This week my little magic thermometer thingy that sits out in the hoop house but lets me read the temp from the warmth of inside decided to go on strike - so I have no clue how cold it has gotten in the hoopey. On Monday I came home from work to find that the wind had blown open a small part of my door system. I got that patched but again, I have no idea how bad things are inside - when I seal things up for cold spells I really seal things up. Tomorrow will be my first trek inside to assess the damage.

I lost a few things last week due to the high temps even tho I had the ends opened up wide. I think every season is a learning experience and that things that handled last winter under my care may or may not survive this one.

Tam, I feel for you. My garage door got stuck in the up position a few years ago when it was dropping below freezing. I've blocked out most of the experience, but I do remember the feeling of despair looking at all the years of plant collecting represented in that garage. Ever since then I've wintered my alocasias in the big bathtub upstairs, just in case. I don't have a jatropha currently but my dad's tree has a few seedlings I was going to scarf up in the spring, so let me know if you want me to try and get you one. And I'll keep my fingers crossed for your begonias.

OUCH!!!!

Would it be worthwhile to invest in one of those temperature alarms, that send a signal to a remote when the temperature gets too low in another location - such as a greenhouse? I know FarmTek (FarmTek.com) has a lot of greenhouse supplies, and they can be quite reasonable in their pricing. Charley's Greenhouses is another mail-order catalogue/source for greenhouse supplies which seems to be fairly priced - I don't know the web-address. There may be a simpler thing available at a big-box store, as well.

It may be that one of the heaters is defective, and that blew the fuses - I think I would double check them to be sure. And, there may have been a power-surge through the electric wires that blew the fuse, rather than your doing anything.

T'john, it may simply be that the thermometer and remote in your hoop house need new batteries, either one of them or both - I have remote sensor thermometers for upstairs and down readings, and need to replace batteries every few years. In the interests of ease, and not having to do it all over again if you only replace batteries in the one and the other goes out, I would replace the batteries in both. I think it will say on the inside reader, but with mine, you have to do the remote first, and then the inside reader.

thanks, john, karen & dibbit for the sympathy & advice! i'm so busy right now i really didn't have time to go out and really check out everything this afternoon when i got home. but from what i glanced, i'm guessing at least 10 or more things are toast. the rest looks ok for now, but time will tell if there was structural damage done that kills things slowly. i feel really fortunate that more things weren't killed outright. the one begonia in particular that my mentor wanted has some live spots, though all the older leaves are toast. couple others are the same way, and then a few others looked completely toasted. maybe under those pitiful leaves the rhizomes pulled through. none of the others would be as hard to replace, so i don't mind so much. some of the scented geraniums didn't look happy, but we'll see. one of my weird plectranthus looks gone, but the other one looks fine, so that surprised me. so far the passionflowers, aristolochia grandiflora, orchids, banana, and some of the others look ok- for which i'm really happy.

most of the ee's i was overwintering were downstairs along with the other things that can take little light, fairly dry and basically abuse conditions barely above freezing. i don't worry about the basement til it drops below 20 outside. then i run a single space heater in there too. i used to overwinter a bunch more there but consistently forget to water, etc. and lost too much that way. outta sight, outta mind.

karen- definitely if you can get a jatropha seedling i'd be interested. i'd had that plant for 10+ years and it was never happy inside in the winter, though it did stay alive barely. thought i'd try it out there last year and it was a mistake. it was so tall and i kept trying to air layer it or get cuttings with no luck. i have a jatropha podigarica seedling i can trade you for it. that one gets a swollen stem and has round leaves. the one i had and lost has very lacey leaves- like snowflakes.

i think the whole problem was that i set the level at the highest setting rather than the next one down, which is what i did last year if i recall right. they are the same heaters, and i'm fairly sure they are fine- so far they have been, til i turned them to high. and something i forgot was that the mini fridge is on the same fuse inside- so if we have a really cold night i may just unplug it from now on. so long as it's not opened it stays nice & cold. i think it was the combo of the 2 plus the fridge that set it off (that power surge you mentioned, but it was my fault!). it's an older house and can only take but so much.

there's lots of greenhouse gadgets that i'd love to spend money on, but it's in short supply now. i get charlie's, farmtek and a couple of the other catalogs, so i will check it out. we have a min/max out there that we keep an eagle eye on. guess it doesn't do much good in a case like this, though, huh?

I'm so sorry for your losses, that's got to be so heart breaking! Please let me know if I have anything you need!!

