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Northern Gardening

z5 trying z6 plant help

14 years ago

i am cross posting this in hopes of getting the best advise ever.

ive tied with varying succes several things that are out of my zone (taking advantage of perceived microclimates) this year i planted a Jiro Persimmon right out in the middle of nowhere. so it should experience all our winter has to offer. it is rated as z6 (i could not find consistent sunset info). anyway, ive decided that i no longer want to just let it fend for itself and see what happens, ive tried the whole mulch and tarpaper thing with a fig (it worked but way too much effort). so today i got the brianstorm to put a portable greenhouse over it during Jan and Feb, i wasnt planning to heat it, just harness the sun in the day and block the wind. if we do get down below -10 i might put a heat lamp in during the worst of it.

so, has anyone tried anything like this, does it sound at all like it may work, or if anyone has a tried method i am all ears.

i do have hardy persimmons, but i really want a non-astringent variety and this is the closed thing i could find that had a snowballs chance

thx

scot

Comments (3)

denninmi
14 years ago
Scot, I'm doing the same thing. I love my 'Meader' American persimmon, but the fruits from Americans are really very different from the Asian -- like the difference between a date and a mango in texture and culinary use, IMO.

I'm going to protect mine the way Artictropic protects his awesome palm trees in the mountains of North Utah -- foamboard structures with a few cfc lights for warmth.

Go to the Palms and Cycads forum and look at his pictures on some of his numerous posts. Truly awesome to see how well he overwinters palms in a Zone 4 climate with lows as cold as -45 degrees.

The only concern I have doing this is tht I've always had a LOT of problems with voles getting into my structures and under mulch and destroying things, so I have to do a lot of vole proofing as well -- right now, the plants are in pots, but I guess I'm going to plant them into a cylinder of hardware cloth, and then cover the soil and trunks with the same. Next year, though, I'm going to overwinter them in pots in the barely heated garage one more year to get some size on them before throwing them to the mercy (or lack thereof) of winter in Michigan.
scot
Original Author
14 years ago
i will look up those posts, i think i will give it a go, after all, the worst thing that can happen is it will die anyway. have you tried any castor oil or anything for your voles? my major pest is deer/rabbits, they damage and or kill everything. i had a young buck running around for 3 months last year with a wire tree cage i made for a small tree stuck in his antlers. i planted a food plot for the deer this year out back, and they spend more time there than in the yard now, and i put in some turnips and beets in hopes they will stay out there through the winter too. i have a cactus garden that they always get into in the winter and the damage they inflict ends up causing fungal infections in the cactus,,,,never ending battle.
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ninamarie
14 years ago
You will need to wrap the shrub or the temporary greenhouse to keep out the day's warming sun. If the interior of the greenhouse warms up too much, the persimmon will die, unless you are able to heat at night, too. That's an expensive proposition for one plant.
We cover our greenhouse with opaque plastic, then blanket the plants inside the greenhouse against the cold.

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