All is safely gathered in!

are these not fully harder barbara? lovely

No - I wrote a blog a couple of weeks ago about how I lost most of my collection last winter. I learned a hard lesson from that experience, Sandra!

yes i remebered after i commented, sorry barbara, dont blame you for being carefull

No apology needed - and it's so hard to know what to do, when we could possibly have a mild winter....then they'd be fine outside. I just couldn't lose them all again, though. I was soooooo upset! :-(((((

i would do exacly the same barbara, no point in tempting fate

Lucky I had the extra space, though - they certainly wouldn't have fitted into one greenhouse with all the other plants I have in there!

Thanks, Mum!! :-))

:o)) soon be outside again, roll on spring

What a lovely collection, hope they all make it through this winter.

So many lovely different colours too !

Fingers crossed for you spritz

Thanks - it'll be the electricity bill that's the problem this year! :-(((

gorgeous colours there spritz

They are lovely shrubs! All different. :-)))

and in the nick of time, with that frost we had Monday night phew!! that's a lovely collection :)))

So you are using electric heat in the greenhouse Spritz? I am too but its only a light bulb. LOL
I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you too. :o)

Yes, Gilli - a themostatically controlled fan heater. It's set on 'minimum' for the moment. I'm not sure that a lightbulb would give enough heat to keep the frost at bay. :-( Thanks - and good luck as well!

Nice to see your collection together, and safely "indoors". :-))

:-)) Doing that has made our temps. rise again, David! LOL.

Isn't that just typical? :-)) I think I did right to get my one Coprosma in when I did, and doing so didn't help raise the temp here.

Well, think of where you are, and where we are! Some difference in temps. I should think, David. :-(((

Thanks Spritz. It's all in the name of experimentation here. So far my lowly lightbulb....along with some bubble wrap and an old blanket....have kept my little greenhouse temp right about at the freezing level or just above. The true test will be this weekend when our temps are expected to drop to -20C. I'm worried about all my plants, even those in the ground, as there is no snow cover yet which will make those temps harder on the plants. Yikes!!

Definitely 'Yikes', Gilli! I can't imagine that cold! Poor plants.....and make sure you keep warm, won't you! Brrrrrrrr.......

I've got 'Pacific Night' which made it through last winter safely. Talking of -20C, it has happened in southern England before, but not since the 1980s.

No thanks, Ww!!!! My poor fan heaters! Would they cope with temps as low as that? :-(((((((

Isn't 'Pacific Night' a beauty, though! :-)

What temperature are you keeping yours at? My paraffin heater certainly wouldn't do the job, it did add 2 degrees on the other night - the only things in much danger there are a banana (supposedly the hardiest one out, from the Chinese mountains), and some osteospermum cuttings. Hoping for a mild winter too.

They're on minimum at the moment, but I think I want to keep the temp in one greenhouse at about 6 or 7 degrees, while the other one just needs to be frost-free. That means a bit of dial-turning when it's cold one night! With a torch, too! lol.

Well, it hasn't reached -20C yet. We are at -12C at the moment. Supposed to drop to -16C tomorrow. So far, apart from when the old blanket blew off the greenhouse, the temp has only dipped to -1C in there. Still experimenting.

That sounds positive, Gilli! Your experiment is working really well! :-)))

I find a heated pad on the staging seems to do the trick - but I must check temperatures properly.

What sort of soil do croposmas need?

Just multi-purpose compost - nothing special.