Hey Deb,

I'm going to cover up all the succulents, cuttings and tender perennials...the rest will have to freeze as there's just to much to try to save.

Still going to see you at the market Wednesday?

Rhonda

Yep, still planning on going. Email me later and we'll firm up plans. :)

Are fall planted bulbs okay for the temps? I planted some end of December and they are already starting to come up. Most of my other plants I will just cover with Blankets.

Jess, what kind of bulbs? I'd cover them to be on the safe side.

38 here and dropping fast. I didn't cover anything but one Brugmansia that has a seed pod on it. Accidentally cut off the limb on the other one that has a seed pod, so it's inside in water. Maybe if I'm lucky, it will root and the seed pod will mature.

So the prediction now is 6 hours of temps below freezing, and the predicted low has dropped to 27. Praying they are wrong like every other time, but as fast as it's dropping, I sort of think not.

was 32 at 6am in Alachua.... we are usually 4 degrees warmer than lows predicted for the area... looks like my birds of paradise MAY have dodged a bullet.... we'll see in a few days

32 at 5 am here! Woo hoo! All uncovered plants look like they did yesterday, no obvious damage.

No obvious damage here, but sometimes it takes awhile for it to show, once the sun hits the leaves. Accuweather has current temp at 31, WUnderground has it at 32.4 and weather.com at 32, and all have a "feels like" of about 22-24. They all have lows yesterday at 35. I swear, they are so inaccurate that I think I'm just going to add 5 degrees to any low they give me.

34 here on our own weather monitor. I keep saying I'm not going to bother covering the plants cause they're always off. But I end up doing it every time because the time I don't...they'll be right :)

Just walked outside, and since the sun has come out, lots of things are showing damage. Off to write a blog post about it.

I saw 28 here in Citrus Springs, everything by the pool looks good, a few elephant ears outside the enclosure got hit a little.

We only hit 38 down here in palm bay but it seems to have made my hard pear go dorment it droped all its leaves over night

We were at 24 this morning. So cold!!!

Hit 33.4 according to my cheap digital thermometers I have. This is Lakeland area and I'm usually 1-3 degrees cooler than the predicted low. AccuWeather seems to be the most accurate for my location as they were predicting 33 for Medulla which is nearest my specific location. I only had worries last night about a mango, lychee and starfruit that were in active growth flush. Oh and dragon fruit cactus as it was damaged pretty good by the last cold front hitting 35-36. I'm pretty sure everything did well last night. I use burn barrels for cold protection because I have a lot of free oak from cutting trees down and making room for fruit trees. If it hadn't been for the late December growth flush on some of these trees I wouldn't have been on cold protection duty. Especially trying to save my Glenn mango growth flush... Kept tree between 52-64 degrees all night last night and will have another tonight. I'm learning so does anyone know if a Mango very fresh growth flush is sensitive to temps in 30s but above 32? Next year I wouldn't worry about but this is first winter for all my fruit trees as this project began this past spring. Good luck tonight as the rest of the week looks great.

Things are looking worse and worse as the day goes on. I will probably lose a lot more tonight, because they're calling for another low of 28. Well, I wanted to start over, so here's my chance! Freezes are so strange. Most plants that I have can live through one night below freezing, but not two. Once they are weakened, they are dead meat the second night.

Surprisingly, none of the amaryllis died back. They didn't die back entirely until around March last year.

Glenn, do you have a Keifer pear? I love those. We had them growing up and my mom used to preserve them. Pear butter -- so good!

I have two types a hard pear that was just called a canning pear by my great uncle and a keifer pear i just got last spring it is growing well but i dont know if it will fruit for me i may have to trick it to get it to bloom but its to young for me to do that yet

Yeah, Palm Bay is probably a bit far south for a Keifer pear, but you never know! I was thrilled to find out they would grow up here, but I don't have a yard, so I'll probably never have one.

Accuweather says it got down to 25 here last night, and it sure is chilly right now at 9:11 and 38 degrees. Of course, this did in the bananas, so I'll wait until they start turning black, then chop it down. Took a walk around quickly, and strangely enough, I had forgotten to bring in one of my bromeliads from the South facing garden, and it has a few burned leaves, but isn't total mush, so I guess I'll see what happens. It's inside now.

We hit 37-38 for the lows in the Lakeland area... (second night)

Corey, I meant to tell you that your place is looking very good. Building up with mulch is a good idea, but be careful of the free utility co. mulch. A few years ago, they found some bad ganoderma butt rot fungus in that mulch and it was klling palm trees like crazy in S. Florida. My friend lost two queen palms in her front yard from using that mulch.

Thanks for the information... I've seen other warnings as well...