I'm new at this (lots of sleepless nights!) and know a lot less than anyone of you but could it be that running the two heaters together (same breaker) caused the problem? Was it the heaters fuses or the breakers? Just one of my heaters pulls 14 of the 20 amps possible on the line we use. Everytime I added a second heater it would throw the breaker. I can run a fan, a light, or various other small things with the 1500 watt heater but not two heaters. I can run a small kerosene heater which we have for backup in case of a power outage or really low temps, but the only way we'll be able to run 2 heaters is with some new higher amp lines/breakers or make sure we have them plugged into seperate breaker lines that aren't running a lot of ampage. NOT going to happen this year but we'rw hoping to have a new box set up next year that will handle this problem.

I have my heater hooked up through a thermostat too and that gives me much better control. I can turn the heater to its maximum but the thermostat controls it at whatever temp I set it. I know about enough to keep me confused with all this electrician stuff but maybe the thermostat helps to keep the heater from pushing too hard since it doesn't have to maintain the maximum temp the heater is actually set at?

Don't worry about the banana if it's the chinese or the basjoo. both laugh at the cold. My basjoo planted in the ground was throwing up a new leaf last week when we had the warm weather.

thanks, root. i ran 2 heaters last year with no issues- i really think it was because i put them both on high. when they are on med, they pull 1000 watts each, on high it's 1500 (if i recall right). so that would be enough to trip it for sure and i should have known better. heck, i DO know better- just flaked. i figured last year it was better to have 2000 watts on a moderate heat than 1500 on a high heat. basically, i run them as low as i can. my goal isn't to keep it really warm- just a few degrees above freezing. didn't seem to bother many things last year, and the ones i noticed it did are inside this year if they didn't die. where'd you get the thermostat? that was something else i'd considered too. because ours is attached to the house, it has a natural buffer and ambient heat source and we are lucky that we have easy, easy access. that's part of why i haven't fussed to get more gadgets before now. if it were detached i know i'd need all that because we are LAZY! :)

no- i have the basjoo downstairs (it's destined for the backyard and i never got it or the other stuff planted with the drought) and the chinese is in the ground. the banana that was on the porch is one of the red streaky ones. it looks ok, so hopefully it'll be fine. i've had it about 5 years and is head height. i'd be bummed if i lost it, but it's the common kind and i could replace it with a small one pretty easily if i needed too. i think i got it at lowe's to begin with.

i really appreciate the restocking offer. i may have to hit someone up for that one plectranthus since i know i gave out a few small rooted cuttings, and maybe some of the others that i haven't double checked. pretty sure i'll need to bug john for more of the blue cleradendron. it looks really bad. root, i know you normally keep stroblianthis going- i may need it. it looks like it really got hit, but it might come back from the base. i'll reserve judgment for a while on everything.

Tammy - I lost all of my blue clerodendrons last winter! They never did that well for me so I didn't keep up with the last remaining few I had.

I have lots of the blood banana or whatever they call the one you have(had). Mine have been through a lot and they usually come through it. I am storing plenty of them as just raw stalks with all the leaves cut off - so far, so good.

I have some plect's also but most of the really odd ones are long gone - seems like the basic silver one is the best at overwintering.

I've lost my Nog Nock vine and that Rex Leaved Cissus so far - oh and a ton of cuttings that just refused to root and thrive. Most of my begonias are holding on but none of them seem to be happy.

Root - take care with the kerosene heat. Burning kerosene gives off a lot of Ethylene gas which will kill impatiens pretty fast. Plenty of stuff is affected by it but they seem to suffer the worst. I also use one as my back up heat sorce but I am really careful about where I store my kero and where I light the heater (I pull it outside of the hoopey, light it, let it warm up, then drag it back in). Another trick I am gonna try this winter if we get some super cold nights - is to buy a large tarp and cover as much of the hoopey as I can. I think that by covering with something thicker than 4mil plastic I will keep things warmer than just pumping in more heat.

T'John, if you can get a few rolls of half or one inch bubble wrap, and spread and tape them together over the top of the hoop house - not as "easy" as covering it with a tarp - it will hold in even more heat, and being semi-transparent/translucent, will let in SOME light in the daytime, more than a solid tarp. That way you won't have to take the cover off quite as quickly as you might. They do make bubble wrap covers for green houses, but that may be much more expense than you want to go to. Office supply places, and any package store, should carry the bubble wrap rolls.

I've seen large rolls of it before and thought about it. My hoophouse is 16 feet wide, 20 feet long, and 8 feet tall - tis big! and there is a garden fence in the way on one side. Making covering and uncovering tricky.

I keep meaning to divide up the inside and super control one part of it - letting the rest of it stay cool but above freezing. So far that hasn't happened.

