dave- sorry about the delay-been real busy here lately...
Bernard Gephart(Gephart Greenhouse) out of Indiana told me that coleus do not like it any less than about 60 degrees, and at 55 the leaves will start to drop off. I have found this to be dead-on. This does not mean that they will die, but it will take just that much longer in the spring to get going on schedule. My shade house is just that--its for shade, and is not insulated very well. At present I have to layers of tarps over it, and a few blankets. I can keep the temp at 60-75 with the aid of a jet-heater. On really cold nights (24-32 degrees), the heater comes on about 4 times an hour for about 90 seconds. It heats the 10x20 area pretty quick, but it loses it pretty fast also. The price of kero is 4.59 a gallon!! A dollar and a half more than 93 octane gas----go figure---so, if its a cold night, and the temp during the day doesn't go above about 55, the heater runs a lot--5 gallons in a 24 hr. period--thats about 23 bucks in fuel a day. So if you got a week of cold temps, well lets just say it gets costly. I've probably spent about 250 dollars since the first week in Jan. on fuel.!!
That brings us to the discussion we had the other day about me building a real greenhouse so this doesn't happen again.
I'm also growing some queen palms and ferns. They only have to be kept above 32-no big deal. But the coleus is a different story. Had I known this last Nov. when I took the plunge for coleus--I would have just took cuttings like everyone else, and stored them in the house. Too late to turn back now. Hopefully not too much more cold...............
