back up to mid 30s at night, 40s still during the day.
the cacti got rained on pretty hard last month, but then it was dry for a bit, and i put them under cover before our last heavy storms. under cover is two sliding glass doors that are leaned against the S side of the shed, so get some sun (if there were any lol), but protected from rain. so its been 3-4 weeks since they've actually been watered, but the soil is still fairly damp. there are several ~5yr pachanoi and bridgesii, and one or two peruvianus, all from seed, and then one big BK "Chavin" clone about the same age, all with several pups. the tallest seedlings are ~1m tall, but some are a bit less,and with 5-10cm diameters. the BK is even bigger. then there's a few smaller maybe 2 yr old seedling hybrids and top cut clones, just under a 30cm tall with an 3cm or so diameter. all in pots
the Acacia maidenii is also i think 5 years old, its been stunted due to being topped and container culture, but its in a 25-30 gal (fake, plastic) half wine barrel, actual height of the plant from top of soil is ~1.5m now, with ~3-4cm trunk diameter at the base. it has not been under cover at all, and got rained on pretty heavily like 2 weeks ago. it got some rain last month as well, but in general, it has been relatively dry this year until recently, the heavy rains came late. also, i only watered it twice near the end of summer, before that it went probably 4 months in full sun without any watering or rain. the is a good 2-3cm layer of mulch that is pretty well established with some fungal mycelium as well, and it is possible that this may be generating some heat and thus keeping the root a little bit warmer.
normally, the Acacia starts to grow new leaves with the rain, and then the new growth freezes and dies back, and get scared and bring the thing in. this year, there is not a lot of super fresh growth, not yet at least, there are new phyllodes that popped up maybe a month or two ago, and they are small but seem hardened off. all phyllodes, old and young, are changing from a solid green (deep on mature, vivid on new), with maybe a few red tips, to more of yellowish pea green, nearly all with reddening edges and tips. its dark now, i should have been on this earlier and taken some pictures
what do you all think?? do i risk it for a biscuit (more like a tidbit of info), or do i call it now and bring everyone inside for the season? there's a lot of pots, some of them pretty good sized, its gonna take a bit of time and do my back in. but i will be so sad if they all freeze to death, I've frozen a cacti before, it about broke my heart. but its only for a few hours... ahhhh!!
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Topic: Temperatures & plants. How low can it go? (Community research thread) (Read 70520 times)