Florida Plants/Trees Killed by the Big Freeze

[baygirl_1]

It went down to 21 here last night/this morning. Our lemon and tangerine trees look okay. The hibiscus had some foliage damage, but seems well otherwise. We'll have to wait til Spring to see about the thornless blackberry. Our knockout rose had been blooming-- poor thing! It doesn't look very happy now. Our geraniums were toasty in the house, so they should be fine.
Our front yard has been full of acorns. The 3 oak trees were quite prolific, which my Mom says is "a sure sign of a bad winter." As it's still fairly early in winter and we've now seen temps colder than we have in 3-5 years, I wonder what's in store for us the remainder of this season???

[psyclone]

i live in pinellas county and this freeze was not as severe as the one on jan 24,2003. i recorded a low of 29. i am in the northern part of the county(east of US 19) so most of the county was warmer. this is validated by the official temps (31 at st pete clearwater and 34 at albert whitted). i observed no evidence of damage to the landscaping in my neighborhood. in the 2003 event damage was evident as soon as the sun came up. not so today. i work in the carillon office complex in north st pete. a walk around the area lake revealed no traces of damage except for the tips of a few ferns... and there is plenty of tender vegetation in that region. the earlier report of a 26 degree reading in dunedin is simply not believable. the isotherms set up in pinellas county in very predictable patterns. 26 is the same reading that was recorded in brooksville (central florida's icebox). there is simply no way that a community that entrenched in the pinellas concrete jungle matched them. in fact, with the exception of the northeast quarter of the county, i suspect very few, if anyone slid under 30. there are mature coconut palms on honeymoon island (with fruit) and i am sure they did just fine ( probably didn't go below 36 there, just like anna maria island to the south). the unique geography of pinellas county allows us get away with growing stuff typically associated with south florida. we won again.

[jasons2k]

psyclone, I don't know what to tell you except that the 26F reading was from a 2nd story deck, so it's not an "official" 2M temperature reading and is probably the cause of the descrepancy.

With the wind blowing I didn't think there would be much a difference there versus 2M up. Plus, the crowns of a lot of palms are at the same level as their deck. But if the wind died it could have easily been 30 or 31F at 2M.

I can tell you my Aunt uses a decent thermometer and she does know how to read it. My aunt's house is also next to the Dunedin preserve with no concrete for a couple of miles to the north and east. Here is her exact email, take it for what it's worth:

It was 26 on the 2nd story library deck at 6:30A. My car said 31 at about 6:45A. I did not notice any frost on my drive to work…..we had a lot of wind until about 5A.

Also, Pinellas County can actually have a wide range of temperatures due to elevation changes with a ridge running N-S through the county and bluffs along the harborshore in some locations. Unlike most peninsular Florida coastal counties, Pineallas county isn't flat as a pancake.

Hey baygirl, 21F is cold for those plants. Check again in a few days. Often freeze damage isn't apparent for several days.

Anyway...have a good one!

PS (added later): Psyclone - If you are east of 19 in PH, you must be awfully close to Lake Tarpon - a big lake - which could up your local temps a tad as well.

[jdray]

The town of Orange Park no longer has Orange Groves.

These were killed off back in 1894-1895 freezes. The town still bears the name, but no longer produces fruit.

Go figure.

[baygirl_1]

Hey baygirl, 21F is cold for those plants. Check again in a few days. Often freeze damage isn't apparent for several days.
Anyway...have a good one!

They should be okay. We have lots of pine straw covering the base (roots) and the big Christmas lights on them. I checked with my bro-in-law, who's a master gardener, Wed. afternoon and he said that was all he was doing for his trees. I sure hope we don't lose them because this is the 1st year we've really gotten fruit off of them-- about 4 dozen lemons and 2 1/2 dozen tangerines!

