Hey, Nancy! Don't know about the durantas, as this is my first year growing any, and mine (the little golden ones) look okay so far. But firebush freezes fairly easily. However, it mostly always comes back from the ground again, sometimes faster and fuller than before. One of mine looks pretty bad, and one looks pretty good. I'm waiting to see what happens in a few more days.

My porterweeds, pea vines, false roselle, and ALL my uncovered coleus look pretty bad. Oh, and my blue sky vine is black as soot! But I believe it will come back from the roots, too.

Marcia

Floradata says if the duranta dies back after a freeze, it will grow back from the roots. I think it will be ok.

I only have spiral gingers that look bad/burnt and butterfly gingers that went yellow overnite. The apelhandra sinclairiana(sp) looks like crap....but then it never looks good.

In moving stuff in I discovered an orchid with a bud and my Amazon lily about to bloom. What a crazy time in the garden.

Some of my orchids had damaged...Nasty black patches on the leaves - I almost cried this morning. Pathetic, I know :(:(
Lessons learned, however - I am off to buy two heaters....

Golden cup of chalice, Solandra maxima, looks like a toast..Will it make it?

All my bananas, even the ones I covered, are black...Plummies do not look too happy :(
Porterweed is not happy

All gingers have brown and black foliage, but I am not too worried about them as they will come back

Overall, could have been worse, but still, very upsetting
Olya

Ditto on the Alphelandra in our garden. Uncarina leaves are all curled and brown. Copperpod lost vegetation on the north side. Copperleaf - Acalypha - is nothing but sticks in the ground, but that happens anytime the temps drop below 60. Caricature plant - Graphtophylum pictum - is shredded. Several Costus on the north side of the garden are brown and shredded.

That's about the worst of it. But true to form, we'll know the rest in 10 days.

There are places in the garden where the leaves on the ground are so thick, I can't see the mulch.

So far a spiral ginger, a variegated costus, one tomato (out of 30!) and this morning I noticed a porterweed looking bad. :( GAH! I covered a few things, but am worried about ylang-ylang and many more. :(

Blue ginger looks bad but could come back...it's not established in the yard yet. Plumarias look ok because I dug them up and brought them in (still young enough). Dug up the small ice cream banana the others look bad. I've got two small Papaya one I covered with a trash can the other was on its own. The covered one looks only slightly better but still pretty bad. I fear for my new travellers palm. The white bird is still in a pot and stayed in my screen room...it looks ok. I thought that cordyline were more cold sensitive but they are ok.

Everything looks fine in Orlando at my house. The wind kept frost away and the stuff on the screened patio got some heat from the house and the stuff in the front of the house is always protected somewhat by the heat of the house. I expected my Mandville to be brown and black but it is standing on tip toes and doing well. The greens for eating are happy and will be sweeter due to the cold. Linda

so far my bananas look ok, just a few yellowing leaves.
Some gingers 'crawled into the ground' overnight, but thats ok.
The Dombeya Wallichii, pink porterweed, coleus and annual morning glory have messed up leaves but I think they will all come back after a trim.
Even my black elephant ears are doing ok.... typing this makes me wonder, will the damage take a few days before it shows?

Evelyn

All of my butterfly weed is wilted which makes me very happy that I brought all the cats inside and that I have several potted milkweeds on the back porch.
The porterweed, bleeding heart vine, all the gingers, and hibiscus look melted.
On the other hand the firespike and golden dewdrop only have a few branches on each plant that are damaged, the rest of the plant looks fine.
One buttercup is completely limp but 2 more that are only a foot or two away are perfectly fine.

It's really strange. Some plants that I was sure would freeze are just fine. Others are only slightly damaged. And then others are heavily damaged. There doesn't seem to be any pattern or consistentcy to what was affected but the cold. Maybe how dry it was has something to do with that.

Kara

My sweet potato vines don't look so sweet!And of all things my blue daze looks awful! My milkweed and cats are fine,roses, hibiscus etc HOWEVER

Ugh!I moved what plants I could carry into the garage and even some of those plants were wilting from the cold

The yard plants were like the show:

'Survivor - St. Pete: See what plants survive winter in Florida!'.

SkyVine - black leaves, all droopy except by the lower part of the fence

Morning Glory: same as above

Heliconias: shrivelled up and wilted

Durantas: (2) exposed to wind and cold; black leaves

Petunias: very wilted; I was surprised as I thought they did okay in the cold; apparently not...

