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Frustration — Why Now?
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Frustration

by Bryan

So I started my day notifying tenants of the pending Hard Freeze and the need to drip a faucet to save the pipes. I have mentioned this to several of them, but got up with a few more and put a notice on everyone’s door.

Then it was time to protect the camellia – a total failure. I have black construction plastic that is 10 feet wide and was more than adequate for the job with exterior landscape lamp inside to warm the air. I figured out how to get the plastic over the top, but I didn’t count on the strength of the winds, especially the gusts. The winds just found a way under the plastic and blew it away. The duct tape didn’t want to stick in the cold, so if the wind had been blocked at the bottom, it would have still found a way in and blown it away. Camellias aren’t happy in direct sun and the one surviving exemplar is on the North side of the house, in the direct path of the North wind that accompanies cold weather down here.

All I can do is hope for the best. Bummer…

6 comments

1 hipparchia { 01.08.15 at 6:20 pm }

I was late covering things up yesterday, so the north wind was howling through already, and I was desperately looking for weighty things – rocks, bricks, cinder blocks, flower pots, dead tree limbs, bags of cat litter… to hold down the covering materials.

not all of it was a success, and I expect to not know until spring or summer about some of the victims. others, it was obvious this morning were goners. fortunately most of those are self-reseeding flowers, so I still have hopes for some of their offspring, at least.

2 Bryan { 01.08.15 at 7:49 pm }

Yeah, I lost my Easter cactus last year, as well as a couple of large angel wing begonias, that were just too big to move inside. The weeds always seem to survive 🙁

The wind was just brutal. I would need a tent of some kind to protect it. The plastic was just too slick and it slid loose from the bricks.

3 Karmanot { 01.10.15 at 12:58 pm }

I used tent stakes and loose, light weight pine bows left over from the holidays to damp the tarps. We have been getting 30-40mph gusts here—-It worked pretty well.

4 Bryan { 01.10.15 at 7:09 pm }

I have one tarp that is big enough, but it is so heavy that it would have broken limbs. I use tent stakes with that tarp, but the wind would just tear the plastic. I need some kind of frame to support the tarp.

The problem was the size of the bush required two crossed sections of the plastic. I need to work on a solution.

5 Steve Bates { 01.10.15 at 10:42 pm }

“How do you solve a problem like camellia…”

With winds like those we’ve been seeing recently, even in regions where they were never that bad in the past, it is a real problem. Stella has been made to understand that all her backyard potted plants are subject to sacrifice in the worst weather of whatever kind; we still hate to see it happen, though.

Good luck with whatever solution you come up with.

6 Bryan { 01.10.15 at 11:59 pm }

I’ll probably construct a framework from PVC pipe so I can use tarps, which is what I use for the pond/water garden. I can use tent pegs to hold that in place.