Hardy -or what????

[Nicos]

Have to say I'm really quite shocked to find a totally neglected baby gooseberry bush has survived the winter!!!!

We brought back some plants from the lottie at the beginning of November.I discovered a few young gooseberry bushes in a bucket of frozen water when the January snow had melted( shamefully forgotten about!)- So...as I thought the frost would have killed them ,I put them on top of the incinerator when the icecube had melted.
Then we had snow again last week, followed by -14C for a couple of nights.
Earlier on in the week I noticed that the wind had blown one of the 'twigs' off the incinerator, so I thought- what the heck ( as you do) and brought it inside and plonked it into a jug of water on the window sill- still expecting nothing to happen.
Well guess what folks??? YUP!! one of the 4 stems has has a couple of leaf buds which have started to open up!!!!!

So -there's me been saying that gooseberry bushes hate being transplanted, and move with as much soil as poss- and there I am with a twig with dried up roots having been frozen in an icecube and left out with exposed roots to such an extreme temperature for 12 weeks - and it's still alive!!!!

Dead chuffed! ( maybe I should bring in the other couple of 'dead twigs' and see how they do??!!!!)

[BUFFS]

they do seem invincible when it comes to surviving,i have 4 i potted as hardwood cuttings last winter and even though its regulary below the zero,they are in full bud,like you,i had forgotten them,but at least mine were in soil,they are just tough cookies,,,

[Jeanied]

I have a couple of gooseberry bushes to move - to make way for some redcurrants which have stood in pots over the winter - I hope they are just as hardy too, Nicos!

[binley100]

( maybe I should bring in the other couple of 'dead twigs' and see how they do??!!!!)

Do it ..... go on .....you know you want to

[stella]

The wonders of nature never cease to amaze. Thats why I garden

[Glutton4...]

Wow Nicos, that's great! Doesn't it give you positive feelings for the forthcoming Spring (if it gets here)? If you had wanted them to survive, and had done everything 'by the book' the b*ggers would've died!

[HayleyB]

Yep sod's law that is G4...

Anyway, I'm shocked that my curly parsley has remained green and curly all through the winter I thought it was an annual and was sure it would die back but no, loads of parsley...

[BUFFS]

hi hayleyb,i think the parsley plants are tougher than they say,mine stayed in a pot outside through all the big freeze-up,and when i was tidying up i put the pot into the greenhouse,meaning to empty and clean the pot,went into greenhouse today and its growing again,no heat in there,just onwaist level shelf and open to the sun..tough cookies...

[HayleyB]

Amazing stuff and I went to the trouble of freezing loads of it before Winter, unnecessarily too...