Eucomis - TOW-Hardiness
Jane McGary (Mon, 18 Aug 2003 09:25:15 PDT)

David Fenwick wrote,
One other tip is to go out into the garden early in the morning after a

I have to disagree with this, at least from the viewpoint of a region (the
foothills of the Pacific Northwest Cascades) that gets much more frost than
David's does. Here, winter frost is frequent, and it doesn't melt at all in
certain shaded areas, and not until afternoon in others. I have a good
colony of the marginally hardy Muscari macrocarpum in a very well drained
raised bed where the winter sun does not reach until midday. Thus, its
winter-growing foliage (which is also likely to be very moist here) is
frozen for quite a while during cold weather, but it thaws very slowly
because the day warms before the sun hits it. Antoine Hoog and I
corresponded a little about this plant, which he finds is not winter-hardy
for him near Amsterdam, and he agreed that its partly shaded site at my
place may protect it to some extent. My plants flower well in early spring
despite the beating they take from the cold of midwinter.

Another hint is to plant marginal bulbs under open-growing shrubs, which
afford some frost protection.

The warmest spot in my hilly garden is a west-facing rather steep slope,
which receives no morning sun; here I can grow camellias, evergreen
kniphofias, and some Californian and South American shrubs that have not
survived in other exposures.

Jane McGary
Northwestern Oregon, USA