I don't know how drip works when the drainage is good but might be channeled. I think drip rleies on the soil to spread it around horizontally before it passes right down through and out of the root zone.
>> When I shovel pruned a rose last year, the roots extended out further than the canopy of the rose. Sometimes the only way you know your theory works is when you dig up a plant ...
Nice! I agree. "Ground truth" is the Real Thing. We were responding to someone's question about a potted plant and someone suggested looking at the rotos. The answer was almost "Hey! There AREN'T any!" There's your problem!
>> go into survival mode, which is a kind of dormancy. I am hoping to induce heat dormancy in the plants so that they will need less water to survive.
Smart! Working with the plant's nature. I never heard of anticipating dormancy and trying to ease into it, but it sounds like a good plan.
Plants killed by frost aren't always killed by the temperature alone - they're often killed by too RAPID and unheralded a change in temperature. If they had had weeks of 35 F and then 32 F and then 28 F, they might have taken 20 F or 15 F in stride. But not if it goes from 50F to 15 F overnight!
