Has anyone had any experience growing a graft or sapling overwinter? I have a couple of trees that a really small, and I am thinking about extending their growth season to get them better established for next year.
Plants I am attempting this with are apples and persimmons at about 15 inches tall. I understand that they need frost/ chill hours for fruiting, but they are not going to fruit significantly for a few years anyways. At this size, I fear my dog may trample it, or sub zero temps may kill them, or a deer/ rabbit strips them.
Last year, one of my apple trees never went dormant and seemed to grow just fine this year vegetatively, but was wondering if anyone has tried this before. Hard to find this stuff through a search.
Deer and rabbits will still be around when it’s warm out, so you should figure out protection for them for pests and/or your dog anyway.
If you planted them out now they’d have however much time until they go dormant to get their roots growing into your native soil. You can keep them indoors and they’ll likely grow fine, particularly if you give them supplemental light.
You may have problems with mites/scale/other insects indoors though given the lack of predators. You’ll also be stuck taking care of them until April or whenever which can get tiresome.
Those look very tiny and i don’t think they would survive zone 6b because i just left from 6b and it was hell on my plants.
If your garage has windows that supply light, i would suggest sticking them in there and if you live in a fairly safe neighborhood, open the garage door for a few hours if it isn’t freezing temps, to give them some light.
How it started kind of… i have a lot of tropicals… temps in my area went from 70 for a week down to 20 for a week so yeah… moved them in and out every now and then until it got too cold constantly. Then they went into my garage.
How it ended before i got pregnant and stuck in the hospital for 4 months the next year so I don’t have any photos of them hanging out after 2022 cause it was up to my husband so a lot of things died this fall/winter cause i wasnt around…
Since it looks like you only have a few, i would just line them up against the back door with a barrier if i were you.
Also i had a friend who worked for plant companies so i had massive shipments of annuals that came to me from said company that was going to burn/compost for fertilzer or whatever. So… i got a lot of free plants which meant my garage was always full
Just make sure not to water them as much in the fall/winter. When you want them to go dormant, you’ll have to place them somewhere chilly but not outside or they’ll die from shock. Since you don’t need them going dormant now though, i would just keep them in a sunny/warm place.
Yeah I have a good grow light, so my intention is to grow them over the winter and basically skip dormancy. From late october to mid april, I would try to stimulate vegetative growth, then I would either transplant them outside or see if Ineeded to put them into different containers. I already put them into slightly larger ones.
My 6b/7a yard tends to stay warmer than the rest of my area. It is on an incline and has many wind breaks. Even with temps in the low teens, my galarina apple tree continued to grow through winter and my alpine strawberries never lost foliage. Last year was a warmer year though, this year or any year could have temps at 0 or a little below so yeah, non lignified growth can be at risk.
As for the pest pressure, I have cages and stuff, but it is definitely safer to have a tree of 4-5 foot than 15 inches. The caliper is just more resistant to damage.
I’ll try to grow it indoors in my garage. It does stay at around 50-60 in there though, which is another challenge to promoting growth lol.
I have been growing Meyer lemon and Indian curry left plant indoors for couple of years. They are under the lights and watered sparingly. This year I put an oil filled radiant heater and a humidifier to bump the temps and humidity, I am hoping this will help them to speed up growing. From whatever I have read for temperate fruits skipping dormancy will result in physiological issues later in their lifetime.
There’s a really nice and affordable heater at Costco called voltron or something that was able to keep my 2 car garage heated pretty well when i needed it to. It has a temperature shut off too that you can program. Can’t remember the actual name for it but it reminded me of voltron and started with a v. I see them sell it every year for the last few years
Thanks, it’s a small dedicated plant room we use it for seed starting, curing root tubers and over wintering plants.
I used heaters that blow air, but it dries up the room fast. For past two weeks I am using this oil filled radiator which seems to be working well for my 10’ x 7’ room. It keeps the room at 70F in the night with door slightly cracked open and consumes less power than the heat blowers.
It will be very interesting to have my garage heated since it also functions had my home gym lol. My garage/ gym/ growroom/ overwintering/ seed starting/ hvac room
I’ve talked to several led grow light companies about lights for fruit trees indoors.
They all agreed that any grow light for cannabis will work for fruit trees,but not as a permanent source of light.
Using a light for several months during the winter they say is no problem and there shouldn’t be any ill effects as long as it is a quality light.
