Hey Mehitabel,

How about a picture? Sounds like you'll be spending a lot of time down there getting your green fix! I just moved the orchids inside, due to torrential rains today followed by colder temps -- I 'll keep other plants, like the osmanthus and michelia, out until it freezes!

Enjoy your oasis!

Jim

If you are using a Metal Halide light only, you might not get any blooms... MH is for growth while HP sodiums are for blooming...the MH is "green" light and the HP is red. I did get some blooms but they were kinda straggly... You might have a hard time simulating blooming time as well...but have fun! :o)

Way to go Mehitabel! What fun this winter is going to be for you. You will go outside and enjoy the snow and come inside and be in a tropical paradise. You will definitely get some scent and your plants are not going to be holding their breadth till next spring.

Katyajini

Hey, Jim. I've just never bothered to learn how to take or post pictures tho I love the ones other people post. If I'm honest, it's about like all the other basement plant rooms, but it's mine, mine :)

I didn't go the mylar route-- too clinical, so it's just white and green. And you know plant people, green is beautiful to them.

What kind of setup do you use for the orchids? I'm still mulling that one over, thinking about those new high powered fluorestcents that have skinny bulbs. Right now they are just piled up any old way in the kitchen, waiting a solution.

Also, do you know if cattleyas have to have short days to set buds? That's what one of the books I read said, so I'm wondering whether they will still bloom if they go in the 16hour light room with the other plants. If you have any ideas on this, I would love to hear them, since my experience is limited-- I've only had catts since last Jan (04).

Hi, Heathen. I'm using the sun-agro bulbs for basements that have a little of the red flowering light, so I'm hoping some of the bloomier things will bloom at least a little.

Mehitabel, I just found out you have a winter shelter for your plants. You should have lots of fun for the set up. You can enjoy to observe the plants, day or night in all weather conditions. But I am wondering how do you manage higher humidity in the area? What is the setting temperature?

Hi, longriver. Well, I am using a minimax thermometer with a hygrometer to monitor it, and a coolmist humidifier, with a fan on the floor below the shelves to circulate and moisten the air.

The humidity has stayed at about 65% max for two days now, and if I'm down there and it feels too clammy or sweaty I turn the humidifier off for a while.

Since it's a real basement with cement walls below ground on three sides, I'm expecting conditions won't vary that much in winter. But I'll just have to deal with whatever comes up.

My worst fear is a pest outbreak of fungus or something like that, that loves moist. Hopefully the fan will prevent that. I'm mulling over whether to get a second fan. If I could just pull one out of my pocket I would :)

Mehitabel, you could pretreat some things with Safer's fungicide if you are worried. Your basement set up sounds great! I bet you will be spending a lot of time in that basement!

Is it jasmine sambac you're putting down there? I get some blooms just setting mine in an east window through the summer so I think that one might do pretty well under lights. Don't they smell wonderful! I may have to try putting mine under lights but I think I would bring them upstairs again when they have buds so I could enjoy them more. I don't spend much time in our basement.

Hi, Christie. Yes, it's jasmine sambac, and I agree they are wonderful! They are definitely worth putting somewhere you can enjoy the fragrance while they're in bloom.

Mine did terribly last winter, and took a long time to recover in the spring, so I am hoping to give them a better environment this winter.

Mehitabel,

I would definitely pretreat your plants with a fungicide. I brought my plants in last winter and placed them in a room in my basement under lights, with a fan and a humidifier. The jasmines were the first to get infested with fungus, then a scale outbreak on my gardenias and murraya, and then mealy bugs. I had to cut most of them down to the bare root and only a few of them came back. Looking back, I should not have crowded so many plants together and I should have pretreated with a fungicide. Not sure what one could use to pretreat for scale.

I'm not sure you can pretreat for scale, Mateus. My friend Don in Kansas says, before he brings his plants inside for the winter, he uses Ortho insecticide products and neem oil and even pours some Diazinon into the soil, and then he sprays everything with dishsoap before hosing it off. He says he also sprays some things with alcohol. He also says he removes about half of the leaves because they will fall off anyway.

This week i treated all my jasmines with soap/neem oil thorougly covering top and bottom of leaves. I loosen up the soil to clean the soil and remove older leaves because they will fall of anyway. I wipe the pots clean with a bounty dipped in neen/soap and bring them inside. Some plants I moved to one of the bedroom and some to my kitchen. This is what i have been doing with my jasmines/murayya/hibiscus. I have been doing this since last 3 years and they survived all these years. One thing I noticed is we should not remove all leaves specially for jasmines with bare stems they don't survive through winter. They bloom through January, but in January I notice some spider mite infestation which is expected due to low humidity. I move plants to shower tub and give then a clean shower to get rid of spider mites. i do spray everyday with water to maintain humidity and this year I am planning to buy a fan for some air circulation.

