Author Topic: How cold did it get in your FL yard and what if any damage are you seeing  (Read 2635 times)

Orkine

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Follow up to my post "How cold will it get in your part of Florida in the next week" 

I believe my low was 37 (though it might have been a degree colder.)  I don't know for how long.  It was about 41 for the lows by the third night and progressively warmer since.

Most plants  that I left outdoor did OK.  Mango all look fine so far, avocado also.  Jaboticaba also look just fine.  Guava too early to tell, atemoya and sugar apples were looking scraggly before the cols and continue to look the same.

Seeing some leaf turning brown on Soursop (one variety that in the past showed some cold tolerance again appears unimpacted).  Ice Cream beans also had some leaves turning brown.   


JoeP450

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Re: How cold did it get in your FL yard and what if any damage are you seeing
« Reply #1 on: December 28, 2022, 06:31:04 PM »
Not sure exactly here in palm city, so preoccupied with Christmas that today was first day I walked my yard, it’s pretty clear that soursops ( grafted and seedlings) got whipped, immediate full brown leaves do not pass go, while also the few Annona urbaniana that I have got whipped too (this is a Caribbean origin I think so probably why and I don’t know many growing this one for reference to experiencing brief freezes/near freezing). It’s possible others in my yard will have a delayed browning, but so far the salaks seem bullet proof.

-joe

fliptop

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Re: How cold did it get in your FL yard and what if any damage are you seeing
« Reply #2 on: December 28, 2022, 06:36:27 PM »
I had the same temps as you, Orkine. It was really windy on Dec 23. I might have done more damage than the cold and wind with excessive covering (frost-cloth wrapped plants covered by nursery pots or garbage cans). But everything that looked wilty after being uncovered on Monday has since perked back up again. My Soursops look really bad, as do a couple small bananas.

In defense of my overkill, last year's lows when we had the freezes were lower than what was forecast. And NOAA was forecasting lows of 32°F and 33°F. I didn't want to take chances, as I already had blooms on a Pickering and on my Sugarloaf.

I just ordered a temp gun to hopefully get a better sense of temps here vs what is stated by the various weather reports.



Orkine

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Re: How cold did it get in your FL yard and what if any damage are you seeing
« Reply #3 on: December 28, 2022, 07:31:13 PM »
I covered a couple of smaller plants, dragon fruit, a couple of small inground mango that had just flushed new leaves, and a small sapodilla a friend gave me.  I left them covered for most of 3 days and they all did OK.

I am thinking it (covering young plants) was the right thing to do based on the outcome so far.

johnb51

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Re: How cold did it get in your FL yard and what if any damage are you seeing
« Reply #4 on: December 28, 2022, 10:50:57 PM »
Soursops hate cold.  I knew mine, fully exposed to the wind, would lose their leaves.
John

TnTrobbie

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Re: How cold did it get in your FL yard and what if any damage are you seeing
« Reply #5 on: December 29, 2022, 03:50:43 AM »
Im in 9B. The first morning of the cold it stayed at 33 degrees. The following morning it was 34. The only extensive leaf damage was my in ground  sour sop (covered with 2x blankets AND under a giant Oak tree canopy). 60 % of the leaves burned. Some covered mango tree got partial leaf burn while the non covered....no damage even the ones with new growth. 2 uncovered in ground caimitos....no damage. Even my banana trees at different locations on the property had minimal damage. Coconut....minimal scorch/ blade discoloration on the fronds.
The Earth laughs in flowers. And bear gifts through fruits.
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JR561

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Re: How cold did it get in your FL yard and what if any damage are you seeing
« Reply #6 on: December 29, 2022, 05:57:47 AM »
We had about 41 here and only plants that look hurt were the soursops.

Epicatt2

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Re: How cold did it get in your FL yard and what if any damage are you seeing
« Reply #7 on: December 29, 2022, 09:16:54 AM »
Looks like I was right at 32ºF on both mornings of 12/23 & 12/24 although it might've dipped to 31º briefly.  I didn't see any frost in my yard on either of those two coldest days. but I did cover a few of the more tender things (aroids, Colocasias) on my north facing front porch using empty 5- and 7-gallon pots and they were fine afterwards.

I see that out in the yard my large Achiote (Bixa orellana) plant in a 7-gal pot is busy dropping all its leaves.  So far my biribá (Rollinia) seems unaffected.  All the citrus, most of the Annonas, the Eugenias, and bananas seem fine, too. 

But on the front porch my Annona reticulata 'São Paolo' (pink fleshed; in a 3 gal from Lara Farms) has darkening leaves, but I think the plant itself may be all right.  Right next to it on the porch a pink fruited ilama  A. diversifolia 'DeepPurple' looks like it's getting ready to go deciduous after this cold episode.

