I was 28 degrees in Bradenton and few bromeliads Didn't do to well.

Here is a link that might be useful: Neoregelia and Bromelia

34.5 degrees at my house with ice in the birdbath. Only noticeable damage was to banana leaves that were not in the shade. This latest cold was longer and 2 degrees colder than the previous one. My mango blooms are continuing although the very small fruits that have formed may abort as I understand they normally do that at the temps I had.

lowest was 18 degrees although have heard that it was actually colder .
Minimum of 10 to 12 hours of 24 to 20 degrees on several different nights .
The whole place looks like it was hit with a flame thrower .
No pruning yet .
I will wait at least a month to see what survives .
Plants are completely shocked and pruning just adds insult to injury .
Die back will continue for a year or more on many things .
I think I will change my land designation from Central to Northern .
Brrr !~
Glad to read that others had much better luck .
Won't these 70's feel good ?

Another part of the equation is where your thermometer is located. I removed mine from its usual location on my porch and put it out under my frost blanket on one of my mango trees. It reached 29.9F the other day. Due to the freeze a couple weeks ago, my mango trees took big hits.

Wed/Thurs night was the coldest 38F(doesn't include wind chill) at 6:30am according to my temp outside.

Not sure how my crotons did, so far no leaf drop, but sure that will show up soon!

teeka

It was slaughter here in Thonotosassa. We were down to at least 26 for several hours both nights.

I protected the orchids, hibiscus and a few other things such as rose babies and veggie seedlings. Everything else is in really bad shape.

However the roses did VERY well. Many that were in bud and those that had sent up basal breaks were damaged, but only the newest most tender parts. They are recovering already and some have new growth showing.

I'm south, on Daytona's barrier island. 37 degrees was our low 10 days ago and we didn't get any lower than that. The bananas are going brown, the hibiscus lost their leaves, a cat orchid left to fend for itself looks .... stunned but ok. It hasn't bloomed in 3 years for me so I sort of left it out there on its own. My mini roses are blooming, so is the bouganvilla (sp. is wrong). Haven't planted my veggies yet--trying to ward off the pests with ammonia soaked rags. Seems to have worked. Some crotons are fine--a couple defoliated. In all--could have been worse!!!

Ouch!! Didn't want to look .. Tomatoes half gone..I couold just picture their little stems frozen ugh!! Peeppers the same:( ..Tibouchina not sure lot's of dropping yellow leaves. I did cover them too.. Oh well chance to start anew .. Being a newbie.. how do I know when I should just prune some of the things that Appear dead ? Geeze I take me plant deaths so personaly LOL !!

Which nasty night??? Last time or this time? What didn't get fried the first time are certainly toast now! 17 and 19 degrees for hours and hours. Central Florida near St. Cloud. I've peaked under dead leaves and think some will be OK, straggly but make it. Ficus tree is questionable and crown of thorns??? Will they make it or not? No prunning for a while and then we will see. Freeze didn't care about plant coverings at all!

The first big freeze from ten days or so ago took me down to 21 degrees. This last hard freeze was over two nights the first going to 20 and the second going to 19. We've had a number of frosts in the 28-32 range, but only those three really bad ones. I'm southwest of Gainesville.

I won't know for certain until April when everything that is still capable of it should have budded out and started growing again but as of today it looks like I've lost a grapefruit and a mandarin hybrid for sure. Two more are maybes, three others took major limb damage. The remaining three suffered leaf loss, but I expect will recover. All were wrapped in frost cloth for each freeze, but not otherwise protected. Five of the trees were planted last spring and the remainder were in the ground from two to three years.

That unfortunate two week warm spell we got in December is what really hurt me I think. All but two of the trees started actively growing then only to be nailed by that first big freeze. I expected to lose the new growth, but the following two hard freezes seems to have done the deed to the mature growth for some of them as well.

As I said I'm not going to do anything with them until April when I can tell for certain what's alive and what's dead. Bought three more trees today to replace what I think I've lost and they're going to be kept as container plants until I can work out more pro-active cold protection out there.

Florida gets bad winters every ten to fifteen years. Looks like this is one of them.

.....Alan.

Like Gary...my Mangoes took a really big hit! Most of them look "torched". My two lychee trees took the cold somewhat better...some leaves/twigs burnt, but not nearly as bad the Mangos. The first "hard freeze" two weeks ago did all the damage...the second one didn't seem to do more damage that I can see(probably because it was severly damaged already)The first freeze we had 27°-28° for 7-8 hours. The second not as bad...28° for appx. four hours. All were covered with frost cloth and had some sort of heat source underneath(Christmas lights or trouble lights). Like presmudjo said..."Freeze didn't care about plant coverings at all!"

Will keep fingers crossed and see if they recover? The trunks were also wrapped with carpet foam to protect the graft on the mango trees...hoping this extra protection might mean the tree itself is still alive. The trunk seems healthy to me, just the leaves are completely "fried/burnt".

Tibouchina...completely burnt, but that came back last year when it froze in Jan 08. Severe damage on Ixoras, cannas, Ti Plant, hibiscus...well you get the idea. Gardenias, Azaleas are about the only think that survived without much damage!

My bananas and some leaves on some heliconia took another hit. That's about it. We are by 95.

