May have just suffered a disaster

[Bartman]

Normally I get the lilies out of the pond and they go into the shed before being transported to the root cellar for the winter storage.  Generally there is a delay between shed and root cellar since it's a 30 minute drive.

This year they got pulled and put in the shed then the unthinkable happened and we had a major cold snap.  Minus double digit temps.  No one out at the farm to deal with any of it.

So it appears the containers froze solid.  I'm hoping it is not the case and they survived, but not holding my breath.  I stored them anyway.  I'll see next spring.

Keeping a farm yard in some kind of order and the house in town has been a major work load so maybe this was the sign the last pond is to be closed down.  Not the way I wanted it to go out, but the way it might end up being.

The moral of the story here.  Assume our weather is getting more stupid all the time!

Bart

[Jerry]

Tough Bart, sorry. I expect a heater wouldn't help?  Or just to costly?

[emm]

Hoping that all is not lost Bart.  Last fall I gave a friend my humongous attraction hardy waterlily to put in her big mud pond.  For one reason and another that lily sat in a smallish Rubbermaid tote all winter long and froze solid.  Just before the ice started to thin in the spring my friend dumped the lily on TOP of the ice so that when the ice melted the lily would fall into the pond.  Wonder of wonders - it survived and bloomed this summer!  I still don't know how the tuber wasn't complete mush but it wasn't. 

Our winters are not as cold as yours but we do stay below freezing for most of the winter and had plenty of days at -25*C or colder.  So I don't know Bart, there may just be a chance that some of your lilies make it.  Fingers crossed for you.

On another note, the 2 tropical lilies that you gave me a couple of years ago are doing very well.  Thanks again for those.

emm

[Bartman]

I'll cross my fingers that they are okay!

Glad the lilies are doing well.  Did you get what you asked for or were yours all mixed up too?  I don't recall.

Bart

[emm]

Hi Bart,

You sent me Lavender Lace and Electra, exactly what I asked for.  Our summer was cold and wet this year so blooms were reduced but the plants have grown well.

emm

[Desertponder]

Ooooo, bummer.
Similar thing happened to me when I moved a number of years back during the winter. I put all my hardies in trash bags, pots and all and put them in the garage. People on various forums stated they overwintered their plants this way. Well, all of mine froze solid and they were mush by spring when they started thawing.
Sorry, I hope yours don't suffer the same fate.

[Bartman]

The trash bag thing works fine, but they can't actually freeze.  They need to be kept in cold storage, but not freezing storage.

I use the trash bag storage every year.  The problem this year was the unbelievable cold snap we got between removal and storing when no one was around to take action to protect them.

Bart

[Desertponder]

I guess that is a matter of opinion. They shouldn't have froze in my garage but they did.

[Bartman]

Then I guess your garage is not cold storage, but freezing storage.  Clearly it gets below freezing in your garage if they froze so that is not a suitable location for the bag storage method.  The bag storage only works if the temp stays above freezing.

I store in the bags then put them in a root cellar which hovers around the 33 or 34 degree mark during the winter, but it doesn't ever drop below freezing down there.

I have also heard of people using an old fridge for cold storage as well.

My sister-in-law stuck them under a bed in an unused bedroom and turned the heating vents off in that room and that worked as well.

Bart

[Esther]

Hey, that refrigerator or freezer sounds like a good idea.

[Bartman]

I wouldn't use a freezer!

Bart

[Esther]

No I didn't mean to run it but to put stuff in and have it insulated from the outside temps. Wouldn't that work?

[Bartman]

Only if you can guarantee that it doesn't drop below freezing inside of the freezer. 

Bart

[Desertponder]

I tried the refrigerator several years ago to overwinter extra hardies and tropicals. It was unplugged and sitting inside the garage. I bagged everything in sand and it all froze.
The garage was not heated but it was insulated and sheetrocked. One of our dogs would stay in there at night and he wouldn't even get ice on his bucket of water, yet the lilies and things like that would freeze. I never thought they would because the bucket of water wouldn't ice up inside the garage.
Now at this place we have a full unfinished basement and it never gets below 55 degrees at the coldest part of winter so things overwinter o.k. in the basement. Everything I put down there last winter survived with the exception of a couple of tropicals.
Certainly the methods will work for some but they don't always work depending on your particular conditions.

[Bartman]

Well, it still goes back to the fact that it won't work if they freeze.  That is the one condition that can't happen.  I don't know why they would have froze when the dog's water did not, but they froze so something was up in the garage that allowed them to freeze solid.  I suspect something to do with being sealed in an insulated box that insulated them from what heat there was.

For it to work it cannot freeze.  Nice and cold is good, but not freezing.

As for storing in the fridge.  I was not referring to a non-working fridge, but a working one.  In that particular case the person used an old working fridge just like a root cellar to keep the plants cold.  He just set the temp lower, bagged the plants and stuck them in the fridge.

Bart