One of my favorites is fax lily.
Other plants that still look good are ligustrums, hollies, walter's viburnum on other viburums and box woods.
Bulbine is great!
That's my start.

Most of the silk and cardboard plants are unaffected by the cold, other than that, everything else will suffer somewhat.

Thanks Laura for your suggestions. I remember seeing the bulbine at your swap. I'll look into that. I have some flax lily and you're right - it's doing fine. I'll have to get some more. Maybe I'll look into some hollies, or a nicer viburnum than I have in my front yard. It's pretty boring, but alive!

Ricky, silk and cardboard actually sound like a good idea right now!

Kay

Coral honeysuckle! Not a leaf, nor even a flower, dropped, and we had 12 hours Saturday night in the mid-20's. In fact, we have had 8 nights in a row with temps below 30, mostly in the upper 20's, but a few as low as 24 degrees. In addition to the coral honeysuckle, none of my orange jasmine have been hurt. Also Confederate jasmine looks just fine, and so does my rangoon creeper, and of course, my azaleas are looking gorgeous. Pretty nearly everything else is either totally dead or at least frozen back to ground level.

Marcia

ROSES - ROSES - ROSES ! all my roses are just chugging along... also ginger and gardenia ...... there are lots of great plants that are not just fillers, that can take the cooler temps......ask at your garden center or contact your Agricultural Extension Agent.... good luck, sally

Last year my Cardboard plant did loose all its leaves. It took it about 2-3 months to look decent. This year I am afraid it is the same.

I am thinking in getting jackfrost plants this year. The ones I see are like nothing had happened and I already got 3 blueberries that were outside in pots during the freezes..

Regards
Fabio

Lots of bromeliads, if you can find any of these. Aechmea Gamosepala, Aechmea Distichantha, many neoregelias, and Billbergias.

My biggest surprise is the Tipu tipuana that I got in the late summer still looks good. It's in the most exposed part of my backyard and there have been several nights in the low 20s.(low as in 21) Our birdbaths have been frozen solid every morning for over a week. This has dragged on for so long I can't remember when it started. My HK orchid tree has some leaf damage and of course the flowers are cooked. My last Foxtail palm is a goner, I should have known better. Things that show no damage: Coontie, King Sago, Holly fern, Robellini palm, phoenix sylvestria, Rhapis palm, Queen palm, Aechmea and some neoreglia broms and the birdsnest ferns that have any protection. Some of the bamboo palms are holding up well. The others froze last year. The tree ferns are all brown but they always come back. The gingers and most Aroids will come back. Even plants that don't go dormant seem to do better if they have had a few weeks of cold before the freezing temps hit.

john

Hey Marcia! Welcome back!
I'm glad that your honeysuckle is OK because mine is looking kind of tired right now. I'll have to take a closer look later.

Daylilies are looking good, my seedling (volunteer) black eyed susans are OK and my sylvestris palms look fine. The roses need to be cut back.

Hi kgardens,

Why not try a rare fruiting bush called pitangatuba (Eugenia neonitida)? Here are some short facts about it:

* 1-2 m tall
* fruits in 2-3 years
* very juicy, large 7 cm x 5 cm fruits, 1 seed, no bitterness, superior to the best uvaias
* no attacks from fruit flies
* easy to grow in pots (5 years old in 20 gallons pot)
* resistant to light frosts to 27°F (-3°C)

These facts are according to various sources I have collected. I grow pitangatuba myself but they still to young to fruit. But as you can see, it's a pretty hardy plant.

Tomas

Roses...
I hope this cold weather will kill off the nasty thrips! While the rest of my plants look pretty sad, roses are loving it

Thanks everyone! I'm developing quite a shopping list for the spring plant sales. I'm going to have a plan this year and not just buy what catches my eye. Or maybe the truth is I will have a shopping plan AND buy what catches my eye ;)

Tomas - I'm looking into that fruit. Sounds intriguing.

Kay

Excellent info Johnjsr. I have been wanting to grow a Tipu and have heard they are relatively hardy for a tropical flowering tree but I can't find one. Any ideas on who would have one?

I think my plumeria liked this weather. They are putting out leaves!!

My "Maid of Orleans" jasmine still looks good. Plumbago is still green and blooming but it is under a awning west side. Pineapple going strong. Piece Lily doing good. But it's still to soon to know for sure.
There was frost on top of the car this morning!

Jaxtropix,

I bought mine (tipu) last year in Home Depot and I see it in the store very often. You can ask them to order it for you.

Regards

You folks down in 10 lucked out...I'm in 9, and boy oh boy, did my yard take a hit. It got more freezes than Nicki's yard up in Leesburg. When I say 8 hard freezes in a row, I'm not joking. My birdbaths were frozen solid every single one of those 8 mornings, and a couple of days, it stayed below freezing until well after noon.

Hi, Laura! I only have one or two roses left, and they DID come through fine. Another one that survived beautifully is my huge, gigantic fennel plant, which I had already cut back earlier, and which had new 1 and 2 foot tall sprouts on it. I thought since they were new, they would freeze, but nope. It looks wonderful. One of the few spots of bright green left in my yard.

Gingers, split leaf philos, etc, all totally black and mushy. I'm thinking a few might come back, but most probably won't. Just too many freezes in a row. Bound to have caused some root damage. Many of you know I'm a 65 year old native of Florida, mostly the central Florida area, and I have never, EVER seen this many hard freezes in a row. Yes, I've seen it just as cold, but only for a night or two at the most, with a warm up, and then maybe another night or two in a few weeks. But 8 hard freezes back to back will pretty much do in anything remotely tropical in nature, I think.