Tropicalfreak

Ditto on the heliconia. Chenile too. And my less than a year old stuff looks positively horrid. Ah well.

All's well that ends well. I'm focusing on comeback. Good luck all!

Pretty sure our lowest temp out here on the Island was 38...pretty sure.

I covered nothing but did bring in all my Orchids (phew!) for a night or two.
When the low was predicted to be above 49...I believe that was on the 5th...I put'm back out.

No damage to anything except my 'Grapettes' ground orchids and all my Hibiscus have dropped their leaves.
Of course my Sea Grapes look like Hades...LOL...but then again, they hate even cool weather...fussy, fussy! :)

I'm not too awfully upset 'cause I need to prune both the Sea Grapes and the Hibiscus hard this Spring.

Sorry about everyone's losses...you'd think we'd be exempt here in sunny flarda wouldn't ya? :(

Pretty bad here west of 95 , Port St Lucie. It all depends on where your thermometer is located as to how bad it was. The mercury one on my porch deck showed less than 29 for several hours. It nipped mango leaves on the two large trees and burned the blooms to a crisp on the outside. The blooms underside and inside of foliage are setting fruit now. Do not know if they will try a 2nd bloom on the outside. Lost a small advocado I think. Did not cover it because thought it to be more cold resistant. Covered tomatoes , squash, and peppers, they seem OK.

Location to a block building is very important. A neighbor has 4 mango trees about 10-12 feet tall. 3 away from buildings are very burned while the one next to his hangar looks fine even though it is on the west side of the hangar wall. Mine are on the south side of building and I was shocked to see this effect so strong on the west side also.

bernie

Sounds like we all have seen some damage. The low here was 29 several nights and I believe in the low 20s near dawn or shortly after on several occasions. Sheltered areas did well even without extra cover. Sad to say my butterfly garden (too large to cover) took the biggest hit. cosmos adults and seedlings, wild sage, porterweed, butterfly bush, what was left of the cassia(s), jatropha, pea vine, morning glory vine, and all my coleuses, exposed milkweed (both species) look fried beyond recognition. Hopefully some will come back, of course too soon to tell. Oddly my plumeria haven't even lost all their leaves yet and my passion vines are o.k. and this year I didn't even bother to cover them.

Last year when I covered everything I ended up with leaf death, and in some cases the hibiscus did better uncovered than covered. Oddly enough it seems more hit and miss on location and air circulation.

I wish everyone the best of luck.

Got down tothe upper 30's for two nights in the span of two weeks.

My very young mango looks fine...phew

The group of what I think are birds of paradise were very much damaged,I pruned them back since we have a party this week...hope that was the right thing to do. Newb gardener here.

Most of this I also posted under another thread.

We got down to 17 degrees at my house and the plants did not fair well. I only covered a couple plants like my newly planted weeping bottle brush tree and the big pot of variegated flax lilies by the house. My orchids, begonias, and staghorn ferns have been in the enclosed back porch for months now. Everything else was left to fend for itself though. Almost everything in my garden looks horrible right now. The big pot of bromeliads under the oak tree that's too big to move looks really bad, I'm not sure if they're going to come back. The crinums, amaryllis, and big selloum philodendrons all look like they melted. Almost everything else looks dead although I'm pretty sure most of their root systems are fine. I had a patch of native white rain lilies go into bloom right before the freeze and now the blooms are all laying on the ground. Even the flowers on my red maple were burnt by the freeze! The small orange tree in the back looks pretty bad and I think I'll end up cutting it down. It hasn't bloomed once since I bought my house over 4 years ago so that's not much of a loss. My potato plants that had started sprouting were frozen to the ground but hopefully they'll recover.

The only plants that seem to have been unaffected by the freeze are the violas, dianthus, fennel, and blanket flowers. The chickasaw plum trees are going into full bloom right now as well.

I also forgot to take down about 7 red glass ornaments that I had hanging in the trees outback and due to some water that had collected in them all but one of them shattered. All of my glass totems came thru just fine though.

I was able to save most of my peppers, lost a couple habaneros
All hibiscus now need to be cut back after March 1
seagrape lost all leaves
amaryllis' Love It!

The first group of cold nights, we had four in a row in the 26 to 28 degree range, lasting 4 to 6 hours each time. That pretty much did in my entire yard. Jatrophas, tibouchinas, clerodendrons, ground orchids, even some bamboos, crisp and dead. This last one was even colder for longer...about 24 degrees for about 6 to 8 hours. It finished off anything that managed to survive the first one. The only thing still looking good in my yard are my azaleas, and a few things that have dead branch tips but look green farther down (durantas), and my glorious coral honeysuckle, which never even lost a flower.

I'm going to be pretty much starting from scratch around here. But I can tell you that most of these plants will not be coming back. I'm OVER replanting every year. Things that made it through will be popping up in beds all over my yard. Things that didn't will be going AWAY.

I hope we are done with this freezing stuff. I like my cold weather, but this has been Yard Butchery!

Marcia

I finally uploaded some pictures showing what mine and my mom's gardens look like right now. Most of them are rather sad looking but there are a few positive pictures!

Kara

Here is a link that might be useful: after the freeze...