Time for an update. Bottom line is there were a few surprises, but things went mostly as you would expect.
The lowest temperate I recorded was 28F, which happened twice. We had a couple dozen nights in the 30-32F range . Not the coldest winter in terms of lows, but there was a lot of light frost. Worst of all, we had biblical amounts of rain which left the soil waterlogged all winter and may have done more harm than the frost.
I chose not to protect anything because I wanted to find out which trees could survive on their own.
These trees stayed green all winter and have little to no damage:
* Allspice - the biggest surprise. Zero damage on this one!
* Cherry of the Rio Grande - looks like winter never happened
* Jaboticabas (Sabara, Red, Trunciflora, Coronata, Grimal) - Coronata in particular looked lush all winter. The others dropped some leaves but are growing back.
* Cabelluda - lost all leaves but it's already growing back.
* Suriname Cherry - dropped most of its leaves, but that's normal. Growing back now.
* Lucuma - I knocked off like one burned leaf.
* Cherimoya (Booth and El Bumpo)
These trees had minor damage:
* Carambola (Dwarf Hart) - burnt tips only. 90% of leaves held on and stayed green. My second biggest surprise!
* Grumichama - lost 50% of leaves but it's already growing back
* Longan (Kohala) - yep, it's the hardy Longan! Only the outer leaves that were coated in frost turned black.
These trees were burned back significantly but survived:
* Ceylon Cinnamon - looked perfect until mid February and then suddenly half the tree went black. Delayed frost damage I guess.
* Mangos - just one of my six mangos remained somewhat green. The others fared much worse (see below)
These trees dropped all leaves but have some green cambium:
* Mangos - 3 of the six mangos are extra crispy, but the wood seems alive.
* Green Sapote - looked good until late in winter
* Lychee - also looked good until late winter and then suddenly shriveled up
* Bay Rum
* Pitomba
* Black Sapote
* Cedar Bay Cherry - all black leaves but they haven't dried up yet
* Imbe - burned down to the last few inches of the trunk
* Achacha - like Imbe, mostly black and rotting except the very base
These trees died completely (but maybe roots are alive?)
* Wax Jambu - the first ones to go the moment temps dropped below 40.
* Peanut Butter Fruit - shriveled up not long after the Jambus
* Pouteria hypoglauca - held on a little longer
* Longan (Biew Kiew) - obviously Kohala is the one to grow here
* Luc's Garcinia - oh well. it was infanticide to put a 6 inch plant outside anyway
* Cherimoya (Pierce) - I guess Pierce is not the hardiest Cherimoya!
* Mangos (Antonio and Tequila Sunrise) - the "cold hardy" mangos from Tim Thompson. In truth, these died before it even got cold, while my other mangos still looked perfect. Not sure why.
I'm really happy I did this, but this will be the end of my "zone pushing" days. I learned that many Myrtaceaous plants like Jaboticaba can thrive here, so I will replace the dead stuff with these and more temperate fruits. To satisfy my need to grow tropical fruit, I'm buying land in Hawaii and will live there part time.
Topic: Crazy Stupid SF Bay Area Tropical Experiment (Read 15628 times)