My greenhouse is kept at 60F lows in the winter, rarely goes much above that during the day, and although my species and hybrid Phals do alright at that temp, they don't really like it. Most Phals prefer warm to hot temperatures and do best in the 70-90F range. But they make it through my 60F winter nights, although the spikes on the hybrids usually are delayed as they slow down and even stop growing until the temps get warmer. The species Phals usually bloom in the summer and don't spike during the coldest months anyhow so that is not an issue. My suggestion to you is to keep them as warm as you can. 50F is definitely too low, even 60F is a bit low to keep them completely happy. But put them in the warmest location you have in the house and let it go from there. They should do okay and grow for you. (Don't go by the house thermostat but rather check the high and low temps exactly where the plants are) Arthur, I leave my lindenii (and wilsonii) outdoors all winter down to just a tad above freezing, and keep them in the air-conditioned house during the summer heat. These are cool-growers and will croak if kept with other Phal species and hybrids in warm temps.

I had mine out all winter, and they would look somewhat unhappy as the winter wore on, but sprang back come warmer weather. I think it set them back quite a bit, I think you would have a greater chance of getting a sweet fruit and a more attractive plant if you gave them a warm place for the winter. I'm in Sunset 23. I grew them for several years and got several fruits, one was particularly memorable for being super sweet and super tender melt-in-your-mouth. Yum. If you have a south-facing light colored stucco wall, they may be very happy with that for the winter, but in the summer the reflected heat seemed to be too much, though that may have been because they didn't get a lot of water. They were fun to experiment with. I grew all of them from the tops of pineapples we bought at the grocery store.

I have lived with hydronic radiant heating under oak T&G over a concrete slab. It is a wonderful heating method. However it is not a quick response system so I question whether raising the temp of the boiler will result in an increase in room heat over the next few days, or in enough time to cover the next few days of frigid weather. (I am much north of you in the upper Hudson Valley so I'm having the cold snap as you, only colder.) If you have a tile floor over the radiant heat it may not hurt to try turning it up (though your fuel costs may be significant). But if you have wood over the radiant heat, I'd be leery of raising too much, too quickly or at all. Wood does work over radiant, but it isn't the easiest and best top surface. You could see some separation between the boards promoted by the higher temps and lower humidity. I'd try warm slippers and a sweater for the next few days and just consider it one of the small, occcasional, prices of having an otherwise extremely efficient highly livable heating system. HTH L.

It won't be a chemical you add, it will be genetic modification. Scientists have already tentatively studied this and know the chemicals involved; tracing, cloning, inserting and amplifying the genes would not be impossible these days but still not anywhere near dirt cheap enough to motivate some party to do it for any reason other than agriculture. There was a scientist/horticulturalist doing work related to this in DC but in conversations with him the impression you get is he moved on and sold his lab equipment because it would be hard to successfully commercialize. His investors didn't think he was a big enough party to pull it off so didn't give him anymore money, but the big parties (Syngenta, etc) will only be interested in agricultural applications for the foreseeable future. So...zone 7 hardy Date Palm? Expect it to be a college student's toy/pet project in 25 years, maybe; not a Monrovia Nursery project in the next 5. Horticulture is a very bottom line business, and is getting more so. Their genetic research will be focused on making plants cheaper to produce...not necessarily interesting for us. This post was edited by davidrt28 on Tue, Dec 16, 14 at 4:08