Storage for winters: Lights on or off

8 years ago

Dear Forum members, I have a question for you.When you put these plants in for the winter(in your garage etc) do you leave the lights on or off?Do they survive without any lights at all.We have cold season here from end Dec to end Jan when temps touch 2-3 ○C for a few days.As I only have a terrace on which I keep them, I am wondering what should I do for the winters as I cannot keep them inside the rooms in my flat.I have about a dozen 13inch pots. Kindly advise please as to what I should do

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Pagan

8 years ago

Hm. That is tricky. I've killed adeniums with temperatures below 10C. It is the persistence of low winter temperatures that kill them. I have never pushed them as far as you are planning to do. Plumeria growers unpot and defoliate their plants for storage in winter. I have never done this to adeniums though.

If I were in your position, I would try that strategy since we know that growers in Asia do exactly this to their plants during root training. They hang them for months for reshaping. You'll have to keep them indoors in the warmest part of your apartment though. I'd probably keep them lit, as well.

Pagan

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Comments (6)

Sinha
Original Author
8 years ago
Thanks for your reply Pagan.

The temps stay that way for about last few days of Dec and first 2 weeks of Jan.

I was not planning to unpot & hang them...too much work. I have a balcony which I can kind of cover on the open side, to keep them in for that period however, they would be in dark.

I was basically wondering if they could live in darkness for those 2-3 weeks. Am sure the leaves would fall off if light is held off for that long, along with no water and cold temperatures. I am mostly worried about the grafted ones, because I feel they are not as hardy and acclimatized as the arabicums (ungrafted).

Requesting more inputs of other members living in northern hemisphere regarding best practices for overwintering these as the winters there are more severe than ours... or any old links in this forum...
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First, the heat comes FROM the garage floor (geo-thermal), so you don't want to isolate the bottom of your containers from the floor, as that would insulate them from the heat source. Set your containers directly ON the floor to take advantage of both conductive and radiant heat coming through and rising from the floor. If your tree is small enough, simply overturn a box and cover the entire tree. The open end of the box goes down - against the floor, and the top of the box is the closed end in this arrangement. If the tree is too large or too tall to completely cover, use the box in the same fashion, but cut a slit in the box and a hole in the top (former bottom) of the box to accommodate the trunk. This usually requires you to measure the appropriate ht of the box and cut it down to that ht so it will accommodate the trunk - especially when there are multiple trunks involved. In the case of multiple trunks, you want the box to be of a ht such that the hole to accommodate the trunks is as small as possible. If Martin's goal is to keep the roots warm, it would be better, when using that arrangement, if he set the boxes up on a shelf. It appears that the bottom of the box (unless it is open) is isolating the plants from the heat source (the floor). Cold air sinks to the floor, so the coldest spot in the garage is immediately above the floor. If the pots are insulated from the heat source, root temperatures will be colder on the floor than at any other spot in the garage. An open top doesn't trap heat from the floor, either. The method I described not only traps heat from the floor, but it also insulates roots against extreme cold - like if you forget and leave the door open on an extremely cold day. You can try this and monitor temps - you'll be surprised at how warm it is in the box. Also, keep in mind that the slab will be much warmer near the wall common to house/garage if you need to take advantage of that fact. Also - insulation doesn't help unless it aids you in trapping heat IN the box from some other extraneous source. In this case, it would be the floor. Insulation in the overturned box is unnecessary, though I wouldn't hesitate to use a little tape and insulation to seal the slit in the box (if req'd) and to seal the hole around the trunk. Al
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addicted2plants Southern IL USA
8 years ago
Hi Sinha I haven't personally experienced a dormancy period since most of my plants are still seedlings they are indoors. My outdoor larger specimens will be put indoors for the cold season. They will receive as much natural light as one south facing window can provide. They will be kept in a heated room. I will not be unpotting them but they will not get watered until they begin to show growth again. I wish I had more experience to provide you with some suggestions. Do you have a storage area or shed?

Tracy
Sinha
Original Author
8 years ago
No shed just a long side balcony which I think I will cover with a transparent polythene sheet. That way they will get some light, I think
Pagan
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
Did you mean sealing your balcony from top to bottom and end to end? If so, then it basically becomes an extension of your house, especially if you are using material that will keep some heat in. Adeniums will go dormant in the dark but only ish. I've tried storing them in a closet once but since they were warm in there (about 20C when the heat is on during the day), they kept putting out leaves anyway, albeit very slowly. Without water, the leaf buds sometimes dried out. That was five months in the dark for three adult grafted plants.

Your balcony will be colder, especially since the floor is concrete. I strongly suggest getting planks of wood and carton on top of that to keep the pots off the concrete. The cold damage that happened to my Jaw Phaya started from the roots--I left it out on the concrete porch long before frost even started. I am betting the substrate was getting significantly colder than ambient temperature.

If you can hang a few shop lights in that space, that can only improve their situation. Place them close to the top of the plants (i.e. 5 to 10 cms, if using T5HO fluorescents). Or you can read all the posts here about LED lighting.

Also, don't take out the leaves, it will just expose raw spots. Let them drop on their own and clean out the debris. If you are not lighting them, do not water. Do not feed. Your plants will not respond uniformly to stress either and you might lose some.

Pagan
Sinha
Original Author
8 years ago
Thanks Pagan.I won't water them during that time and keep them elevated. Can't install lights in such a small place as its not feasible. You understood my exact problem . Appreciate it. :)

Storage for winters: Lights on or off

Pagan

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