Tomatoe plant: some damaged leaves, but has bounced back from wilting

What survived unscathed:

Alamandas in a pot w/Duranta by the house: survived well I think due to being blocked by the wind

All the jasmine vines and gardenias.

Honestly, most of my plants look bad. I think I'll better assess the damage tomorrow when I cut back some of the dead stuff.

My milkweed looks good except for the Big leaf fuzzy milkweed, don't recall its name. Porterweed is in bad shape as is the Cigar plant. Some of my Salvias that are in the ground are black, some not. Same for the reseeded Cosmos. The impatients that I didn't bring in look droopy, one is black.

I am really confused cause the Dutchman's Pipevine I covered has a layer of black leaves but that not covered is fine. A few brown leaves on the black and blue salvia, where the cover I wrapped it in touched the leaves. My purple firespike that I have grown from a one leaf cutting looks a little brown on the top leaves.

My plants in my island, mostly crotons, gingers, and bromeliads look okay for now. I had lots of mulch around them and covered them up with sheets.

I have not yet been home in the daylight since Wednesday so I am not 100% sure but much seems similar to what the rest of you described. Those things I could not protect from the wind look pretty burnt and we will see about the rest next week.

My main concern is Big Cactus Dave. He is about 5 feet tall and weighs a ton. He is probably 20 or more years old. He has reached the point where it is tough to move his pot. So he is tucked in a southwest corner and had to tough it out. I just had my flashlight out and looking but really can't tell. Little Cactus Dave came in the house so if Big Dave goes to heaven, I have a replacement but it would be tough to fill his shoes, um, I mean pot. I am going to look closer in the morning.

Gosh I forgot how bad a freeze can get to plants... So here is my report after comming home from work..

Hibiscus were all of them have been bitten slightly and are sulking pretty badly... Alamanda if brown except for in the center but this is its second freeze so it should pop back. Bannanas are badly hit. Firespike Bushes are totally black on some stems and untouched on others. Passion vine is alittle wilted but seems ok. My poor angel trumpets are sticks with wilted leaves all over them and the flower buds fell off my white before it could bloom! The Cannas are brown to the ground. My Garden seems so sad but a few did make it through...

My Strong Cold loving babies are : Roses, scheffelara, Tibochina, Crotons, Butterfly bushes, and dwarf gardenias (these were only potted up to 1 gallons 2 weeks ago)... So I guess we smile because we know the warmer weather is on the way and alot of bugs died! LOL

I guess I will do some trimming this weekend to et the badly damaged stuff out...
Donna

Yesterday, despite covering as many inground plant with over 100 sheets and did not have enough!!--everything is TOAST! Today I checked the greenhouses today when I got home-BIG MISTAKE! Just when I thought things could not get worse, I found most of my plants in both greenhouses did not fare any better than the plants in the ground and then...!
I found a limb in one of the greenhoused about 7" across by 4' long in there on top of my brugs ...which I certainly had not put there--looked up and discovered a huge hole in the roof of the greenhouse which had come from a tree in neighbors yard which has been about dead and I had spoke to them in the past with no cooperation--they only rent and the landlords -or slumlords in this case live in a ritzy part of North Carolina and won't do a thing! except collect rent!!---Apt dwelling--here I come!
Aggravated in Florida and crying in my beer!!
Linda

yikes! Linda, that is seriously rough! more than just cold damage! cheers on that beer!

As far as my garden goes, the coleus is toast, as expected. We'll see if any of them sprout back after this one. not likely.

The tops of the Hibiscus look like cooked spinach. Shouldn't be a problem after pruning.

My relatively new Brunfelsia looks depressed, but not hurt.

Alocasia and Lantana sustained some damage, but they'll be fine. Plumbago of course is the same story.

The jury is still out on the Ixora, hopefully they'll pull through. Same with the Ficus...I have a new baby Sacred Fig (bodhi tree) that will be the centerpiece of my backyard... provided it gets through the winter.

It is tough to tell exactly what the cold got to... some of the plants looked unhappy even before Wednesday night. Some will not show damage for another week. I covered everything and even lit them all up with x-mas lights. Whatever dies after this I will consider Darwinized and not try to grow again.

Dear Flora Buds,

From one who has experienced freezes in Florida before before;

Do not start hacking, yet!

A bush or tree may look dead or very close to dead and actually only have tip and leaf damage.