[psyclone]

today i took a tour of the area to check out the damage from the recent freeze. there was damage but it was confined to tropicals. my route took me as far south as sunset point rd and then north to the east lake region. i also visited honeymoon island state park. some plant damage observed follows.
bananas: exposed: moderate to extensive.
sheltered: little to none. (it remains to be seen if the stalks survive but i suspect many will. in the 2003 event they were all mush, exposed or not)
mangos: exposed: moderate
sheltered: little to none
papayas: exposed: moderate
sheletered: little to none
hibiscus: exposed: slight
sheltered: none
bouganvillia: exposed: slight to moderate
sheltered: none
shefflera: exposed: slight to moderate (burned tops)
sheltered: none
adonidia palms: none
royal palms: slight frond damage
foxtail palms: none
citrus: none
travellers palm: exposed: extensive sheltered: little to none
for shoreline plants like sea grapes and mangroves no damage was observed
for junk plants
lantana: none
brazillian peppers: none
elephant grass: a near toal wipeout. this extreme fire hazard is curing as we speak.
one thing of interest to note was the stratiform appearance of damage north to south. i suspect this continuity is a result of the advective nature of the freeze. as air travelled south it modified ever so slightly as it moved over a hightly populated region. in a marginal event such as this it was consequential. the most severe damage was in the east lake region (east of lake tarpon). for post mortem on the freeze i believe bananas are the best indicator. the reason is twofold:
A) they are widely used in ladscape
B) they are extremely freeze sensitive
predictably, the banana damage was more severe as one travelled north.
jason, i appreciate your reply but in light of my observations today i belive i was correct in calling the 26 degree reading in dunedin inaccurate. in any freeze event i attempt to gather facts for comparative purposes. and no i am not close to lake tarpon. my palm harbor address is more of a postal designation than a municipal one. if i lived across the street i would have an oldsmar address. put another way, most of dunedin is closer to the gulf than i am the lake. finally and most importantly 26 is the same temp recorded at the hernando county airport in brooksville. there is no way any point in pinellas county would ever match brooksville in an advection freeze event. it simply doesn't make meteorlogical sense. and if it doesn't make sense it's just not true.
lastly, it is unfortunate to see this thread fall silent once it became apparent significant damage was averted. we came close to a landscape and agricultural disaster here in central florida. if the wind had calmed down this would have been awful. this fan of warm weather and tropical plants is very thankful. here's hoping our coldest night of the winter is in the can.

[Ed Mahmoud]

Ok, orange tree in backyard looks a-ok, as do two fan palms. Some foliage damage on some kind of palm like plant I got as a present. It came in a small pot, has now split into three trunks, each about an inch or two wide, and now maybe four feet tall six years since planting, 'fronds' look somewhat fern like, and have very long and nasty spikes near their bases.


This has happened after previous freezes, some of the foliage dies off, but the plant does ok.


I have another gift plant, that looks totally different from undescribed plant, but also can be described as fernish and palmish. After many searches on internet, discovered it was a cycad, and a female. It looks ok, as does the little offspring that seems to have sprung from the root system, was dug up, and retransplanted to a new location. It is female because of its attempt to flower and seed, BTW.

Internet pic of female cycad

[Ed Mahmoud]

Ok, orange tree in backyard looks a-ok, as do two fan palms. Some foliage damage on some kind of palm like plant I got as a present. It came in a small pot, has now split into three trunks, each about an inch or two wide, and now maybe four feet tall six years since planting, 'fronds' look somewhat fern like, and have very long and nasty spikes near their bases.


This has happened after previous freezes, some of the foliage dies off, but the plant does ok.


I have another gift plant, that looks totally different from undescribed plant, but also can be described as fernish and palmish. After many searches on internet, discovered it was a cycad, and a female. It looks ok, as does the little offspring that seems to have sprung from the root system, was dug up, and retransplanted to a new location. It is female because of its attempt to flower and seed, BTW.

