Page 4.
 

2006 - Year 13
 

continuing on with the story..
when we last left the CP's they were living on the balcony back in the year 2005.
2005 and 2006 were quite the years of change!

First, I got married in September 2005! 

We got our first apartment together, and moved back to the Park ave neighborhood.
but only for one year..
that season, 2006, was a rough one for my CPs!

Although I loved that apartment, and we really enjoyed that first year together living in the city,
for that one season, I had no where to keep my CPs outdoors! 

Even though im strongly against growing VFTs and Sarrs indoors, I had no choice..
my plants spent nearly the entire 2006 season growing indoors at work.
This was their building:

The tall building in the background..not the resturant! ;)
Kodak's building 69. 
which sadly was demolished, very quickly, on October 6, 2007..
I was there that morning to watch it..it was very sad..
I worked in that building for 10 years,
and its where my wife and I met!

My plants lived in a nice big south-facing window, in their own empty office:

Not an ideal situation..but I had no other options..
they had their nice city view again though!  which they hadnt had in many years.

I was worried about dormancy for that winter..because the plants were indoors all summer,
and werent getting the necessary dormancy cues..(although they were getting decreasing
photoperiod..which helped.)

We were house-hunting through the first half of '06, and we found a house! 
with a big deck!

So the plants moved out of Building 69 in mid-august, 2006, moving into their 6th home..
august was still early enough that they had enough time to properly enter dormancy
for that winter.

they sat out their new deck through that autumn.

Now..with a new house..what about winter dormancy??
Up until this point, I had been a single guy living on my own,
If I wanted to fill my refrigrator with CPs every winter:

Who would care?! 
(I admit she thought it was strange while we were dating..but she had her own fridge
at her place, so she didnt mind! ;) and she loves the CPs too)

But now..im married, we only have the one fridge..I cant fill it with CPs for 4 months every year!
what to do?

Fortunately we have one of those doors that comes up into the backyard from the basement,
with the "clamshell" doors:

there is the clamshell doors in the yard, leading to a stairwell down into the basement,
then a second door into the basement.

In between the two doors, in the winter..how cold will it be??
I didnt know..
but I suspect it will be quite a bit warmer than outdoors!
the plants will actually be sitting below ground level..quite well insulated.
I can seal it up all winter and let the plants just sit there..snoozing away.

I made up this little diagram when I was asking people on the forums if they thought
it would be o.k. for dormancy:

my wife really the enjoyed the depictions of the both of us! 

In November 2006 I put the plants down in there..with a thermometer.
it stayed 35-40 degrees all winter! perfect! 
This will be the new winter home for my CPs..
 
 
 

2007 - Year 14

The plants came out in Spring 2007 for their first full season on their new deck.
Up until now, I had most of my plants in individual pots, but the people we bought the
house from left behind three large plastic urns..I thought maybe I could move all the plants
over to those three urns, and make three mini-bogs! so I tried it..it worked great! 
 
 

Here they are potted up in April.

I had some trouble with birds again, so I hung up the CDs again..
it worked ok, but there was one particulary tenacious mother robin building a new nest,
she kept robbing bits of the moss every day, tearing out plants in the process,
and the CDs didnt work on her! so I had to also add some green chicken wire over the pots!
I didnt care for the look, but by summer the plants had grown right through the wire and you
hardly noticed it.

some early spring growth.

The bogs are filled nearly to the top with pure peat, with a 1" layer of pure LFS as a top dressing.
I use the LFS for looks, and to keep rain from splashing the peat around.
Each bog has a drainage hole about 2" from the top, with a plastic drain tube.
the bogs stay water logged up to approx 2" from the surface. I will get some better pics of the construction soon.
 

To Page 5, "A year in the life" again.
 

back to page 3.