I'm just HOPING that 1/3 of what I lost will come back after pruning. The rest will probably have to be replaced, even though many were things I got after last year's freezes that were supposed to be much hardier. *sigh* It makes me want to plant out my whole yard in azaleas and forget about it!
*grin*

What I'll actually do is make a list of everything that made it, and those will be what I buy more of. The ones that are totally gone won't be on my planting list any more.

Hey, Laura...I've heard that coral honeysuckle can suddenly go into an unexplained decline even without cold weather, perhaps caused by a fungus or something? But mine smiled through last year's four-in-a-row freezes and this year's 8, so I'm thinking I need a lot more of it along my fences. Besides which the hummers love it so much.

Marcia

My Mandeville is doing fine along with all the various lilies. My palm tree, rubber tree and hibiscus are doing well along with my geranium and Thai basal. All of my Sansevieria is doing well along with the bromeliads. My ginger got toasted on one side but I had planned on cutting it back this year anyhow. The peach trees and apple trees, lemon and orange are green and healthy in their pots alongside the house and the greens are tastiest and laughing at the cold. The pineapple are happy and the crepe myrtles were already in their dormant state so they look normal and had Christmas lights around their trunk and branches and they are happy. Everything on my screened Florida porch are doing okay and I am not unhappy. I had solid ice on my car two nights in a row. Linda

agree with sally and olya about ROSES! being champs in this freeze. Mine bloomed before, during and after and even the new young growth was not frost bit.

BUT ...I will qualify and say the champs in my garden are heirloom roses not hybrids. The heirlooms still have their green leaves plus blooms whereas the hybrid teas are sticks not blooming but not dead either.

Also BAMBOO! Some leaves got fried (the ones in the path of the wind which in my yard is the NW side) but all have green stems and many leaves looking good.

Denise
Englewood (south of Sarasota)
zone 9.5 normally

Don't believe that the Cardboard Ferns aren't affected by the cold. All 8 of mine - the small and the large ones are totally brown after this ten days of freezing weather - down into the 20's for a few nights! Along with most of my 'established' plants - Grapefruit, Orange, Lemon, Hybiscus, Bouganvilla, Crocus, etc. even though they were covered. Guess not well enough. However, my lettuce, dill, parsley, and Jamacian Spinach came through with flying colors! They really look perky.

Frozen water in the little water gardens but the roses kept right on blooming. Amazing.

I'm one of the people who lost their coral honeysuckle late last year. No apparent reason. But it was huge and fine one day and completely dead and dried up 5 days later. I've replaced it with a rangoon creeper and hoping it survived the freeze!

Kate

Hi everybody. This is an interesting thread. It must've been a little colder here (in DeLand). Both my bulbine and flax lilies were burned. Walking around the neighborhood I see even coonties with a large number of leaves suddenly turned bronze. My rangoon creeper is frozen back. It's discouraging to hear about the honeysuckle problem. I'm planting it everywhere this year.

Two big winners in the low groundcover category (besides standard landscape stuff liriopes, mondos, cast iron, etc): blue eyed grass and an aggressive form of Yarrow (given to me by Gatormom). Both have held up through the heat and rainy season too.

My citrus seem to have pulled through fine (knock on wood).

Bill

Here in St Petersburg the ones that were unharmed for me are: Liriope, Flax Lilly, Ivy, Plumbago, Star Jasmine, Confederate Jasmine, Variegated Ginger, Spineless Yucca, Split Leaf Philodendron, Viburnum, Podocarpus.

Damaged but should survive are: Oyster Plant, Spider Plant, Aloe, Penta, Ixora, Bird of Paradise, Hibiscus, Allamanda, Turk's Cap, Bougainvilla. I hope that helps.

Hi,Bill! I think the temps here must have been more like yours. My flax lily and bulbine both took hard hits, though I think the flax lily might come back. Also badly frozen: golden dewdrop (a 10 foot tall tree), gold mound duranta (completely black), all the gingers, all the split leaf philos, all the pentas (completely dead), dwarf & regular hamelia patens, king's mantel, turk's cap (will probably have to be cut to the ground), hibiscus (same thing, if it even comes back at all), iochroma, lemon grass, plumerias (they're history!), and pretty much everything else. Except, once again, the coral honeysuckle and one of the large orange jasmines. (The standard in a container is toast). Even my false roselles, blackberry lilies, and night blooming jasmines are gone.

This is by far the worst freeze damage I have ever had in more than 40 years of gardening.

Bill, I think the honeysuckle problem may be related to soil conditions or something of that nature. Don't know for sure, but mine (knock wood) is fine. I've had it nearly 5 years, and it gets prettier every year. And it came through the freeze with flying colors. I'm planning to plant more myself, and hopefully, it won't be killed by anything.

Oh, one more native that looks fine, Carolina jessamine. But even my native beautyberries are really frozen back. I think they'll return, but they sure won't be the size they were before the freezes hit. And they had made it through last year's 4 day freeze okay, but this year was just too much. Eight days in a row...I'm still mind-boggled over that, and I've heard it was 9 or even 10 straight days in some areas! Whoa.

Marcia

Sapodilla doing very well. Mine is about 2 foot high on the north side and no damage at all, even though the large 4' powderpuff right next to it is all brown.

Denise