larch in Texas... you cant do that !!!

c54fun

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Thought I would start a post weather it works or it fails. I would love to have a nice larch but they just dont work out well in texas. I bought a small one to give a try. Going to keep it cold in the winter and keep it from baking in the summer and hopefully it will thrive. Not looking to just exist.
I used a foam packing cooler and frozen gel packs this past winter. Soil stayed in the 30's for over 3 months. When it starts to get real hot I will put it into the small greenhouse which has an ac unit. Plan to keep it around 80 to 90 degrees along with shade cloth. Will also be moving it to more shade the warmer it gets.
May not work but I'm enjoying trying.
This is what it looked like when I got it.
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This is it sticking out of the cooler.
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Soil temp.
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I let it warm up slowly by removing the lid but still keeping the frozen gel packs in. Starting to bud out nice now. Just need to keep from baking it now. May or may not work.
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Not to worried about shaping and trimming much. Just going to let it attempt to be healthy first. Maybe I will get lucky and have a mild summer.
 

c54fun

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That's dedication...how long does those gel packs last before needing to switch them out?
It depends on how many packs but average was around 2 or 3 days. Bigger cooler and more packs was around 4 days.
 

c54fun

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Found out quickly that you cant put the packs on the soil. Crazy how much condensation came off those packs. Would drench the soil.
 

M. Frary

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Found out quickly that you cant put the packs on the soil. Crazy how much condensation came off those packs. Would drench the soil.
No need to worry about drenched soil if it's a Tamarack.
They like it juicy.
 

c54fun

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When do we get to see the fruit?:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:confused:


Hehehee....It's posted in the "Fruiting" forum.;)


You must really like Larch!!:)
I was going to make a post about my Tamarind then changed it to the Larch. Oop's. wrong forum.
 

Djtommy

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Whats the temperature like outside the box in winter?
 

Djtommy

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I suspect the big issue will be summertime heat. Larch like warm summer days and cool summer nights, with temps in the 60's F or lower.
Yeah, probably that will be a problem, hard to create a similar environment.
Tokyo area is also too hot in summer and nights dont cool down much.
Seriously thinking about moving up north..
 

c54fun

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Whats the temperature like outside the box in winter?
We had a decent winter coldest at my house was 17 degrees. Also had warm days too. Our winter went up and down a lot. Be interesting if this works. I guess watching the tree will let me know. It's coming on strong right now but who knows in a few years??
 

c54fun

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I did a test in the greenhouse the other day. It was around 85 degrees outside and with the greenhouse all closed up hit 100 in no time. Put up shade cloth and hooked up the ac unit. Normally it has a drain tube for condensation that would go outside. I let it drain back into the greenhouse. It cooled it down real fast. I let it run for a couple of hours and it did drop the humidity some but not much. The greenhouse was completely dry, no water anywhere when I started. I have a white pine grafted on black that I'm doing the same thing with.
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