Internet pic of female cycad

Mystery palm may be a Phoenix Roebelenii, or 'pygmy date palm', a native of SE Asia, as it looks something like the pictures I have found on the interweb.

yes, I am 95% certain.

[jasons2k]

psyclone: thanks for the very detailed report. It is much appreciated!!

I'd love to see a similar report from the Tampa area from someone as they got down to 29, even at MacDill.

What did you find on Honeymoon Island? I assume the coconut palms are OK there. I wonder how the ones scattered on the mainland did.

As for the 26F, it must be due to the reading's elevation. So we're not comparing apples to apples. Someone here in Texas reported they had 3 thermometers in the freeze, one in the front, one in the back, and one on the rooftop (25 or 30 feet up). The rooftop reading was several degrees colder and didn't match-up with the surface readings. After all, that would make sense as my aunt is neither illiterate nor a liar

Thanks again for the report - overall it looks like Pinellas is OK

[dizzyfish]

Roses - look o.k. so far.
Hibiscus - slight leaf damage (wasn't covered).
Periwinkles - some are toast - some aren't (and they are in the same bed).
Orchids - only noticed a couple "arms" that have slight damage. (I have one that is too big to move - the rest I pulled inside)
Shrubs are all o.k. (azalea and indian hawthorne)
Poinsettias seem o.k.
Spider plants - the ones in front got smacked pretty hard. The ones out back under a tree seem o.k.
Golden Raintree - (3 years old) some leaf damage but otherwise o.k.
Crotons - o.k. (they were covered)
Crinum Lilies - o.k. - believe it or not!
Philodendron - both o.k. - under very tall oaks.
Frangipani - look o.k. so far - won't know about them for a while. All under trees.
Cigar plant - o.k.
Mexican petunias - all seem o.k.

I was out a couple of days ago and noticed a couple of papaya trees. The leaves looked like cooked spinach so I would say they have some damage.

Orange trees across the street look o.k.

I know we were below freezing for several hours. Got extremely lucky I think!

[gatorcane]

Well it does appear that there was not widespread damage in Florida from this freeze. I'm still a bit surprised considering how cold it got in places like Clearwater, St. Petersburg, and Ft. Myers that usually manage to escape the freeze. Perhaps its the frost combined with the freezing temperatures (on windless nights) that produces damage.

Jasons- I don't recall there being mature coconut palms on Honeymoon island. Are you sure they are still there or maybe they were planted sometime within the past few years since I have been up that way. If they are there you can't see them from the Dunedin Causeway and it was about 15 years ago since I took a boat out to Honeymood island.

Now once you get a bit more south in Pinellas County towards St. Petersburg Beach and Tierra Verde, royals and coconuts grow fairly easily. But the northern part of Pinellas County usually gets impacted by freezes much more than the South (no doubt Pinellas County has a very unique microclimate with sometimes up to 10F degree temp diffs between NE and the Southern tip. e.g Gulfport).

BTW - I spent 20 years in Palm Harbor (just north of Clearwater).

[gatorcane]

