Fingers Crossed for a Fab February

Thank you, Punxsutawney Phil!  Hooray!  The country's most famous prognosticator has predicted an early spring!  The extended forecast in my area has been looking downright summer-y, but I do know one can never know for sure what weather will do.  And, really, it never snows where I live, and we have no hibernating animals at all here, much less a groundhog who predicts the future.  So do the rules apply to my neck of the woods?

Gentle January

With a cold and frigid December...one for the record books actually...I had really dreaded what January might have in store.  But in the end, it was such a soft, gentle January, as January's go, with so many spring-like days to enjoy.  Today, there is evidence that the garden has begun springing back to life.  There are little leaflets peeping out of the ground beneath dead branches of pentas and clerodendrum.  Brightly colored foliage is rising out of the stems of the crinums and bananas.  If February holds out for us, and it does look promising, I do think we shall have a splendid and floriferous Easter this year.  (It's been a while!)

The Many Sides of my Florida Winter

Gardening here in the center of the peninsula can be quite a challenge, which is why readers of this blog are exposed to such a roller coaster of my emotions.  I am one of those rare Florida gardeners who have planted deciduous trees...the crape myrtles and red maples and Drake elm.  While I love them the rest of the year, I truly hate them in winter.  Their naked branches add such a feeling of doom and despair to my garden landscape in winter.  And, oh, there's those tropicals.  While we do have blessed green, lush winters that are reminiscent of the tropics, we also have winters that leave our tropicals in a state of brown devastation.  This winter, as well as the last two, have been such winters here in the valley. 

Hindsight is 20/20

You know the old saying, "Hindsight is 20/20"?  Well, I'm seeing things pretty clearly these days.  As I walked through my garden today carefully peeling off sheets and blankets from my tenderest of tropicals, I was seeing everything I had done wrong and everything that should've been different.  If only I could hit rewind and plant this garden again from scratch!

A Big Sigh of Relief

Oh, how wonderful it feels to get back out on morning and evening walks in the garden!  I've been out there very little throughout December, due to the cold.  Actually, the only time I've spent out there this week has been for the laying on of blankets and sheets.

INCONCEIVABLE!

"That would be inconceivable."

"Stop doing that.  We can all relax.  It's almost over."

"As I told you, it would be absolutely, totally, and in all other ways, inconceivable!"

What Remains

After three devastating December freezes, I searched my garden today for what blooms might remain.  It was no surprise for me to see the usual suspects still shining brightly: bottlebrushes, roses, thryallis.  The red cestrums and gerbera daisies were still lighting things up as well.  Of course, they hate our summers here, so it is good that they can take a little cold.  I'm quite pleased to find the newly acquired Chinese Hat Plant still strutting its stuff.  I bought it from a local backyard plant sale, but I still worried a bit about its cold hardiness, and wasn't sure if it would get killed to the ground and then come back in spring, or if it would be evergreen.  Oh, and one of PITV's toughest-ever plants, the Spathiphyllums, are still holding out....they're pretty much the only white left in this now-brown garden punctuated with occasional bursts of green, red, and pink.  Very Christmas-y, huh?

Who yelled "Encore!" anyway?

Well, we got through our first frost of the winter that hasn't even technically begun.  I am still breathing, the heart is still pumping.  The temperatures are going to warm up nicely for us here in the valley this weekend...just a teaser, really, as Jack is coming back to visit again next week.  Ugh.  This is quite uncharacteristic of December, but who knows anymore?  I'm so glad I chose 2010 to start garden blogging!

Garden Walk on the Eve of a Freeze

We shall see how this garden looks in 24 hours. 
This is just a quick post to pay my last respects to a few beauties.

Sunny Weekend + Evil Foreboding

So here it is....  It's official. My little spot o' Florida is under a freeze watch for Monday and Tuesday nights.  I am truly almost speechless.  With five full winters under our belt, I can honestly say this garden has ne'er seen a December freeze.  What does this mean for the rest of winter?

Rainy Days and Mondays

"Rainy days and Mondays always get me down." That's how the old song goes, and I admit, sometimes rainy days do get me down.  And most of the time, Mondays get me down.  But on a warm day in March when a frost-burnt Florida garden is aching to spring back to life, two straight days of downpour are a good thing, maybe even downright cheerful!  As for this Monday, well, it's spring break here (!) and my sister and I took our daughters to the city for lunch, a movie, and a little shopping.  Pretty good for a Monday!  Back in the garden, my spirits were also lifted.  I had been too busy elsewhere to really comb through my own garden the last few days.  But I did find time for a wet walk-through this morning.  I am so happy that there are a few new leaves and new blooms to report, along with some old standbys. 

