2024-01-11 21:00:52
When I search for winter roses on the internet, I get all kinds of tips for protecting the flowers. I have to dress them with at least jute bags, but preferably expensive plant clothing that happens to be available here, how lucky. Styrofoam insulation tubes are recommended for stems: those things that you can fold around water pipes. While most roses tolerate a little frost quite well. In fact, there is little going on until minus twenty.
One plant freezes to death during the first night frost, the other stops blooming, the next continues to bloom unconcerned. Roses belong to the latter category. At least most species. They are considerably less vital and flowery than in summer, but sometimes maintain one or two flowers.
Sugars act like antifreeze
Snowdrops can also tolerate frost, the name says it all. Snowdrops are not yet ice flowers. These grew on the single-glazed window in my unheated bedroom over the past few days. Snowdrops temporarily withdraw moisture during freezing temperatures and lie flat. What they leave behind is a kind of sugar water. Sugar lowers the freezing point, so the plants do not freeze.
I remember my mother stirring some sugar into the drinking water for garden birds to keep the water liquid for longer. Sugars act like antifreeze.
Brussels sprouts and kale are winter vegetables that every vegetable gardener knows needs frost, as if it were a whip that improves performance. This is because Brussels sprouts and kale only produce sugars when they are needed as antifreeze. The fact that this makes them taste less bitter is a nice bonus for those who eat them.
Many varieties of snowdrops and crocuses also seem to only bloom following it has frozen. Thanks to last week, we can count on their white, yellow and purple flowers once more. And to bridge the gap, we still have those few roses, blooming in snow and frost.
Three times a week, biologist Koos Dijksterhuis writes regarding something that grows or blooms. Read his previous Nature Diaries here.
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#flowers #vegetables #frost
