Ensete 'maurelii'

yes, sorry, I was wandering off topic. In a pot it definitely would. Dave's monitoring, with soil thermometer, suggests that he is successfully raising soil temperature by a few degrees by doing this to his outdoor plants.

Dave thinks that hot-water-watering can be used to stimulate a Flush

 

We have to carefull when we say hot water , we mean warm , I was reading about the effect of warm water on plants , but at the same time we have to remember that warm water on an outside plant can only make damage .......I`ve left many of my plants without water from October up to April , but I thing I`ve done more damage watering them leave them dry ......

http://www.ehow.com/list_7644347_effects-hot-water-plant-growth.html

 

I'll find Dave's post and report back. He's using hot water (I don't mean boiling, but I do mean hotter than hand-hot). This is only on certain plants though ...

 

OK, had a look. Advice & Opinions vary

Some people watering all Exotic plants with 30-35C water in the Spring. (Not Ensetes etc. that don't yet have any roots, this is anything "being watered")

• Sabal Minor, Butia Yatay and Phylostachys (only) watered with 60C and improvements seen
• 21 litres of 30C water raised the soil temp at 30cm by 2C in March This increase lasted for 2 to 3 days at that depth. By watering every couple of days you maintain the rise, and by watering everyday was able to raise the temps generally
• intend to use warm water with H202 for extra oxygen at the roots, but not sure what effect the H202 will have on any inorganic feed. Will not be mixing them in the same can!

Dave leaves a paddling pool (about 200L) out in the sun to then use for watering in the evening. Most Summer's days that reaches 25-30C

 

I'm just thinking that 21 litres every other day is likely to turn the root ball into a swamp.

Might be better to wrap a soil warming cable around the rooting area when planting and plugging that in for a while, on and off, during the early spring.

 

Yeah, I did suggest that when the discussion came up on HTUK and was told I was extravagant ... dunno what the cost of Hot Water is if sun-power not readily harness-able for water heating!

 

I`m tempted to cover all my garden and end of story ....

Need to get some plants first and then see how to overwintering , but next year will be all different story , will keep the plant alive all winter , like I did with the basjoo .....

perhaps , I`ve been in a garden center today and they still had some left over from last year ,very small , bit expencive but they have been alive all winter .....
not sure I really want to wait to get some cheap ensete from Spain and straight in my cold garden .

 

Great minds think alike.
Its only extravagant if you plug it in, and we are talking low wattage.
But you get complete control.

If this had come up a few weeks ago I might have tried it out with the Butia I planted recently.

 

Quite On, say, 25% of the time for 4-6 months and, what, 40W maybe 60W?

From memory 1W is about £1.50 p.a., so on for 25% of 6 months of the year would be 0.1875 per Watt, so 40-60W would be £7.50 - £11.25 p.a.

 

Just over the price of a gallon of paraffin then