For instance, after the 2004 freeze, my 8 ft mahoe looked terrible. I did remove the brown and crispy leaves and hoped for the best.

In a few weeks, its' skeleton sprouted out beautifully. I only had to trim a few outer twigs and small branches.

Many years ago, we had a bad freeze and it even snowed in Tampa! My Dad decided to cut back our damaged 25 ft Pelta Phourum (sp?) He hacked it back like crepe murder and it never fully recovered its good looks.

Another tree near us was just as damaged but was never trimmed. In the spring, it leafed out and gradually dropped it's outer twigs and small branches. It looked great very quickly.

So, give your plants time to re-sprout and then decide how much to trim and shape. You may be very pleasantly surprised.

Hang in there; the azaleas are getting ready to bloom.

ThonotoRose

no cover used on anything and temps below freezing 6 hours:
duranta Sweet Memories- dry droopy leaves
duranta Gold edge-crispy leaves
allamanda Cherry jubilee-browned leaf edges,crispy
brugmansia -all have some dried drooping leaves and slight tip damage
porterweed-dry, drooping
tibouchina Athens blue-brown leaf edges, crispy
tabernaemontana holstii- dry edges on leaves
brunfelsia australis-dry edged leaves
vietnamese gardenia-a few leaves drooping and dried

everything else looks good- for now, we will see what happens when stressed by high temperatures.

Is there a thread for plants that did surprisingly well despite the temps? or should I list here? (just hoping to find more zone 10 that will make it in zone 9).

Up here in Apopka, my garden looks like cooked spinach. Only things I covered were my daylilies and they aren't looking too hot right now either.
My porterweeds, purple, blue, coral and red all took a beating. I've got a full hedge of the blue porterweed along one side of the house and they are all brown now.
Pentas, milkweed, firebush, Mexican flame vine and dutchmans pipe all are looking bad too.
Cassia's, Duranta's (white and purple), herbs (rosemary,oregano,thyme and bay)all came thru pretty much unscathed.
One that I'm not too sure about is my Jatropha Multifidia, If I covered anything up it should have been this, but I've got plenty of babies that got moved into the shed along with my clematis and Queen's Wreath.

Mike

Hi
This was certainly an unusual cold front. Usually it is dead calm with brilliant sunshine the next day after it passes. As usual I think I did more damage to my plants than the cold. lol Sheets got soaked and broke a bunch of limbs. I'm busy comparing my uncovered to the covered for future reference .
My foolproof heating system in the shadehouse failed for entirely different reasons this time lol. Was so hoping this time I would not have to bring them into the house but not so.Sigh. I'm still stupid enough to grow orchids in fixed positions after almost 30 years of learning lol
The very least that happened is it caused enough stress to either skip flowering or weak spindly ones.
In another 30 years I'll have my system perfected!!!
Or will I finally accept the fact that I'm in zone 10 not 11 ??? gary

Our damage is mostly from the wind.
I feel the trick is to go into our winter with as must growth on the plant that you home owners association will allow.
You know that you will cutting dead stuff off. In Fort Lauderdale we trimmed the first week in March.
But we now live 60 miles north.......... we wait till middle of March .

Old man winter slapped my plants in the face...hard! Plumerias, hibiscus, porterweed, salvias, butterfly bushes, all my basils, scented geraniums, petunias, etc., etc., etc...it all looks really bad. I'm sad...;-(

I'm not so much worried about the smaller seasonal plants but the established favorites (hibiscus, porterweed, etc.) I am worried about. How do I handle this? Thanks everyone!

Well, it looks like the Nun's Orchid will loose some leaves. I usually put it in the lanai, but I had watered it and then couldn't lift it. (DUH!)
Also, it looks as if several cuttings of Impatiens are done for. And the Huricane/Spider lillies and Crinium leaves were looking bad before the freeze. The cold just hastened the process. Will wait until mid to late Feb to start cutting away the truely dead stuff and dig up and spread out the bulbs.
The weedblock tent I made with a mop handle and clothes pins protected my little avacado tree just great. The three shorn Sagos were wrapped in carpet scraps - again using clothes pins.
And the paper bag tents over my baby Criniums did an excellent job - except where leaf touched paper causing a few "burnt spots".
Here's a recycling tip. Ask your neighbors who use a lawn service for the little plastic sticks that hold the sign saying who sprayed their yard with chemicals. I had a handfull, cut the stop foot off of them with wire cutters and used them like tent pegs to hold the paper sacks in place. That was fine when it was calm, but when it got windy, I had to make "sand sausages" using the newspaper's narrow plastic bags, to lay on the windward side of the sack bottom.
I hope the above isn't confusing. I tend to get long-winded! All in all, I'm very pleased to have lost so very few plants. Cora in Jax

The tomatoes took a bit of a beating. One of the sheets partially blew off on the last night of it. I lost about a third of that bush. But it is showing signs of new growth. Plus it wasn't all bad to go in there and trim them out. All three of them are showing signs of new growth so I cleaned them up and I think they'll produce more - or at least hope.