My several mangos look ok so far except for a 'Pickering' seedling which lost its leaves and the tiny, just startng  to expand leaves on it have turned yellowish green.  WIll have to wait to see if it recovers.

Pouteria viridis (3) and P. campechiana (2) which were left uncovered out in the yard all seem ok.   

And the Meoigyne cilindrocarpa (fingersop) out in the yard in a 7-gal pot seems unaffected.

All in all lots less damage than I was expecting to see.

Let's hope the rest of our winter cold snaps are less brutal this year!

Cheers!

Paul M.
FLA  33610 - Zone 9b
==


RS

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Re: How cold did it get in your FL yard and what if any damage are you seeing
« Reply #8 on: December 29, 2022, 02:32:03 PM »
28, with three consecutive nights below freezing. Lots of bananas to cut back.

Starfruit are strangely still ripening, young leaves were killed. Same with cape gooseberries. PB fruit unaffected and ripe. A few papaya also ripening despite the leaves dying.

Rollinia, guava and red Jamaican cherry leaves are dead. Inga feuilleei and monstera partly damaged. Pineapples, Barbados cherry, pink wampee and passionflower are fine. All unprotected. Citrus and avocados fine.

Protected jabo and miracle fruit are still fruiting. Everglades tomato partly damaged. Jackfruit, pitangatubas and rainforest plum minor damage.

We picked oranges yesterday at a local farm. They ran irrigation and froze the grove to protect everything. The combination of dew point/humidity, wind speed and temps were apparently just right to use freeze protection.

seng

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Re: How cold did it get in your FL yard and what if any damage are you seeing
« Reply #9 on: December 29, 2022, 02:56:08 PM »
All this time, I thought Florida has wormer winter than southern CA because  I saw a lot of guava, mango, lychee, jackfruit farming videos on youtube.

fliptop

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Re: How cold did it get in your FL yard and what if any damage are you seeing
« Reply #10 on: December 29, 2022, 03:45:36 PM »
Good to hear about the Fingersop, Epicatt2. I have some seedlings going, and was debating whether or not I wanted yet another plant to worry about when it got cold. Has yours flowered or fruited yet?

Also good to hear your report on the Jackfruit and Rainforest Plum, RS.

K-Rimes

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Re: How cold did it get in your FL yard and what if any damage are you seeing
« Reply #11 on: December 29, 2022, 05:48:09 PM »
All this time, I thought Florida has wormer winter than southern CA because  I saw a lot of guava, mango, lychee, jackfruit farming videos on youtube.

Reasonably you can grow all those things in CA with the exception of jackfruit. I think the difference is that CA will stay the same low almost all winter whereas FL will warm up again come January - which is kind of when CA Is just starting its winter. I get my worst lows in late Feb or March, sometimes minor frost in April even. FL will be warm well before then.

Glad to read about the FL people who had success overall with little damage!

Epicatt2

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Re: How cold did it get in your FL yard and what if any damage are you seeing
« Reply #12 on: December 29, 2022, 06:01:52 PM »
Good to hear about the Fingersop, Epicatt2. I have some seedlings going, and was debating whether or not I wanted yet another plant to worry about when it got cold. Has yours flowered or fruited yet?

Hi Fliptop,

Got my fingersop about two years ago from Abimael in PR as  a 4-inch pot seedling about 8-inches tall.  It is now about 2-1/2 ft tall. 

It is maintaining its conical, xmas-tree like shape as it increases in size.  It is growing a bit faster (but not that much faster) now that it's larger but apparently it's still too small yet to try to flower or set fruit.  Maybe this coming summer season it will.

Fingers X-ed!

Paul M.
Tampa — Zone 9b
==

1rainman

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Re: How cold did it get in your FL yard and what if any damage are you seeing
« Reply #13 on: December 29, 2022, 06:30:31 PM »
Florida lows depend how close you are to the water and how far north or south.

Gulfgardener

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Re: How cold did it get in your FL yard and what if any damage are you seeing
« Reply #14 on: December 29, 2022, 08:06:07 PM »
Pensacola area hit 24F, 20F, 26F, 26F. My greenhouses did great!

First tent - I have a 12 X 8 with mangos (Carrie and Pickering), avocado and lychee. I had two candle heaters and Christmas lights for the first two nights, got scared and bought a small propane heater for the other two nights. That was the largest tent and the hardest to heat. Only damage was to the lychee with some new growth burned next to the plastic wall.

Second - My BQ longan only has a slight burn but just had a frost cloth pop-up tent, tarp, and a candle heater. Top foliage is was new growth so it got burned but the lower parts are fine. This will be it's second year.

Third - Tent had a tangerine, lemon, acerola, and mango seedling... all made it with only a some burnt leaves on the acerola and lemon from touching the plastic. This tent was a pop up canopy with painter's plastic hanging down and clipped to the frame. Mylar emergency blankets lined the inside roof and sides. It was only popped up half way because the trees are small and I wouldn't have to heat as much. Candle heaters were the only heat source.

