Great thread... I have enjoyed the two little BRTs that I got a couple of weeks back so much that I went and picked up a couple more to experiment on (today). Took them out of the small nursery pots (the first two) and put them into terra cotta bulb pots... a little heat and 6500K light from a set of T5's and they are off to the races. I'm really surprised that they are doing so well because Christmas Eve the power went out twice for a total of around 2 hours. In the morning I woke up to the nerve wracking sound of a squealing furnace fan motor and really cold toes. Managed to get it working for two cycles and then it quit around 9:00 am Christmas Day.
The mercury had dropped out of sight a couple days before the 25th, when an Arctic mass moved in and hovered over the area for the entire Christmas week. At one point, (I think it was New Years Eve) it managed to get to -50C over-night (factoring in the wind chill)... thankfully it wasn't quite that cold during the 25th, 26th, and 27th, but it t'weren't warmer than -30C at any time during the day.
Long story short, I managed to keep the house around 15C in the basement where the trees are and 13C upstairs, until I finally got a new fan motor and installed it in the evening of the 27th. I had a small space heater blowing under the light cabinet that I made and have the trees in... this kept them a little warmer than the 15C basement, but they didn't get light for the entire time because I needed the power for heaters.
In the last 4-5 days they have exploded with new buds and don't show any signs that this mistreatment effected them at all...
I was really hesitant to get these trees because I thought they would be difficult to keep alive in this drafty old house; but they have proven to be real troopers!
Just stopped in here to let Northerners know that they are much hardier than I would have thought... now I'm off to a boug thread to leave a snippet there...
Have fun with the Raintrees!