Coping with cold
Hamish Sloan (Tue, 27 May 2003 12:57:15 PDT)

Long time ago Judy wrote:
"Orientation, solar orientation that is, is another major factor in my
opinion. Yesterday's snow squall left a dusting of snow on the
ground. By early (8:30 a.m.) morning the snow was gone from the
sunnier side of the road, still present on the shady side (where,
naturally, our house and garden are located.) Sometimes this shadier
site is helpful. Cooler conditions keep slightly tender plants from
premature growth that gets nailed by a frost - Arisaema ringens has
not been slapped back because it sensibly waits to emerge, influenced
by the generally cooler conditions."

A bit away from geophytes, and a rather late response, but ....
I live on the south, and so north-facing, side of the Kennet valley. I well
remember going out one June 7th morning and finding a few brown spots on my
potatoes. I felt surely this is not blight as I had done the usual
protective/preventive spraying, but this patch I must have missed. However,
the local weekly paper reported a few days later that the local farmers on
the north side of the valley (and so facing the sun fairly early in the
morning) had had their potato crop devastated by frost. Frost this late in
the year is very unusual here, which was why I did not even suspect frost
as the cause. Such frost as had hit my crop had melted before the sun
reached it - it's not the frost that does the worst damage, but the rapid
change of temperature caused by the sun on the frosted foliage.

Regards to All
Hamish
Central south UK
Wettish zone 9