It has been quite a while since I have been able to get to this website Mehitabel and I am just wondering how your plants fared through the winter with your light set up?

Hi, Bernadette. Thanks for asking. It turns out 400W lights don't begin to approximate real sunshine. Not even a pallid imitation.

Some did great: the michelia, brunfelsia and aglaia did fine. Orchids also did fine. The sambacs, bouvardia and the murrayas did terribly, losing leaves all winter. I think it may have been mites. I did spray them once, but couldn't get them outside to do it again. The bouvardia were sprayed several times, but just wouldn't recover.

If they don't recover outdoors this summer, I don't think I'll replace them. This is my second winter of half-killing the sambacs. I hate looking at miserable sickly plants!

I hope yours did much better :)

Oh those bouvardia!! I gave up on them long ago. I am throwing in the towel on trying to verwinter jasmine too. While my NBJ delighted me by blooming there heads off when I needed it the most (February in Ohio is killer!), my jasmine didn't do as well. As a matter of fact I lost three out of four so there is that. My son remodeled a room for me in our lower level so I added a ceiling fan and used grow lights rather than regular bulbs. We also insulated like mad and added mirrored closet doors which added to the lighting and it seemed to work wonders. It really is my favorite room. Sitting in there when the NBJ are blooming is like being on a sultry tropical island. Now if I could just get those banana trees to participate . . .

Hi Mehitabel, It is good to hear about your winter shelter again. I cann't tell you how many times I have wondered how you were doing with it. And I have been trying to figure out how I might do something similar in my basement next winter. My collection has way overgrown my window space in the house proper. If it is not too much to ask, what have you learned that you might pass on as advice to others? Btw, when I had critter problems this past winter I sprayed of course but I also used a systemic treatment in the soil (and up through the roots) which really worked well fot me. You might try that. I'm counting the days till I can bring all of the plants out doors, and I'll bet you are too. Happy spring. Jerry

Hi, Jerry. Actually, I couldn't stand it one more day and moved them all outside yesterday :). We are having nights in the 40's and 50's for the next two weeks, and likelihood of frost after 4/15 is small here.

What I learned:

The biggest thing I learned is that lights are not a panacea, and they don't even approximate real sunlight. The winter still seems too long, and plants are much more likely to get pests or to sicken indoors, no matter what you do.

The next biggest thing I learned is: Spray everything and give it a gimlet eye in outdoor light before bringing inside.

I had scale on a couple of things that got pretty far along. Digusting. It's hard to see until it's pretty far along, and I didn't see it til I got them outside. Can you believe it?

Put your lights near water and in a place where water on the floor won't do any damage. Carrying water very far is a burden when you need many gallons of it, and you just can't keep water off the floor no matter what you do.

All in all, I was a bit disappointed. I expected too much from the lights-- wonderful thriving plants. That I didn't get. About half did ok and survived without getting denuded. The other half lost leaves constantly, looked miserable or had pests.

Jasmines and artabotrys did the worst. The jasmines lost leaves continually. Ditto the arta, and the arta suffered dieback of several branches. Murrayas lost leaves and got ugly. I think it may have been mites.

Brunfelsias did fine, even bloomed! Michelia alba, too. Aglaia also did well, also bloomed from time to time. Citrus, too.

On balance, it was was better than the crowded feeling that comes from too many plants in your living space. And certainly better than just giving the plants over to certain death. And I enjoyed my trek down there every day and had many peaceful and happy hours puttering there.

But I hated watching some of the plants sicken and come to near-death. It's terribly depressing, especially when you can't stop the decline.

I think I am going to give up on the plants that I can't seem to winter indoors and concentrate on the ones that do ok.

I hope this helps!

Hi again Mehitabel, Thank you very much for all of that information. My jasmines actually did quite well in a south facing window, even a few flowers from time to time. So they will not be among those going downstairs next fall. Some plants will stay upstairs but others can go down; I get it.

I'm envious that you, although in a lower zone, can take all of your plants out, but I cannot as yet. I live near the ocean and we still get night breezes off of the cold water which are in the thirties. But it wont be long.

Thanks again. Jerry