It's only "Mostly Dead"!

"Woo-hoo-hoo, look who knows so much. It just so happens that your friend here is only MOSTLY dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive...."

Don't rip out that plant yet! It's only "mostly dead"! In the cinematic masterpiece The Princess Bride, Billy Crystal's character Miracle Max words it quite eloquently: there's a big difference between "mostly dead" and "all dead"! Right along with the rest of Florida, I groaned and moaned and fretted and despaired during the "Arctic Blast" that hit the Sunshine State earlier this month. But, I'll be honest with you. This ain't my first rodeo. Although I abhor the beigeness I see right now when I peek outside, the scene really isn’t unfamiliar to me. It is my truth. My ugly truth. I am embarrassed to admit it. I only live in paradise about 9 months of the year. I see this beigeness nearly every winter. I live in a little cold pocket of Florida, yet I insist on growing Zone 10 tropical plants. It only seems fair. We are left with such little variety if we only grow the ideal plants for the 9/11 cold/heat zone combination we dwell in. And I want variety. So I have seen this type of devastation in my garden in the past. Fortunately, it has taught me which plants can take it and which can’t.  Many tropicals actually CAN be grown here long-term.  They get cut back every winter but return to full glory by summer.  I like to think of these as "tropical perennials" in my garden.  After all, perennial gardens are quite common up north!  Here’s my list of plants that may look "all dead" in my Zone 9 garden, but they’re really only “mostly dead.”

Branching Plants that are root-hardy in Zone 9:
(Trim back when you see new buds)

Hawaiian Ti Plants (photo on left)
Hibiscus rosa-sinensis
Bougainvillea
Blue Plumbago (middle photo)
Pentas (photo on right)

Be especially patient for these to return:

Allamanda (first photo)
Crotons
Powderpuff (Calliandra spp.) (2nd photo)
Firebush (Hamelia patens)
Chenille Plant (Acalypha hispida)
Red Cestrum (3rd photo)
Golden Dewdrop (Duranta erecta)
Tibouchinas
King's Mantle (Thunbergia erecta) (last photo)

Never Root-Dead (though we sometimes wish they were!):

Jatropha (left photo)
Clerodendrons (all types) (middle photo - C. quadriloculare)
Pothos!!! (right photo)

 Clumping Plants with Crown Growth
(Cut away the old, dead stuff when new, green leaves appear in the crown.)

Stromanthe (left photo)
Peace Lilies
Philodendron (middle photo)
Cannas
Crinums (right photo) - I wait until the slimy mess dries up before pulling off the dead leaves.
Shell ginger (Alpinia) - All other gingers in my garden naturally go dormant during winter.

Especially Cold-Tender:

Pygmy Date Palm (left photo) - Only leaf damage; the crown is always alive here. Could be a long wait for green leaves.
Areca Palm (middle photo) - May lose whole trunks, especially the tallest, but some are always alive.
Giant Bird of Paradise (right photo) - While the smaller orange bird is pretty cold-hardy, the Giant Bird gets fried every year in my garden, but it always comes back.

In the Aftermath...

Well, the worst of winter is hopefully over after last night's drop into the 20's. I went out today to survey the damage. It's not as bad as I feared. The south and east sides definitely fared worse than the west and north sides. I think the shady cover from an ancient oak tree had something to do with that.



How did the Creatures fare?





Oh, my...I found this little tree frog still stuck to a crinum leaf. It looks like it froze to death. :`(


This little assassin bug still looks happy and healthy, though this hibiscus--home to its abundant food source--is completely fried. Hopefully, it will continue to feed on any surviving aphids, whiteflies, and thrips that plague this hibiscus when it's green.


A sweet little ladybug on a camellia leaf.


How did the garden fare?

My previously glorious 'Queen Emma' Crinums are wilted and droopy today. I think they'll live, though.

'Ellen Bosanquet' crinums are definitely cold-hardy, but they're going to look yucky for awhile.
This allamanda is destroyed, along with the other six in my garden. These make up a large part of my south border, which I rely on for privacy and bird cover. The bush allamandas have been cold-damaged 4 of the last 5 winters. Maybe it's time for them to go. Of course, I say this every year; then it comes back, and I see the beautiful yellow flowers and change my mind.

The yellow tab tree sits unscathed. This was burned in last year's freeze, so I am encouraged. We will probably actually get flowers this year.

The Cherry of the Rio Grande is also undamaged, though it sustained damage last year. Maybe it's a good sign?


The arboricolas on the north side have very little damage, but the variegated arboricola on the south is destroyed.



