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overwintering Drastic Cutback Overwintering...
- Thread starter Josh
- Start date
skealo said:
Yea I have been meaning to post on this thread. Basically I lost two plants that I brought up. At the end of last season I didn't thoroughly clean off the root ball. As a result, I was concerned that I would have an aphid problem that would transfer to my seedlings. I decided to pull the plants up, wash them completely off and repot them. This turned out bad on both. I apparently failed to get the dirt in between all the roots. This caused air pockets to be left beneath the soil which resulted in mold. It is funny to think that they survived for months in my cold basement with no light only to come up into better conditions and die. I noticed that one of the plants even had small new roots when I cleaned them off. I have one left and am not sure what I am going to do with it. Maybe wait and see if I can keep it alive until May. Then I can stick it outside. This experience was helpful though. At the end of this season I will thoroughly clean the dirt from the roots, trim the roots back to a greater degree, and repot them being sure not to leave any pockets. Hopefully next time around I will have better luck.
My overwintered 7 POT (I think of her as the queen from ALIENS
) has had 47 flowers pinched by me THIS WEEK....
The thing is going to explode when I plant it out.....
I will post pics, but for now just know that I am cutting off the top 2 inches or so every other week.
It is now in the holding tank with my biggest seedlings.
It gets 14 hours of light now and is loving it.
By june it will be lethal.
) has had 47 flowers pinched by me THIS WEEK....The thing is going to explode when I plant it out.....
I will post pics, but for now just know that I am cutting off the top 2 inches or so every other week.
It is now in the holding tank with my biggest seedlings.
It gets 14 hours of light now and is loving it.
By june it will be lethal.
I had quite a few overwintered plants die this year, but I learned some lessons, and most of the ones that did survive are getting huge. I've had to set-up a new temporary grow area in the basement for these big plants, which is also close to my greenhouse, so hopefully I'll be moving plants out during the days soon.
I learned a few lessons this year too. If you have ripe pods on an OW plant, pick them ASAP to take stress off the plant and reduce attraction for bugs. Especially with my Choc Habs, once the pods were gone, just cut them back and water only when the container feels light. Not often. The only ones that did very well w/o a drastic cutback were my Jalapenos (3/3 survived) and my Manzanos (2/2) and both made fresh pods all winter. Those Manzanos are amazing IMO, hard to kill and aphids don't seem to like them. Not sure why the aphids stayed away from the Jalapenos, maybe because they were on the floor by my sliding basement door and that had to be the coldest spot at night. And we had our coldest overall winter in Virginia for many years. If I had to do it again, I would have cut back my Japones, Hawaiian Sweet Hot and NUMEX Big Jim. I only battled aphids on those at the end (February) and they survived, but were weak. I lost 1 of 2 White Bullets and my only Gold Bullet - all 3 were cut back and I'm convinced the 2 died from overwatering and root rot. When they are cut back, they need much less water than usual.
Here's one of my favorite bonsai'd plants starting to get huge, and loving the recent sunny weather. Its a cut-back Guadaloupe hab from 2008 with a real nice stalk on it. I had to zip-tie the stalk in the fall as it was beginning to split but it seems to be healing pretty good now. It looks like its going to have a lot of weight to support
I have resigned myself to a drastically cut back, but with full light overwintering.
Tons of pinching and some ferts.
My overwintered plants this year are HAPPY.
I have also added a once monthly SOAKING, where I put the plants under running water and let them flush, so to speak.
Tons of pinching and some ferts.
My overwintered plants this year are HAPPY.
I have also added a once monthly SOAKING, where I put the plants under running water and let them flush, so to speak.