I did loose a lychee that was only covered with a blanket and tarp, but I forgot about it the first night so I knew that was coming. The candle heaters (glass encased 7 day prayer candle(?) partially buried with a clay pot on top) worked better than expected. They are good for small spaces which cannot be supported with Christmas lights.
It all seems like a lot of work but honestly it's pretty amazing what you can do to in these situations. I had fun experimenting.

roblack

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Re: How cold did it get in your FL yard and what if any damage are you seeing
« Reply #15 on: December 29, 2022, 09:10:21 PM »
Here at my house, low of 44.4 on Dec 25, with a high of 48.6 and average of 47.2 for the day. Low of 48.4 on the 24th, and 57.9 on the 22nd. Low of 46 on the 26th, with a high of 56.3 and an average of 51.7 for the day.  By the 27th, high of 73. 

On the 23rd, had a high of 83.

No damage noticed or expected. Significant flowering is expected.

FloridaGrower69

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Re: How cold did it get in your FL yard and what if any damage are you seeing
« Reply #16 on: December 30, 2022, 11:18:27 AM »
Here in Sebastian temps dropped to 33 and if pineapple werent in a tent, they were wrapped in cloth. Even with wrapping, some noticeable foliar damage. Nothing deadly, but a good lesson. Next freeze warning, I’ll roll them all into shelter. Survived 2 hurricanes this year...but wounded by the cold. Life goes on. 👍🍍












gnappi

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Re: How cold did it get in your FL yard and what if any damage are you seeing
« Reply #17 on: December 30, 2022, 12:44:50 PM »
I'm in north Broward between West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale and the rollinia I expected to suffer through the 40's here (in ground 3 years) didn't shed a leaf, but my soursop (in ground since 2014) was denuded. Funny because the Rollinia is exposed and the soursop is closer to the house and protected all around by other trees. Go figure. Everything else did well... so far.

Anyway, I hope the soursop comes back but if it doesn't my  success has been ONE fruit since 2014 and it gets the chop if it doesn't bounce back.

« Last Edit: December 30, 2022, 01:03:16 PM by gnappi »
Regards,

   Gary

Julie

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Re: How cold did it get in your FL yard and what if any damage are you seeing
« Reply #18 on: December 30, 2022, 01:31:45 PM »
What outdoor thermometer are you guys using to monitor the temperature?  It got super cold around my house the night of December 25th.  Yesterday was the first time the A/C ran inside my house since the cold started.

roblack

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Re: How cold did it get in your FL yard and what if any damage are you seeing
« Reply #19 on: December 30, 2022, 03:39:56 PM »
Installed an Ambient weather station near the beginning of 2022. Have enjoyed getting local/yard stats, and comparing them to what is reported otherwise. You can link to wunderground.com, and see your stats online, as well as add to the data gathering system.

Soursop has dropped a bit of leaves, but is holding some fruit.

Mangostana looks the same or better (than before cold front).

Green finger lime may be dead, but not sure can blame the cold. May have been the knock out punch.
« Last Edit: December 30, 2022, 03:41:59 PM by roblack »

Galatians522

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Re: How cold did it get in your FL yard and what if any damage are you seeing
« Reply #20 on: December 30, 2022, 10:18:19 PM »
Here in Sebastian temps dropped to 33 and if pineapple werent in a tent, they were wrapped in cloth. Even with wrapping, some noticeable foliar damage. Nothing deadly, but a good lesson. Next freeze warning, I’ll roll them all into shelter. Survived 2 hurricanes this year...but wounded by the cold. Life goes on. 👍🍍












If you have a well, its super easy to set up an overhead irrigation system to ice the pineapples in (just like how they protect the strawberries in Plant City). As crazy as it sounds a friend did an experiment where he covered some pineapples and iced others. The iced pineapples took less damage. Turn on at 37 turn off when the ice is melted.

