Solaris – Cambridge Winery

It looks like we are in for a couple of cold nights, and they are predicting frosts in this area. I did begin putting on the fleece material earlier but started getting worried that I was going to damage the buds. They are quite fragile at the moment.

So I have decided to let nature take its course and wait and see what happens. I don’t know what else I can do short of constructing a large polytunnel over the whole lot in the next couple of hours.

The Solaris are still looking pretty sad, but the others are doing well. It may be a different story in a few days from now. It’s at times like this I am glad I only have a few vines in the back garden rather than a commercial vineyard. I bet those guys are getting pretty worried now.

A Phoenix bud basking in the sun

In my last post you may remember it was just at the time when some cold nights were forecast, with widespread frosts. Having had a bad experience with the fleece material I had decided to do away with it and let nature take its course. I needn’t have worried, because the frost had no effect on the vines, and as you can see from the picture below of one of the Phoenix vines, things are looking Good:

Unfortunately the Solaris vines still haven’t recovered from the fleece damage, and are only just beginning to show very vague signs of life, which considering they are the earliest variety and should be ahead of the Phoenix and Orion vines, is quite Bad:

And the Ugly? The second of the two Regent vines I planted last year seems to have died. It’s doing absolutely nothing, so will have to be replaced with something else:

To end on a positive note, I took some cuttings from the winter pruning in February and pushed them into the ground, and they all seem to be growing well. I have several of each type of vine, so looks like I won’t have a problem with replacing the Regent, and I may even think about trying to sell them. I’ll leave them in the ground for one growing season, and work out what to do with them this winter. This is how they look now:

Tag: Solaris

Cold nights ahead

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly