Hello Thomas

That is a good question indeed. A list would be nice Kerry.

I think Alcantarea's and Vriesea's should survive the winter in Rome if they are not in too much wind. You might want to cover them a bit though for if you get snow. (than can happen in Rome right?)
Since I am about 1000-1500km north from you I take everything indoors in october. But with the very little frost we've had untill now I might as well have left them outdoors.

I think I will take a bit more risk next year but keep my eye on the wheater reports.

Sander

Tomas and Sander - I have been working on that list for several weeks now. I was so devastated by the frost damage that I could not bring myself to work on the garden for a couple of months afterwards. I worked on my bromeliad artworks indoors instead. Now I still have many areas of the garden to clean up - remove dead brom stumps and foliage - will probably take me a couple more months. Rather than making a list of broms which survived or were only slightly damaged, I am working on a list which died, or were severely damaged - the surviving broms are there to complete the list later. It will take me a while to complete the list - which I will post asap. I'm also recording which severely damaged broms have since sent up fresh pups.

The biggest surprise, and disappointment, was the effect on my alcantareas. They did not fare well at all. Even ones which had many damaged leaves (and I cut off those dead leaves) then rotted off at the base. But then some advanced specimens, like one of my Alcantarea extensa, is now sending up a beautiful healthy flower spike, but with a pathetic trimmed body of leaves - such a waste! The advanced alcantarea specimens were growing in a very exposed area, because I thought they could handle our normal winters......but not the extremes of last winter.
Yes, the vrieseas are at the top of the survivor list - especially the green leaved ones in trees. The fancy foliage vrieseas did not fare as well as I hoped - it depended on where and how they were growing. That freak frost was insidious and penetrating, and all the worse for being very dry this winter. We have experienced light frosts in previous winters, and the cleared paddocks around the house /garden look white like snow (which we never get). But until this last winter, all my broms have been fine due to the micro-climate attained from the many trees acting as a protective canopy.

Difference between a white and black frost:
A white frost causes ice to form on the surface of leaves, usually experienced with temperatures between 0 and -5 C. It also usually forms from just a few hours at those temperatures in early hours before daylight - which is about as long as what we might occasionally get here. It is possible to avoid damage to plants if one can water/hose the ice off those affected plants BEFORE the sun hits them. It is the sun hitting the ice particles, which acts in a similar way to a magnifying glass with sun through it, that burns the foliage.
A black frost is so named due to the affect of total destruction to the plants, not just the surface. It occurs with colder temperatures, like -8 C and more, and for longer periods of those temps. - like for 6 or more hours. There is no white coating on the plants, but they are frozen solid. The amount of damage also depends on how long it takes them to thaw, so if the day temps remain low......not good. Of course with temperatures that low, the water pipes are also frozen, so hosing is impossible. But it makes no difference with the sun hitting them - the damage is irreversible. Without the scientific knowledge or known terminology, the best way I can describe a black frost is that somehow there is a molecular breakdown of the inner tissues of the plants, causing the more succulent foliage to look like it has melted and gone black and droopy. My begonias and other tropical foliage plants looked like this on that first fateful morning. The bromeliads took longer to show the extent of their damage - over a period of several weeks. The dead and damaged looked like brown paper bags, which then got a black mottled fungus on them.

It grieves me to show you these photos, but here is a sample of the damage in my garden from THE black frost - taken about 2 weeks afterwards.

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and in my shade house...
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Some of you might remember other photos I have posted of my brom garden - pre-frost.... a big difference :(

The good news is, although I lost many broms of my considerable collection (over 1300 varieties), some are giving me new healthy pups, and others are looking a lot better now.

I will work more on that list Tomas, and post when done.

Cheers,
Kerry

That's nasty, like a horror movie.
I can only imagine how devestated you must have been. All those years of work. So sad.

I best not take too much chances next year...
At leat we know its coming.

Sander

Hi Kerry,

thank you very much for your information and I am sorry about taking you back to that sad period.

Frost will cause the ice nuclei to form in the cells and the rupture of cell walls will follow. The total death of cells will produce the effect of a "toast" plant. The complete death depends on the hardiness of the plant, in pure tropical plants this can already happen at 0C, fortunately many bromeliads are somehow hardier.

