Just when we thought spring was almost upon us following a few nice days, the temperatures have plummeted again. Although not as cold as it could be it has put things back a bit again.
We have a few areas of the garden centre that are heated. The small Tropical Tunnel, home to the Colocasias, Alocasias, Bananas and other tender plants, is heated using two electric fan heaters. These just take the edge off the cold, enough to tick them over. Most of the Colocasias have lost their leaves now but have formed a bulb which will shoot again once the weather improves. While they are in bulb form we keep them dry.
Our hotboxes are also heated within an unheated polytunnel, this is where we start the young plants off. Some from seed and others from plugs. They stay in here until ready to pot up. Some of the young Colocasias are now starting to produce new leaves. We have 4 boxes in total, 3 of them are heated with soil warming cables and the other is heated by a fan heater. Each of them seem to have different conditions, this is good for us and allows us to move plants into the correct box. One has just had a full spectrum LED Grow Light installed to help establish the plants earlier by providing the effective wavelength for the plant thrive on, which can be fully absorbed by the plant to photosynthesise. This enables to get the plants ready for sale a lot sooner (we hope) :). Finally our Cactus Conservatory is also heated.
Let’s hope things improve soon as these dull, damp don’t really make you feel like doing much.