It’s cold outside, bonsais in the frost (12/27/2022)

I am sure that almost everyone knows by now that we have been in for some amazing weather here in the eastern two thirds of north America. We were hit by the polar vortex and what is called a bombogenesis. It was something that was predicted some time ago, I even wrote about it in a post a week ago and predicted that I might need to write my final year’s post about it. Well, here I go.

My main concern was how the greenhouse would hold up to winds approaching hurricane force and temperatures around 10 degrees Fahrenheit or around -12 degrees Celsius. I have most of my tropical trees in the greenhouse and as you can see in the photograph included with this post, I have two small heaters installed in the place. One heater of 700 watts comes on based on where I set it; while the other is 1200 and is connected to my thermostat which switches it on at 42.5 degrees (or 5.8 C). I think this is still pretty darn cold for some of my trees, and I hoped it works. Before the weather blew in, we had some freezing nights, and the greenhouse could handle it well, eventually putting the nighttime temperatures around 45 to 50 degrees.

With the cold coming in, I was nervous, and I also needed to connect our birth bath heater coil to the same outlet. I had planned to wake up every few hours that first night to make sure all went well. We went to bed at around 11 and the temperatures outside had already dropped to 15. The temperature in the greenhouse was a comfortable 55. I felt good. I woke up at 12:30 checked the temperature in the greenhouse with my remote temperature gauge and it read 29 degrees, 3 degrees below freezing. Holy shit! My trees!

I went on the deck naked (we old hippies still sleep in the nude, but boy it was cold 15 degrees being nude on our deck) to push in the ground fault interrupt that did not do it and then I figured out that it must be the breaker. Back inside I found the tripped breaker, reset it and I noticed that a light in the greenhouse came on. This is an indicator light on the extension cord showing it has power.

Now what triggered this? The only explanation I had is the coil that keeps the bird bath water from freezing. It pulls 200 watts and must have been working overtime. I went back to bed without further thinking about it, but after a brief discussion with my wife we decided that I should unplug the thing and dump the water out of the bath to prevent it from cracking.

So, out of bed and downstairs I went. I pulled on my ski parka over my nude body, slipped on some shoes and stumbled outside in the dark and cold to get the job done. Boy, that was cold on the bare legs, buttocks and elsewhere. I described it to a friend, and he wondered about any shrinkage, honestly, I had no time to think about that issue; in addition, it was way too cold for that, so let’s not go there in this post.

Once reset, within minutes the greenhouse was back above 32. I woke up two additional times that night and the temperatures hovered around 45. In the morning the outside temperature was 7.5 degrees or about -13.6 Celsius.

I am not sure if I lost any plants, time will tell. Now a few days later things still look ok, but you never know. One of the YouTube shows I watch mentioned that ficus trees in particular might not like colder temperatures, and I have at least six different ones in the greenhouse. It looks like one of my hibiscus trees is suffering as well, but I think that was from before the polar vortex.

It is now after Christmas and temperatures are supposed to warm up the next week. The day-time temperatures in the greenhouse topped 70 degrees in the sunshine today. I am pretty happy.

I expect that this will be the last post of 2022. So, folks, I hope you all have a great New Year. I am looking forward to the new year as well.

The interior of the greenhouse on December 18.  You can see the two heaters on the tile, pointing in two different directions.  The small cube is the 700 watts heater and the cream one in front is the stronger one.  I had put the tile and cinderblocks in as heat sinks in the hope to moderate the temperature swings.