Just remembered... [temperature tolerance]

[rebeccmeister]

Here's where we currently are with those various heat metrics specific to life in the low desert in Arizona: daytime temperatures are edging up above 100 degrees F, hovering around 104-105. Hot but not brutal (yet). There's a brief window late at night / early in the morning when the temperature dips below 82 degrees F, which is where I've been setting the thermostat at night so I can sleep and not feel like murdering anybody. So I can open up the house to air it out and cool off slightly from about 3 am until around 7 am, which is when the temperature starts to climb back up again. So, summer hasn't actually hit yet. Real summer usually starts closer to June.

Does anyone know where to find information about the upper temperature limits for ferns? I can find information about lower temperatures, but not upper temps. I guess there's a variety of Hart's Tongue fern that is from Mexico:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asplenium_scolopendrium

...which suggests that moisture/humidity control might be a bigger factor than temperature control. I also have a maiden hair fern that looks like it is getting pretty darned grumpy in spite of misting it twice a day. I have a very small variety of asparagus fern, too, which seems to not mind things too much so far, plus one other small fern that also seems reasonably content, all things considered.

I'm mostly asking because I'm setting the household "away" temperature to 85 degrees for the comfort of the ferns. We used to set the Farmer House away temperature to 89 degrees, for comparison, and at that time I could manage to sleep with it set to 84 or 85, IIRC. My personal temperature tolerance has dropped, sigh, so we're burning more coal to refrigerate DogTown. I also have to figure that this temperature range is better for the household electronics.

Ahh, desert life.

Comments

[bluepapercup]

My asparagus fern started to dry out really quickly once household temps got above 80. They also dry out if they get a lot of hot sunlight too. Mine is potted in a mix of soil and moss and that helps but in the summer it still needs to be watered twice a week.

Overnight Lows

[jamesfduncan]

What I like about living in Catalina Foothills is that though we're only about a 100 miles from metro Phoenix, our elevation is almost 3000' so the overnight low this Sunday morning is forecast for 61 degrees, pretty decent for sleeping and dawn running/cycling. Elevation makes a huge difference out here! Jim Duncan