The cold weather causing havoc

The cold continues and reports say that we have not experienced cold in this way in over 30 years!

And don't the plants and the flowers know it! There's just no activity. If gerberas go into hibernation, ours are. It is so embarrassing to tell our florists that we have no flowers and judging by their comments other growers have the same problem. Gerberas love warm weather, and as winter is nearing the end we look forward to some more action in the hot house.

We can't do much of our maintenance, as the plants are already stressed and any culling of unwanted leaf matter must wait until the weather is better.

The other morning MM opened the door of the cold room where we store the freshly cut flowers, and he got a rush of hot air. Initially he though the cold room was malfunctioning, but it wasn't. It was actually warmer in the cold room that it was out site. The cold room temperature is 9 degrees, and it was 0 in the hot house.

We have beautiful clear days but the temperature even during the day is not enough to stimulate much growth or flowering.

Life goes on. We take the good with the bad.