On 2010-01-04 12:28:43 +0000, Timothy Murphy said:

Sacha wrote:

I have 2 plumbago plants that both flowered well in the summer,
and well into the autumn.
But both now look very dead.

Isn't plumbago reasonably hardy?
Should admit that this is in Tuscany;
the winter is usually a bit milder than the UK, but not much.

It's not sold as hardy in UK, though in some sheltered and
well-drained gardens, it will take temps to around -6C. I thought
Tuscan winters could be very cold? But apart from the cold, your
problems could arise when the snow melts and saturates its roots,
because they do need good drainage. But I'd leave them until spring
has really got going and see what happens. They might come back from
the base, x fingers.

Thanks for the advice.
The plumbago plants were sold at a garden centre here
with no suggestion they needed to be protected in the winter.
(This centre usually gives quite a lot of advice on how to treat plants.)

I spent many years in Suffolk, which as I recall
was slightly colder than Antarctica,
before moving to Dublin which is having the first snow now
that I have seen there in 15 years.
Tuscany is about the same as Dublin in my experience.
Even today it is around 2 degrees Centigrade;
I don't know what the snow thinks it is doing ...

I'll wait as you suggest to see how the plants do in the spring.
I hope they survive, as they were very pretty.

I'm no expert, Timothy, that's my husband but even he draws the line at
pronouncing on what would happen in Tuscany, as neither of us has ever
gardened there! I will ask my sil who is Italian but she comes from
Piemonte, so....
However, if your garden centre is usually good on giving advice, they
would probably have warned you about these. OTOH, we are often
surprised here at the number of customers who want to buy tender plants
and when warned that they *are* tender, hadn't realised, or hadn't read
the label. You've got some very good nurseries in that area so
perhaps the climate is kinder than ours, overall. This winter seems to
have started hard and early here and while we've had no snow in our
area, we've had plenty of frost and yet the tree ferns retain their
green fronds still. So - to be honest there are moments when one just
thinks "how long is a piece of string", really. ;-)
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
Shrubs & perennials. Tender & exotics.
South Devon