It is important to know how often such extreme temperatures may occur, if it is lets say every twenty years, than you will enjoy 19 years of your beautiful epiphytic trees and the disaster will soon be forgotten. I know it as we had such a hard freeze in 1985 here in Italy, at the coldest place here in Rome, the Ciampino airport, they measured Â11°C and Â7 in the inner city, all the tropical plants were totaly burnt, some of our palms so typical for our landscape killed, even the oleanders were toast, but it is now all over, the gardens are full of bougainvilleas again. Untill the next one! But this is the gardening in the marginal climates, right?

Sander,

if you have to overwinter your plants inside, than bring them home well before they experience their actual survival limit, the plants will face better the long overwintering.

Yes, we get snow quite often here in Rome, but normally it will soon melt and after the snowfall the temperatures normaly climb above the freeze point. Actually snow is better, it protects from frost as every farmer from the temperate regions knows.

Tomas

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Geez a Neo with snow on...
How mad is that?

You are right, if I take them in early they even keep growing (slowly) I can imagine they stop completly when left ouside.

Trouble is, it looks like I am running out of room. At the moment I have about 30, but I have a lot of seedlings so in a couple of years I'm in trouble.

There are some tropical plants I pack in bubble wrap to keep the frost off, (like bougainvillea and tree ferns). If it really freezes I even heat them up a few degrees with christmas lights. I guess I can also do that with hardier broms.

But since nice broms are really hard to come by over here I will be really carefull. Bill Amoena took -8 C at Kerry's nice to know, but as long as I have only one I am not trying.

Sander

Hi Kerry, Gosh really thought your area of aust was temperate - sub tropical . We didnt realise the extent of your damage and loss. We have most of our good plants in pots and at 3 degrees get them covered or inside over the winter months which is quite time consuming. It is interesting to note that your Vreisea's feared better, that does seem to be the case here. Alcanterias also suffer here with even light frosts. Ours also suffered very bad wind burn and leaf shread in our winter storm, one has decided to flower also. People here in frost areas also put there plants under trees for protection. Which brings me to a question, at -8 how did your bigger trees cope ?? Well really sorry about all the losses, dont give up on some of those brom stumps to quickly, I have often found some puping away, after discarding them. We await this list with much interest. Thanks for showing us all what can happen, might have to convince Agatha to move back to tropical malaysia !!.

Tomas, Sander, and J+A, thanks for the kind words.

I have to believe that we won't get another freak frost like that for at least another 30 years. Locals are calling it "the 30 year frost". Thanks for the encouragement and happy-ending story Tomas. But I hope the big freeze suffered in Rome in 1985 is not a "20 year frost", or else you'd be overdue for another one? Let's hope yours was at least a "50 year frost"! And yes J+A, I think this area is correctly classified warm temperate/sub-tropical. Some 100 year old rainforest trees had obviously NEVER been subjected to anything like that in their lifetime. They really suffered. I lost large established frangipani trees (fried more than toasted!) completely, and the jacarandas lost all leaves, but have since come back. The callistemons, gums and of course the deciduous trees are all unblemished. Huge evergreen figs and quandongs had complete leaf death - and now new growth is occurring up the centre trunks. The lateral branches are dead, and waiting to fall on my understory surviving plants/shrubs/broms. They have lost their mature shape forever. Also, with complete leaf death, it meant that the surviving broms underneath got suddenly sun-burnt as well!

It sounds like you and Agatha have things well worked out in your N.Z. paradise, John. Keeping your special broms in pots seems a sensible plan - one I am now heeding.

Cheers,
Kerry

Kerry,

that's very sad to hear about large trees being killed. And the fig trees ... Here is a picture of one that got really badly damaged, the photo is about ten years later

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It is surelly good idea to keep the most precious bromeliads in pots, you still can obtain the beautiful effect of your epiphytic trees with the hardiest and more common broms. I really love them, your trees.

Sander,

to run off the space is probably the most common problem of any "serious" plant grower. I wonder if it would be possible to overwinter some of the most hardy bromeliads (some of the neoregelias and vrieseas really do face harsh conditions in their habitat) just brutally storing them in a frost free and dark place, completely dry. I do this with success with my plumerias, some bananas and succulents, but have never tried with bromeliads.
Tomas

Storing them in the 'dark' is an option
That gives me more room. The bottom foor of my house is a workshop/ garage with hardley any windows. My agava and some other tropics in pots do take this abuse. But keeping my precious broms in the dark seems wrong. I'll try but only if I have to.

For the curious people amongst you here's my house:
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If you look very closely you can see some broms.

Sander

Tomas, thanks again for the kind words, and your advice makes a lot of sense. Yes I will continue to grow the hardier broms in trees, and pot the special ones so I can move them onto our back and/or front verandah if necessary - some into the house if I have to. I will also invest in a lot of frost cloth for my shade house, and landscaped broms, and spray them with a product called 'Envy' which is supposed to work quite well against light frosts. Have you or Sander heard of this or similar product? Apparently it's like a polymer glue, but still allows the broms to breath. The regrowth of that fig is encouraging - thanks :)

Sander, I can see now why buses might often go past your house - but a very nice house! I like your windows, and yes I can see the broms through them. What size backyard do you have? Continuing with Tomas' suggestion of using a dark area for protection in winter, have you considered some kind of grow-lights in your garage/workshop? I imagine you have. Any chance of building a glass house in your backyard? Any spare bedrooms - if you kick out any unwanted relatives? One must get their bromeliad priorities right! Maybe you'll just have to move to a bigger place to accommodate your precious ones.
Eeny meeny miny mo.......

Cheers,
Kerry

We are in the middle of a city but this is the view at the back though. Which is pretty special for this crowded town.

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This is my garden today, the three guys from the KKK are my tree ferns:
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We think about buying a few meters more at the back in a couple of years if my neighbour is willing to sell. Thats when a glass house is an option, I already thought about that when I moved here.

This was this summer:
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Most broms are on the balcony but if you look hard there is one in the middle picture.

My garden is about 8x8M and I still have enough room indoors to house my broms now. If all my seedlings grow up the garage is a good option. At the moment every window sill is full so they still get a lot of daylight and there is no substitute for that. So they still grow good at the moment.

But that greenhouse is a very tempting idea, that might happen someday.

Sander

Kerry,

I know many people have tried the antitranspirants on palms, but nobody was really enthusiastic about it. I cannot understand why it should work.

If you have sufficient water supply, you could try the sprinkler system, it is widely used by the fruit growers to protect flowers from late frosts in spring and it works. Do you know it?

Bromeliads grow very well under artificial lights and I use to start my seedlings with them, but larger plants will need lot of bulbs.

Tomas

Kerry I never heard of 'Envy' sounds wrong to coat your broms with polymer...

I have experience with light 'fleece' cloth to protect from frost and that works. Never used it on broms though.

Sander

Sander s, how strict are the building by laws there ? - have you considered making your whole backyard a glass house- at 8 x 8m it seems viable & you can have the most spectacular garden in the city- no more kkk! You have to heat it in winter though.

Hi John and Agatha

In that case I would want a sliding roof. I think one of the building regulations is that a construction has to be able to carry 20 cm of snow.
Do-able, but I think moving to the tropics is the more affordable option.
Why not replace my existing roof with glass, toss the '65 mustang and sleep in the garage? Wait 'till I tell the missus....

I think I better start accepting that there is a limit to the number of broms one can have. I guess I'm not even a quarter of the way there yet. Not counting the 100+ Alcantarea and Vriesea seedlings you made me grow.
6x9m of garage minus 2x4m for the ponycar, that's enough room for about 50 Alcantarea's right? ;-)

Sander

You really packed quite a bit in your space Sander, it looks great. At least you have some time to figure things out before the seedlings take over! I just bought 100 2.5 inch pots with some wishful thinking for my Werauhia's. It's been almost a year and someone might still mistaken them for days old grass seedlings.

Frost is here.

Snug as a bug..
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If I ever run out of indoor space this is the way I'll go.

Sander