These tropicals are mostly still intact, benefiting from the shade of an old oak tree in the northwest corner.

How Low Can It Go?

Do my eyes deceive me? I am in shock after just checking the latest weather forecast. Supposedly, lows will hit 23 degrees here tonight?!?! This worries and sickens me. Everything in my garden currently has been known to survive a short freeze down to 25 degrees (that happened once). The plants usually burn, but come back in spring, and I just pretend these evergreen tropicals are perennials. But we have not had a temp this low since I've been gardening, so I really don't know what to expect now. Still crossing my fingers....

Little Signs of Life

For years, I've broken the cardinal rule of subtropical gardening: No more than 25% of your plants should be cold-tender. Well, today, I look at my wasteland and wonder why I never follow the rules. My yard looks worse than any other in the neighborhood. So much brown, brown, brown! The dead firebushes are 6 feet tall and at least 8 feet wide. Imagine that decorating your front yard! I have at least ten or twelve hibiscus (haven't counted), and they are all fried. And my two huge jatropha specimens, which, by the way, spent all of 2009 recovering from a freeze, are giant, monstrous, dead focal points right now. So many of my beds are lined with oyster plants or Mexican heather--all dead. Yuck! It all looks so awful. So anyway, at the risk of seeming completely obsessed over this weather mess, I journeyed into the wasteland today in search of any signs of life. I photographed a few, because this weekend, things will just get worse, so this may be the last chance I have for happy flower pictures.

Hawaiian Ti Plant - will it make it through the wet-cold combination this weekend? I have bunches of African Iris (Dietes). They have been in full bloom the last few weeks, but suddenly all of the erect buds have fallen, just drooping over. I've never seen that happen before. :(
Florida cracker roses look good all winter here. : )
My bromeliads are still looking good. This is neo 'yin.'

I am 100% sure I will lose the giant birds and their blooms this weekend, so one last picture....

The very reliable and fairly cold-hardy philodendron 'xanadu'

So far, the stromanthe and dragonwing begonias are hanging in there.

Another Ti Plant photo. A few have already shown some damage, but this one still looks good.

Hopefully, the camellia blooms will all survive this weather. These shrubs are loaded with buds and blooms right now.

The African Bush Daisies are unfazed at this point and oh so sunny looking on this dark day.

Winter Hope - all of my Amazon lilies are in bud, and we will have blooms in the next couple of days.

Let It Snow???

There have been whispers and murmurings in our area that we may be visited by snow here in Central Florida this weekend. I really don't think it will actually happen, and even if it did, it wouldn't be anything to speak of. But all these rumors have triggered some poignant childhood memories in me.

The Snow of '77 is legendary in this area. At the time, I was just a girl (in my 10th year). We lived in the Central Florida town of Davenport (just south of I-4). Like most of the poor, small-town kids growing up in rural Polk County, I had never seen snow. But on that fateful morning in '77, I remember my grandpa (who had risen early to tend his garden) waking us all up around 6 a.m. screaming that it was snowing outside. Mom muttered something about putting shoes on, but Grandpa insisted there was no time...the snow could be gone any second. We ran out of the house as quickly as we could...and entered a magical world filled with white flurries swirling through the air. The ground was almost completely covered in white, though it looked more like frost than snow. My sisters and I ran through the white wonderland, arms outspread, whirling around. We were dressed in our pajamas and bare feet, oblivious to the cold that I'm sure the adults felt. On that morning, time stood still for a little while down here in Florida.

Before we knew it, the sun rose, the snow melted, and it was all over. That was the first time I had ever seen snow. It was the first time most of my friends had ever seen snow. We all felt like we belonged to a special club now. I do remember feeling a little disappointed that snowflakes were not these giant, hexagonal things floating in the sky, though. (My idea of a snowflake had been formed from watching cartoons and cutting folded paper.)

It has not snowed in our area since 1977, but...if it should happen this weekend...I can just imagine what great memories it might create for some poor Florida kid that has never seen the white stuff!

(The photo above shows my daughter, making an attempt at a snowball, one snowy January day in our old Atlanta garden.  She clearly does not understand the feeling of having never seen snow.)

