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kindness

Can San pedro survive freezing temps?

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I'm about to move to an area where the lowest recorded winter temp is -4.7 degrees C. Note that this is the lowest recorded temp in 90 years or something. The area does get frosts every year however.

So, I'm wondering if it is possible to plant my pach's into the ground, possibly against the western wall of the house. Does anyone have experience growning these guys in areas which get frosts? Or am I simply going to be bound to a life of having my pach's in pots which move under shelter during the winter months...

A greenhouse is of course an option and one which will happen over the next few years so I can have my other guys growing happily i.e. caapi's, psychotria's and all those who don't like the cold so much.

Any help with this question appriciated.

regards

mz

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Get em in the ground mate theyll do fine, those temps aint gon hurt them at all :)

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I imagine where you are pass that it gets as cold as those temps meanies is quoting, would I be right in saying that...?

I imagine some deserts where these plants grow wild the night time temps get down around zero too.

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They loved the Canberran temps last season, in the ground with plenty of rain during the coldest winter months (very hard frosts for a good 2-3 months). Just gotta really watch overwatering during the cold season, roots can crack open as cells freeze with excess water and then the roots rot as the cells return defrost. But yeah, pedro grow in mountainous areas and are hardy as hell. Certainly wont mind that location by the sound of it - and no dramas on planting them in the ground. Perhaps opt for a more sunny area (a north facing wall would be a safer bet), but they should be fine almost anywhere.

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I imagine where you are pass that it gets as cold as those temps meanies is quoting, would I be right in saying that...?

I imagine some deserts where these plants grow wild the night time temps get down around zero too.

yeh man, gets alot colder at times.

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The thing to watch when you plant in frost-prone areas is to avoid putting possibly sensitive plants at the bottom of valleys, or on the uphill side of a bank or wall.

The cold air decends overnight to these areas and collects like pooled water, and plants in these areas are exposed to the worst of any frost.

As long as you have "downhill" space below your plants so that cold air can 'run away', you should be AOK. If you can get a wall with thermal mass behind them to the south, so that it collects the winter sun and reradiates the warmth at night, all the better. If you're wary about any young'ns, a few stakes and a plastic sheet over the top can really help keep the frost off them.

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Great info thanks all :)

We definately don't get as cold as Canberra. It's going to be lovely to finally let them get into the ground and spread their roots and gain some real size wooo!

My reasoning behind putting them on the Western side of the house was so that instead of the quick thaw of a morning in winter they get a slowly warm up and hopefully less damage due to frost. I have heard that this is a good way to go with other plants so that there is less cell damage.

I guess I can put some both on the northern and western sides and see which ones do better... The house faces north onto the street and I wasn't particularly keen on random teenagers who have stumbled across erowid with tomahawks doing drunken raids on my precious cactus during the night.

I wonder if the cacti will send roots under the house thereby putting them in a frost free area and keeping them happy....

Can't wait to finally be in my own house though! It's going to be a forest! Woooooooo Hooooooooo!

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Grow a bunch of cacti from seed and let the ones die off that can't take it.

Then your left with a bunch of hardy plants!

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I agree with the above. Mine are in the ground in a very exposed location in clay with rainfall plus or minus 400mm (usually minus). The coldest it gets is about 0, sometimes -1. However the bereau of meterology adjusts this to about -4 to -6 sometimes as the "actual" temp. Not sure how that works but it seems correct. Like a day of 38 can be +12-15 as the adjusted temp. I have had no problem in fact they seem to really like the winter, not growing actively at all (in height) but plumping up with water and none have rotted even in slow draining to waterlogged soil. What they really do not enjoy is the warm spring days followed by the cold nights in early september and october where it can go from 25+ down to 2 or 3 which makes them etiolate somewhat before growing club shaped again. But I have seen plants in arid locations with very cold winter nights that do not have this problem possibly due to root mass. In a sheltered location that would not happen so much i think, but the warm days encourage them to grow then at night the fresh growth is exposed to cold, seems to shock em a bit. And then the heat comes in summer which is not great but they are tough as old boots. Trichs grow naturally in cold locations with mild dry seasons or summers with snow only a few hundred metres up the hillside I think they enjoy cold and relatively high humidity. Tersheckiis and larger cacti seems to love the cold most of all, as do those that have a glaucous colour. Everything turns a uniform green in my garden most of the time. The cold autumn nights with heavy morning fog and dew is the best time for bluing. In the ground they can handle just about anything I think, tho they may not look too spectacular at times in certain seasons and grow a bit slower than in pots.

Edit: congrats on getting a house, good luck with the forest!

Edited by Micromegas

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Hmmm thats interested MM I thought they would grow quicker and larger in the ground than in pots due to being able to send their roots whereever they wanted, interesting that you reckon they don't grow as fast or look as nice.

Thanks for the well wishes on getting a house :) it's the first one I've ever owned, just the thought of not having to move again is brilliant! I'm having so many fantasies about the garden! Straw Bale seating area with a cob oven and plunge pool area, fruit tree forest, acacias all round the perimetre, vines scrambling along the fences with a comfrey and lemongrass border to stop the Kikuyu getting through... man am I psyched!

I've been growing my garden under chicken wire on two verandahs here for the last year... if it wasn't possums eating everything it was bushrats or native mice getting through the wire and munching anything that looked the slightest bit green! In the end it has become a sort of fort knox for plants. Every pot has a wire 'hat' with holes so small in it that even the mice can't get through...

Far out!!!!!!!! lol.

So many plants I've been lugging around with me for years now in pots that will finally be able to put their feet in the ground and have a permenant home.

woooooooooo!

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Yeah don't get me wrong i would always put my plants in the ground. But get em started in a pots i reckon as they grow the initial root ball much faster and then plant out in autumn or spring depending on your location. Autumn is best for my location so the roots can establish during winter. Spring and summer plants get shocked in the unpredictable heat and weather. I stick plants in bathtubs they grow twice as fast as those in the ground because the soil is much more fetile not being limited to what's already there and they can be kept more moist. But in the end it has to be the ground so they can do what they like as the conditions permit. Sometimes i get lazy or cuts are too big for pots I just stick them int he ground with no roots, it takes them the season they were planted in and then a whole other seasonal cycle before they look comfortable (i.e. a year to 18 months). It has taken most my plants 3 years to look truly happy in the ground something they achieve in a pot in one season. But they eventually want to outgrow the pot, although you would be surprised how small the root ball can be in the ground. As for not looking as good I mean not as well cared for; hard grown. They grow as the conditions permit, especially if providing water is a problem as it is for me. So in summer they get real dyhydrated and in winter tend to go a lighter shade of green, and then there is wind and bugs to contend with, scars from the whipper snipper and all sorts of misadventure. But in the ground is where they want to be in the end, it's great to see how they grow and suit their environment, how they change over time and how their morphology and appearance can be so different in different geographical regions.

Sounds like you know what you are doing anyway. That's great about the house and a nice plan there. I hope you have enough space to fit everything in and i bet those plants are going to love jumping out of the pot. Once in the ground they get integrated with, and change, the location's ecology and face all of its benefits and challenges. That is what is so beautiful. But oh how I sometimes long for georgeous unblemished pot-grown plants!

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