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["Alan Haigh" <alandhaigh@gmail.com>]

I wrote an article I recently submitted to Pomona titled True Lies in Horticulture Fruit Growers Should Know About which is about how actual experience in garden and orchard often contradicts the carefully obtained results of horticultural research.  Of course research is always based on a much narrower range of variables than what exists in the outside world- nowhere is this more true than in horticulture.

 

Now that you've tested the pots for escape roots I wonder if there are other protective factors at work here such as the ability of that lava rock to store heat and transmit it to the pots?  Are your cold periods of very short duration where day temperatures quickly moderate the extremes of the night so the cold doesn't have time to penetrate the barrels?

 

Where we get our worst winter damage from extreme weather is after either sudden changes in late winter when trees are just becomming active or after long periods of very cold weather with insufficient snow cover to insulate the ground.  Two or three consecutive very cold nights sandwiched between very cold days can do much more damage than a single extremely cold night.