Beauty Amongst the Black Death

After four nights in which temperatures have dipped down to freezing, my garden looks like the Black Death has descended upon it. We've been through this drill before, so I know the plants will come back, but I also long for that rare low-damage winter I've seen in the past. It makes for such a nice spring! On the bright side, the nice thing about such severe damage is that I can more easily catch up on the weeding around the base of these giant plants and prune some of the more unruly ones. Unfortunately, we have even more severe weather headed our way this weekend--into the 20's according to the forecast! As of today, the following plants in my garden have already suffered severe damage and turned black:

• Firebush (Hamelia patens)
• Tibouchina (one on southside); Tibouchina on the east had lights.
• Hibiscus Rosa-Sinensis (all-10 or 12)
• Jatropha (all)
• Giant Bird of Paradise (one on southside--upper leaves)
• Clerodendron Quadriloculare
• Clerodendron nutans
• Lantana
• Pentas (all)
• Canna (one on southside)
• Red cestrum
• Bush allamanda (all 5)
• 'Queen Emma' crinums (some damage despite hot lights)

This is just the beginning. Instead of dwelling on the horror, I decided today to walk through the garden and photograph only the stuff that still looked good. Keep my thoughts on the bright side. After all, I still do grow a few temperate plants that don't mind the cold.

Knockout Rose - still looking good.

Nandina ("Heavenly Bamboo") looks its best in winter and spring.

Camellia japonica 'Kramer's Supreme' - It would take much lower temperatures to faze this beauty.

Hawaiian Ti Plant 'Kiwi' - oops...For some reason, this one did not get covered, but that's OK...no damage yet.

Stiff bottlebrush is still blooming and won't
see damage in any temperatures our region has to offer.

Spathoglottis plicata 'Grapette' - This little guy does suffer cold damage here. So why didn't I cover it? That will be fixed tonight with a couple of pillowcases.


Hmmm...somehow the north side of the house has shown the least damage to date.


Thryallis is very reliable in my garden...blooms year-round. I've never seen cold damage on it.

This rubber plant has been here for many years, but last year it was killed to the ground by a freeze that hit 25 degrees. It took all year to reach about 4 feet in height and width. So far, these freezes haven't affected it, but I am wondering what our weekend dips into the 20's will do.

I thought bird's nest ferns were cold-tender...they look so tropical...but this one has made it through five winters with absolutely no damage!
Hmmm...if only the freeze would kill this pothos nightmare! Last year, I thought that it had. The whole sixty-foot tall vine turned brown and giant leaves fell out of the tree until nothing was left. Then within a couple of months, the whole mess was back!!!

Awaiting Devastation...

"If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant." -Anne Bradstreet

Actually, the spring is much more pleasant here in Florida when we have no winter! Here at my home in Zone 9 Central Florida, we have already had three nights dip into the low 30's. A walk through the garden today showed spotty damage--mainly a branch here and there. But I'm afraid things are going to get much, much worse! Temperatures only hit 32 degrees last night. Tonight, it's forecast for 31, and tomorrow for 30. Strangely, Thursday is supposed to warm up...then things get really bad Friday thru Sunday night...as low as 29 degrees! Now, it's not like we haven't seen temps in the 20's before. I just really never recall having so many nights at or below freezing in one week's time. This will surely be devastating! And it's only the first week in January! We're doing everything we can, but we have only so many blankets and lights and they only go so far anyway. On a positive note, I'm pretty hopeful these plants will all come back from their roots even if they are killed to the ground. It will just be a stark, lonely winter in this Florida garden.



Hawaiian ti plants are some of the first plants to be damaged in our garden, but...so far, so good.



A damaged branch on a large jatropha bush. It's mostly still green, though. This was killed to the ground in last year's freeze and is now over 6 feet tall...for today anyway...




This lovely ti plant rests under a thick comforter on cold nights, along with some bromeliads. The hibiscus in the background lies exposed. I cover no hibiscus in winter because they all grow too tall, and they all recover. So they must temporarily succomb to the elements.




A bloom on Hibiscus Rosa-Sinensis 'Painted Lady.' So far, none of the tropical hibiscus show damage, but I know it's coming.




The Gerbera daisies also don't seem to be batting an eye at the cold (yet).




We set out lights that produce a little extra heat in some of our beds. If only we had more of these!



And, yes, we have used several garbage cans to protect smaller tropicals.





This actively blooming 'Black Magic' Ti Plant' is the plant hiding in the above photo.




The firebushes (Hamelia patens) got a lot of damage--more than half of the branches are fried. What will my hummingbirds do???




Some branches are still green and lush on the firebushes. But I do expect these shrubs to be killed to the ground. It is the annual cycle, and it keeps their wildness under control.



Happily, the crotons are not damaged yet. They do get some protection from huge oak trees, so it takes a lot of cold to get them. (Keeping fingers crossed.)



This was damage I didn't expect to see today. The giant lantana was hit pretty hard. Didn't cover it.


The lantana 'confetti' was so pretty just yesterday...