Dave
>WOW, OTHERS WHO TRIED THIS ON SMALLISH CEPHALOTUS PLANTS LOST
>THEM. THIS IS THE FIRST I HAVE HEARD OF A PLANT MAKING IT
>THOUGH FREEZING WITHOUT ANY DAMAGE. COULD YOU PLEASE ELABORATE
>ON THE SIZE AND OTHER CONDITIONS IT WAS IN?
First, I emphasise I did NOT conduct experiments. I accidentally left my
Cephalotus outside in Winter!
The plant was one I grew from seed, which I harvested from a plant I
previously grew (and still have). Both plants have spent their entire
lives in my greenhouse. The plant I forgot about is mature with good
size pitchers, about 8 of them, and a few winter leaves. The pot is
thin plastic, of the type you use once and throw away (but I fogot to
change it!). The whole thing measures about 3-4 inches sqaure by about
4 - 5 inches deep (i.e. a full legth pastic pot).
It was standing in an aluminium tray bench system that had collected one
inch of standing rainwater. The tray was against a South facing wall.
However, where I live, South facing may be warmer but it is considerably
exposed and gets the worst of the local wind. The plants have been
exposed to several night frosts and then got a few days of total
freezing. Litterally the standing water in the tray, the pot of soil
and the water in the Cephalotus traps all froze completely solid. At 3C
it took about 3 days to thaw out when I finally found the plants
outside. Oh yes, light was direct sunlight with no protection (but its
fairly weak in winter and about 9 hours duration.
Wind chill factor meant temperatures felt like -10C or worse but
actually stayed fairly constantly at between -5 to -8C for about 3 days.
It was generally cold for a lot longer, including repeated night time
frosts and occassional day time frost or freezing (but these occassions
each lasted hours rather than days).
The Utric was an accidental colony in the same pot.
The soil used is a peat and sand mix with a majority of medium grade Perlite
(medium = grains about 4mm).
It's two or more weeks since I brought the plant in and it's definately
survived and is healthy.
I don't recommend this as normal treatment but I'm definately going to
risk a planyt outdoors over winter next year, just to see how hardy this
plant can be.
Regartds
Paul