850FL

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Re: How cold did it get in your FL yard and what if any damage are you seeing
« Reply #21 on: December 31, 2022, 01:01:25 AM »
The first night freeze was a low of 24 here, the second night's low of 19-20F with wind chill (felt like '8 degrees'), third day's high was only 37 and froze again to a low of 27 at night.
No mangos, carambola, pineapples, tropical guavas, and no atemoyas or sugar apples survived above ground. Most will probably recover from stumps or roots though.
Almost all the citrus out of 40 varieties or so are going to defoliate. Most citrus branches themselves are okay, except key lime and ponderosa, which burnt down probably to trunks. Cetennial variegated and nagami kumquats got scorched quite a bit themselves, which surprised me, as well as satsumas, a red lime, hamlins and some sour oranges (out of several varieties) that definitely got unexpected leaf scalding. Swingler rootstocks that still had green leaves even damaged their leaves. One minneola defoliated, two are fine. Minneola fruit even made it through well. Clementines did some of the best. I was thinking the murcott tangerine would suffer but it was not damaged at all, same with tango tangerine and  'mandarin F'. Giant green finger lime looks like extensive damage. I can make a more comprehensive list..
I was also surprised a cattley guava defoliated entirely. Passion vines burst violently. Hap ik, mauritius, sweetheart, Brewster lychees down to main trunks (they are all under 4 ft though). Out of a few hundred lychee seedlings there are a handful that either got nipped just a little bit or were completely untouched. Some of these were pretty exposed too. A big pot with a few of them that survived was frozen solid for those 3 days! A couple longan seedlings were good, out of hundreds. One Hass seedling was unfazed, while about 50 others burnt down to the ground, even 8 footers with 2ft of bark. Joey and Mexicola did good, I think their rootstocks Lula even did alright (one has a sucker and it wasn't damaged). Doni and Russell burned down. I've got a few jaboticaba sabaras and they had light/medium leaf damage, not defoliated though. No stick burn on them either. For dragonfruit, red and yellow both turning to mush, however a tray of a few seedlings had some survivors that did well, while the others around them got mushed. Peruvian apple cactuses really took a hit but I think their tougher bases did survive. Quite a few small and mid-sized century plants with succulent growth got mushed, which really surprised me. I didn't think that could even happen here.
One papaya seedling actually made it with some leaf damage, surrounded by 3 small century plants that didn't make it!

Not exactly sure what to make of everything.. it was a hard enough freeze though! Disappointed in some varieties but excited about the real survivors and now I know what to focus more effort on.
If interested I can take more pictures.


The dark green dragonfruit seedlings are actually dead. Notice some light green survivors right on top of them









« Last Edit: December 31, 2022, 01:04:16 AM by 850FL »

fliptop

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Re: How cold did it get in your FL yard and what if any damage are you seeing
« Reply #22 on: December 31, 2022, 06:17:29 AM »
Gulfgardener, any pics of your candle-heater setup? I'm thinking I want to incorporate them into future endeavors. There are various YouTube videos out there on them; just curious about the setup you went with.

850FL, did you provide *any* protection to anything? Hopefully your survivors come out okay--I know after last year's freezes, some things that looked initially okay eventually didn't.

RS

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Re: How cold did it get in your FL yard and what if any damage are you seeing
« Reply #23 on: December 31, 2022, 08:53:47 AM »
Also curious about your candle-heater setup Gulfgardener.

Great to hear about the jabos, avocados, citrus and papaya seedling that made it! 850FL if you develop a more comprehensive list, that'd be helpful. I'm leaning towards more cold hardy plants in future, e.g. loquat, mulberry, persimmons, Chinese jujube, (others?).

Passionflower leaves are now starting to show some damage here. South pineapple patch also now has some leaf damage (north, west and east patches are still fine, go figure).

I spoke too soon about the PB fruit, it's now dropping some leaves, but has never had so much ripe fruit as after the freeze. All the seedlings underneath are fine. With moringa too, the young growth is mostly fine while the older died.

Green starfruit (Kari) I picked before the freeze have mostly ripened. Sabara fruit are now only about 3/4" instead of twice that size pre-freeze.

Some pics of freeze damaged bananas, papaya, starfruit, passionflower and monstera:













kapps

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Re: How cold did it get in your FL yard and what if any damage are y
« Reply #24 on: December 31, 2022, 10:43:23 AM »
I was gone for the holiday so I finally got to see how my yard did today. It didn’t get as cold here in Sebastian as it did the past couple years at the end of January. We must have stayed just above freezing. There was no leaf burn on the mangoes this time. No problems for the Namwa banana and slight leaf burn on the Gros Michel. My baby Mai 1 jackfruit was flushing new growth which got hit but mature leafs were fine. Surprisingly, my seedling Cempejack didn’t have any cold damage but it wasn’t flushing. I moved all my potted Jabos close to the house and into a wind protected area and they did fine except for a couple seedling Sabara’s which had some leaf burn. A potted June Plum also had some leaf damage.

Up at my parents in Jacksonville, it hit 25 for two nights in a row and was below freezing for 4 nights in a row. We were pretty worried about their avocados. They have a ~8’ Bacon which had some leaf burn and a huge 25’ Hass seedling which had some leaf damage but looks like it’s going to pull through just fine. This seedling tree produces really good fruit and after pulling through these freezes and living unprotected in north Florida for the past 15 years or so, I think I’m going to start grafting it. The genetics are worth spreading around.
« Last Edit: December 31, 2022, 03:11:03 PM by kapps »