What is a hard winter?

A question that often comes up is, “How hard was last winter?”  It depends on who’s asking!  For us humans a hard winter is measured by the number of days we were stuck at our houses without power.  Or how slushy the roads were.

North American carnivorous plants are at or below ground level when they are dormant.  The measure of a hard winter for these plants is ground temperature!  Ground temperature changes much more slowly than air temperature.  Factors like yesterday’s air temperature, cloud cover, and amount of snow on the ground all affect the temperature of your bog garden.  Surprisingly, snow on the ground is an insulator!

Here is a forecast for my house 2nd week in February.  My plants and I live in the mountains of North Carolina.  This  winter storm won’t bother the North American pitcher plants in my flower bed:

Check out a COLD-HARDINESS MAP if you’re curious about your house.  If you live in zone 6 then it is likely you will need to put 6 inches of pine needles on your bog garden.

If you’re curious about how much warmer your winter has gotten in the last few decades check out this ANIMATED MAP.

Happy gardening!   Josh