Hardy Tropicals UK

This plant was beginning to worry me as, although not fast growing, they gain height quite rapidly. Mine is now around 9 feet tall, and is becoming more difficult to house. Although it has some cold tolerance, is not suitable to be left out, as any damage will take the whole of the next season to grow out. I have now moved this to the conservatory, not because it requires the heating, but because it is the only place tall enough to fit it in.

The plant has 4 pups now, but remembering Lucien's experience of removing them, complete pain in the butt I think I will leave then where they are. Eventually the main plant will become too big to house so at that time I will cut it down and allow the pups to take over.

Anyone else having difficulty housing these If so what are your plans

I've got a question about these plants, when do you take them inside? I've grown a few from seed, i wonder what the minimum temp is.

They can be grown cold but are damaged at lower than about -2C in my experience. In California they say they can recover from -6C but they have a better year round climate. When damaged here they take forever to grow out the damage. I'd bring them in before the first airfrost

My small one was left outside in its pot last winter & snuffed it, my low was just -2C. Though if it had been planted in the ground it may have survived... I will give another a go one day!

Nathan, I think the problem with last winter was also the lack of daytime rise in temps. You probably had some of the best weather in the south, but a small plant may have not had the thermal mass to stop freezing through. Maybe worth a try with a bigger one and have some fleece to hand

Dave Brown wrote:Nathan, I think the problem with last winter was also the lack of daytime rise in temps. You probably had some of the best weather in the south, but a small plant may have not had the thermal mass to stop freezing through. Maybe worth a try with a bigger one and have some fleece to hand

True, it was a small plant, only around 2ft in height & it was its first winter too! On the day I recorded -2C it eventually only made it to 2C that afternoon & the temp was below freezing for some 15 hours! No wonder the poor thing croaked... I guess because its roots froze solid in the pot it was a goner... Strangely though a similarly sized S. reginae was also frozen in its pot & it survived, even with minimal leaf damage, that has now been given its freedom planted out!

I did have one of these in the cold conservatory which I grew from seed but it go too tall and I gave it away. This year I have kept the Regina dwarf variety in a cold greenhouse which has been down to minus 5 one night, minus 4 another night and quite a few nights minus two. No signs of any damage at all, I have kept the plant almost bone dry, so it is pretty hardy.