The bell pepper is fine. Not so much as a frost bitten leaf. I was a bit surprised at that.

The zinnias all but died. I trimmed them back and I am hoping they'll sprout more. If not, then I'll plant something new.

This is one time I'm glad I've held off planting. I'd have hated to put in a bunch of new plants and have them face this while they're still establishing themselves.

And of course the vinepatch came through unscathed. :-P

I was really lucky.. Just surveyed the garden, and I think nothing was damaged enough to kill it.

I thought all the Bananas and Papayas would die, but they look fine. All the covered plants and the potted ones against the house or inside, are perfect.

The only plants that currently show some burn are the Var. Mahoes, Black Sapote seedling, Mussaenda, and both Arabica Coffee shrubs.

My Tamarind has recovered from its sulk, and the very large, very soft-leafed, delicate-looking Muntingia that stood alone in the North winds, hasn't an injury anywhere on it!

I'm very sorry about the losses you had, and grateful that it stayed above freezing here.

Lisa

Here's a couple of pics of what got hit pretty bad.It was 27 degrees according to my thermometer, just not sure how accurate it was. Don't know if they are dead, I think there are some signs of life so I will not give up just yet...

Tibouchina

{{gwi:777929}}

Papaya

{{gwi:777933}}

So far I don't think I've completely lost anything. Even the begonias have only a few bad spots on the side farthest from the house.
The hibiscus tree looks pretty bad, but it's well established so I expect a full recovery.
One of the crotons doesn't look too good, it may not survive, but it was much smaller than the rest and didn't look too good before the freeze.
The split leaf phil in the screened enclosure looks fine as do the mexican petunias and cordyline.
The pentas look bad at the top, but underneath I can see there's still plenty of green leaves.
I covered the spaths, but they still have a few bad leaves. They will survive.
That's the report for the Wesley Chapel/Zephyrhills border.

In Lake County every thing looks great. I did see one stem in the pot of impatients that was gone and a portion of the blue daze got hit.
My giant plumeria looks good so far. There's no softness in any of the tips (yet).
I have a huge spath in the ground that looks fine, not a spot on it.
Even the corn plant (drawing a blank on the proper name) in a less protected area appears fine.

Today I made a special trip to the old place, mostly so I could asses the damage. I think I was hoping to see everything frozen so I wouldn't feel so bad because I had to leave it behind. I already knew I missed the great soil I had in Lake Co, now I miss the little micro-climate that allowed me to grow plants far too tender for the area. :(

the only real damage seems to be to my brugmansia. I acquired it at a plant swamp from this forum about two years ago now and it's normally so happy and full! Although right now it looks pretty wilted. It still has its flowers but I expect them to drop soon. I'm not sure what I should do for it. I'm thinking to let it be for a few weeks and give it plenty of water?

We live downtown and I don't think we get as cold. The brug was in the exposed part of the yard and probably took the brunt of the wind. Hubby's peppers came through unscathed. My ginger, ti plants and mexican petunia look fine. Even the hibiscus is okay. But they're all by the house and I believe that has helped.

We got lucky though, my husband forgot to turn the pool pump on along with the solar heater. We must not have gotten down to freezing, because otherwise we'd have had a mess on our hands with the solar.

I lost a 3 gal pot of basil on the front porch but those on the back patio seem to have survived without a wilted leaf. I've trimmed the front containers to see if they will regrow from stems but I don't hold out much hope. Also on the back patio my cucumbers and zucchini were hit hard. I've also trimmed the dead and dying leaves from them to see if they will put out fresh growth. This is my first year of growing here in southern Florida and I' just sort of experimenting at this point. I've read some posts which I think said cucumbers and zucchini don't do well here in zone 10 but I hold out hope.
I found one post about what WON'T grow in South Florida... I'm still looking for one which deals with what WILL grow here.

Ta Ta for now