Frostguard cables

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This area is for Reference and discussion of plant hardiness, overwintering methods and tips, and planr protection.
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marc

Frostguard cables

Post by marc »

Hi, has anyone tried using frostguard cables to overwinter banana's or other plants?

I used them to overwinter my Basjoo's last winter for the first time instead of straw.

Despite spending £300 on 3 cables i found they weren't as good as straw.

Anyone tried them?
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One of my Basjoo's in it's 2nd summer.
One of my Basjoo's in it's 2nd summer.
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Dave Brown
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Re: Frostguard cables

Post by Dave Brown »

Hi Marc, and Welcome to the forum icon_salut

£300 sounds a bit steep, and although a lot of people suffered more damage in the last winter than most years, Musa basjoo generally does not require the straw protection in the south of England. Many just use fleece wrapped around the stems. I have not protected mine at all for 16 years. Ok some of the smaller pups get frosted to the ground, but bigger stems are fine. :wink:

The frost guard cables are probably designed to stop the ground freezing rather than keep an area of air frost free. Certainly soil cables are unlikely to stop a cold greenhouse from going below freezing with temps of -8 to -10C outside. In a more normal winter you might be ok with them, however you don't say what other protection you used in conjunction.

Tell us a bit more about the protection you used and what you hoped to achieve :wink:
Best regards
Dave
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_________________________________________________
Roll on summer.....
http://www.hardytropicals.co.uk
marc

Re: Frostguard cables

Post by marc »

I was told that these cables will keep a tender plant alive to grow from its original height the following year.
I cut all the leaves off my basjoo and wrapped the trunk first in hessian then coiled the cable around the trunk then wrapped bubble-wrap around it leaving the top open so that the plant could breath.

Here is the link from the company i bought the cables from:

http://www.jungleseeds.co.uk/HardwareOr ... k/d27.html

Bigger plants, bigger satisfaction???
Adrian

Re: Frostguard cables

Post by Adrian »

I havent used the frost guard cables but the much cheaper soil heating cables.

Here shows how I used them to get my Phoenix canariensis x roebelenii through the -9s.
The original protection of a pop up fleece bag with a pop up clear plastic bag over the top worked fairly well but as the temperatures dropped I noticed the leaves starting to burn so I dropped the fleece bags and added two heating cables wrapped around bamboo canes to keep them from touching the fronds.
From the point that I added the cables then no further damage was encountered.
the heating cables werent used all that much and mainly being turned on at night, I think they were only left on through daytime as well for 5 or 6 days.

Im not sure of the wattage but one was 8 watts and the other might have been 15 watts so not too expensive to run.

The last picture was taken after the fleece bags had been removed in March and the visible damage was done before the cables went on.
Ill be using them on this palm again next winter but they'll go on from the start.
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