Ah, just a quick post before I go to bed tonight; something interesting enough I thought would be worth sharing. We just had a heavy hail storm here, at least, by our standards (after all, it’s the Bay Area, Cali … even frost for me is rare…)
We’ve had some rain lately, but I knew this was something else when the whole house was literally vibrating due to the impact of the hail. I looked out and saw my deck covered in white. So what did I do? I threw on my ski pants and jacket, ran outside, and frolicked in the streets a bit. I even did my own HAIL ANGEL. Yeah, the neighbors thought I was nuts, but how many of them can actually say they did a hail angel in front of their house?
[My Hail Angel. Hail-a cool, hu?]
And of course, after playing in the ice a bit, I had to check on the plants…. and here they are, a bit icy looking.
Eh, they’ll be fine.
[Sarracenia snow cones!]
I thought the sarracenias cannot be outside in the cold and frost and hail!! it means I can leave mine in the garden??? ohhhhhhhhhhh I look after them like my orchids….mmmm
tropical temperatures, indirect sun and plenty of water…..
Hi Maria! Yeah, they’re fine outdoors! Nepenthes are the tropical pitcher plant that you’ll want to keep in those conditions you mentioned. Sarracenias go dormant in the winter and come back once it warms up. Keep in mind that these plants don’t come from the tropics, but are native to south east/eastern US and can even be found all the way up through Canada… (and it’s cold there in the winter.) During this time, if you notice in the picture – much of the old growth has been trimmed and new growth is emerging. The containers will be full of pitchers once it’s warmer. Now, I don’t know how much damage is done to the plants as we typically don’t get any sort of ice here, but I know they’ll be fine.
Here’s one example of the plants in ice/frost, courtesy of Jacob Farin at Cobraplant.com (http://cobraplant.com/gallery/December-2009/index.html)
Hope this helps!
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Wild–That’s a hail of a lot of white stuff! This is California? Hopefully you didn’t lose any super-precious flower buds, but it doesn’t look like you got the baseball-sized version of hail…
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