Aw come on, I use them on my citrus for 2 or 3 nights every year when it is going into the 20s. I can't let 2 or 3 nights determine that something doesn't belong when it *does* belong the other 363 days! (I would be out tons of oranges and a lot of money by now!) Not to mention all the plants I drag into the garage for a day or two. There is no way I would use the "oh well" philosophy. Don't you do *anything* to protect any of your plants when the temperatures really dip?

Thanks a lot Susie. I just bought my house at the end of last year, and I am trying to get some landscaping done there. The people before me didn't have the same tastes as I do, and they really let the grass go. My major issue is the grass/weeds, so I will probably be posting some questions on what to do about that shortly. I do like tropicals, especially palms and anything that has nice color to it. What kind do you have? Thanks again!

Planted a dozen of Lowes $10.00 foxtails about two months ago in Cape Coral. Digging into this hardpack ground is way too much trouble for my lazy butt. I found it simpler to stand them up on the grass and pack a couple of bags of soil around them. Adding cypress mulch around the soil locked everything in place. They're shooting up like weeds! TWO ADVANTAGES: 1) Perfect drainage, as long as you don't push the dirt above the root crown. 2) They start out in the landscape a foot taller than putting them in the ground. To date, they're all still alive, and each has produced an average of four new fronds. I discovered this method 2 years ago when I had to plant 250 areca palms (12" tall) around the yard perimeter for privacy, and was too lazy to dig 250 holes. The arecas are all about 10 feet tall now and none of them died. This also worked out for the larger palms in the yard, including coconuts, adonidias and canary island date palms. Neighbors questioned my sanity, telling me that I was killing all the trees. Now I'm amazed at all the new above-ground trees that are being planted in the neighborhood. If I could figure out a way to insert images into this reply, the photos would say it better than I can.

Hi Alison, Chris is right there, you need to pot on when the roots appear in bottom of pot as the roots start to coil around and round , when you go to plant out they will be stunted and will sulk for quite some time and even rot of at the butt, potting on palms is a never ending story.Plant out as soon as possible. If you can face palms in same dirrection (north/ south/ east/ west) they will transplant better and get away better. Hope this may help. Good luck Peter r