Hardy Tropicals UK

Early in the year i got my first gunnera and trex it's there first year so only a few inches high they are both in pots next to the front door ,given the recent frosts they both look like they have taken a slight battering i have other plants in the garage and wrapped others ,so what are peoples feelings .indoors,garage,wrapped,or leave alone ...cheers will

If you have space then play safe and bing them in the garage. Probably not needed but why risk it? Nothing to gain by leaving outside for the pots to freeze through.

My motto is, If in doubt bring it in. Nothing worse than losing a plant when you know you could have saved it.

i read the title and decided to keep off the keyboard for a few mins

definately bring them into a porch this winter,next year they will be that much bigger,not so much of a risk,not only that,come near end of season,you will have some nice roots to chop and pot up for spares

[quote="redsquirrel"]i read the title and decided to keep off the keyboard for a few mins

definately bring them into a porch this winter,next year they will be that much bigger,not so much of a risk,not only that,come near end of season,you will have some nice roots to chop and pot up for spares [/quote

Yeah I read the title and thought "yeah I better really from now on" lol

Yorkshire Kris wrote:

redsquirrel wrote:i read the title and decided to keep off the keyboard for a few mins

definately bring them into a porch this winter,next year they will be that much bigger,not so much of a risk,not only that,come near end of season,you will have some nice roots to chop and pot up for spares [/quote

Yeah I read the title and thought "yeah I better really from now on" lol

quality

I split some small bits off our gunnera early on this yr,ive left them under the gunnera leaves i chopped off to protect the crowns for winter so its purely an experiment whether they will survive i think..gutt feeling that more than -5 might see em off so i would protect yours just in case,ive got nothing to loose as i have a large patch which as survived 14yrs up to now

RHS Harlow Carr in N Yorkshire grows Gunnera and protects the full sized plants every year, in situ, by bending the leaves over to protect the crown from getting wet.

Article in RHS The Garden (I think it was round about June time) about the folk that look after the national collection [of Gunnera] said that they don't protect theirs as they feel it encourages them into earlier growth in the Spring, and it is that new growth that then gets zapped by late frosts.

FWIW I've never protected mine (that doesn't say anything though ...), but I have been wondering about protecting until, say, mid Feb and then removing the protection so that they don't start growing too early in the Spring.