My backyard is shady - even now with all the leaves off the tall oaks. I have sat out there and checked and direct sunlight only hits the hoophouse from around 1pm til 3pm!!!! so sunlight heating doesn't happen much anyway. I have flourescent lights set up inside to boost the light for some things.

Tammy, we found the thermostat at Northern Tool for $50. I knew I was forgetting to dig something up, it was the strob!! But I'm sure I should have something you'd like. I have this one plant, if it makes it thru winter I'll share with ya. It's a cool plant color wise but not hardy at all. I'd tell ya the name but haven't a clue, lol.

John, we store the kero totally seperate and a new wick this year took care of the smoking when you first light it. No impatiens to worry about. Before the new wick it was a mess and I told Don no way till we fixed that!!

We found the 24 inch wide (and I think 175 feet long)bubble wrap at Staples. We're using it on the insode on the north wall and are also going to put it up on the ceiling (inside) over the panels with vents, as they really don't seal well at all. It was the best price for the size we could find without going to the greenhouse supply places, which were much pricier.

We're also looking into a 'clear' solar pool cover. It looks like a really heavy duty bubble wrap. You throw it over the roof and rope it down. A 12 by 28 would be perfect and make it eaiser to tie down. It's not supposed to cut your light by much and is UV protected. The nice part it most people are finding it gives you 10 to 15 degrees of warmer temps. If you do a search on the greenhouse forum using pool it'll pop up a lot of info about it. Meanwhile we've been using a blue tarp over the north end and a couple panels on top on the north end and that seems to have helped some. At some point we're going to make some overlapping bubble wrap curtains just inside the doors (again north end).. to act as a buffer when we go in and out. Kind of like they use in commerical cooler/frezers.

the bubble wrap is a great thing, and something we considered for the north side and top. i'd really like to do the top with the twinwall stuff, but it won't happen til spring if then. the plastic is just a pain- it sags and wants to stick together, negating my airspace, and other things. we used much heavier plastic on the north side this year hoping it would help, and some clearer vinyl panels on the east and south side, hoping to let in more light. mine gets sun from about 10 or 11 til 1 or so is all, but it does warm up nicely on sunny days, at least til mid afternoon, and then the temp hangs & falls. a solar cover for pools (maybe a used one?) sounds like a reasonably cheap way to get a lotta bubbles in a convenient form. thanks for letting me know where you got the therm., root. you can buy the really heavy vinyl overlapping strips in the greenhouse cats, btw.

i've heard if you set a pot of water on top of a kero heater it will help dispell some of the fumes. during the bad ice storm when we heated with it inside, it did seem to really help. now, whether it'd help with the ethylene issue, i dunno. if we get really cold nights, i'll probably drag it out and use it too. our space is 1/3 of the size of john's, so it'd have to be super cold to make it worth it.

no worries about the cleradendron or stroblianthus. someone else will have them, or maybe mine will pull through. my 'nanner looks fine- some leaves are yucky, but others are ok. that seems to be the theme with most all of the plants, actually. sorry you lost so much tj. i know you really liked the nog knock. the cissus was way cool, too. bummer.

Re: The ethelyne gas issue. You can put some zeolites in the area to absorb the gas. That is what has been used for years to ship produce. You use about 2 lbs for every 50 square feet. At the end of winter, if you don't want to store it for next year, you can crush it and use it as a soil ammendment that will help hold water.

I've seen the little plastic egg thingy's that absorb ethylene. The ones you're supposed to use in your refrigerator. But in truth the damage caused was so minor I didn't really worry. For large greenhouse operations with a massive crop of impatiens it is a problem when they switch to kerosene during a storm or power outage but for little ol' me - it's only impatiens, no need to get too crazy.

Like Tammy has said in previous posts - there is something about keeping frost off the leaves of these 'delicate' tropicals. Even though the hoophouse keeps things above freezing - it doesn't keep things warm. And my yard is bright shade not full blown sunshine - yet I get plenty of things to pull through the winter. There is something magical about a thin wall of plastic for protection. It isn't perfect, but it works better than you'd expect.

I am constantly in search of plants that will handle my form of winter care. Some things just have to be brought inside (where they hate the dark and dry) and others would do better just left in the ground. So far, every winter has been different so I have no master list of better plants.

I have plenty of strobilanthes. They root from cuttings very easily. The only problem is that by enduring winter in my hoopey they switch into 'bloom-my-head-off' mode which does not include large leaf formation. They tend to sit still and stay small with short stubby leaves without a lot of color. Most folks would barely recognize them as 'Persian Shield'. And they stay in bloom-y mode through most of the summer. I think this year I will bring some of them inside and keep them under lights to see if I can stop that nonsense.