today i took a tour of the area to check out the damage from the recent freeze. there was damage but it was confined to tropicals. my route took me as far south as sunset point rd and then north to the east lake region. i also visited honeymoon island state park. some plant damage observed follows.
bananas: exposed: moderate to extensive.
sheltered: little to none. (it remains to be seen if the stalks survive but i suspect many will. in the 2003 event they were all mush, exposed or not)
mangos: exposed: moderate
sheltered: little to none
papayas: exposed: moderate
sheletered: little to none
hibiscus: exposed: slight
sheltered: none
bouganvillia: exposed: slight to moderate
sheltered: none
shefflera: exposed: slight to moderate (burned tops)
sheltered: none
adonidia palms: none
royal palms: slight frond damage
foxtail palms: none
citrus: none
travellers palm: exposed: extensive sheltered: little to none
for shoreline plants like sea grapes and mangroves no damage was observed
for junk plants
lantana: none
brazillian peppers: none
elephant grass: a near toal wipeout. this extreme fire hazard is curing as we speak.
one thing of interest to note was the stratiform appearance of damage north to south. i suspect this continuity is a result of the advective nature of the freeze. as air travelled south it modified ever so slightly as it moved over a hightly populated region. in a marginal event such as this it was consequential. the most severe damage was in the east lake region (east of lake tarpon). for post mortem on the freeze i believe bananas are the best indicator. the reason is twofold:
A) they are widely used in ladscape
B) they are extremely freeze sensitive
predictably, the banana damage was more severe as one travelled north.
jason, i appreciate your reply but in light of my observations today i belive i was correct in calling the 26 degree reading in dunedin inaccurate. in any freeze event i attempt to gather facts for comparative purposes. and no i am not close to lake tarpon. my palm harbor address is more of a postal designation than a municipal one. if i lived across the street i would have an oldsmar address. put another way, most of dunedin is closer to the gulf than i am the lake. finally and most importantly 26 is the same temp recorded at the hernando county airport in brooksville. there is no way any point in pinellas county would ever match brooksville in an advection freeze event. it simply doesn't make meteorlogical sense. and if it doesn't make sense it's just not true.
lastly, it is unfortunate to see this thread fall silent once it became apparent significant damage was averted. we came close to a landscape and agricultural disaster here in central florida. if the wind had calmed down this would have been awful. this fan of warm weather and tropical plants is very thankful. here's hoping our coldest night of the winter is in the can.

this is great in information. Thanks for the report. It certainly does not sound like it got down to 26F in Dunedin based on these observations.

[psyclone]

jason and gatorcane re: honeymoon island: there was no evidence of any damage whatsoever on the island (or the causeway leading to the entrance). as for the coconut palms. they are located at the northernmost parking lot. they were planted back in either '02 or '03 when a movie scene was filmed out there. they have flourished ever since. they show no evidence of damage.i suspect they'll be wiped out by salt damage before a freeze; honeymoon just sticks too far out in the gulf to freeze easily.

[jasons2k]

Hey Gatorcane:

psyclone already answered your question, but since you asked me -- I've never seen them on Honeymoon myself - I saw that they were there from psyclone's first post....I have not been to Honeymoon since about '93.

When I was on Clearwater & Sand Key back in November quite a few had been planted there....when I used to go to Clerwater back in the 80's I don't recall ever seeing any. I lived in Tampa from 1973-1984 and the first one I ever saw was in Bradenton on a vacation in 1986.

[TampaFl]

Here in Brandon, FL located 12 miles ese of downtown Tampa the temp. @ my home only got down to 30.2º on Jan. 3rd. I traveled the area from Brandon on down to southern Hillsborough Co on the 3rd & 4th. The Brandon area (especially south of Hwy 60 ) is dotted coconut palms, fox tail palms & even a few royal palms, spindal palms, arandolia (sic) palms ,date palms & banana trees. All faired well (except for the banana trees) with only some of them having very minor damage - especially the cocnut palms with minor "burning" of some fronds. The same can be said further south in Mira Bay, Apollo Beach, & Ruskin. I did pass some tomato fields down in Ruskin (were most of the winter tomato crops are grown) and the fields looked to have taken a beating, they looked severly burned from the wind & cold. Also I have two large Hibiscus trees that I did not cover & they came out well. Overall as mentioned in a previous post (I belive by Gatorcane) it could have been a disaster had the wind died. We could have easily had temps in the low 20's. All in all Florida faired well.

Robert

[jasons2k]

Just a follow-up, my aunt reports that in Dunedin everything is OK, even her baby Coconut palm in the back yard...

[Cookiely]

My pentas took a hit but I believe they will came back. The luna hibiscus looks BAD but I was told they usually die off in Winter and come back. My banana tree lost its leaves, but it was somewhat protected so I think it will be okay. If not I will hack the mother plant off and let the off shoots to grow. I was surprised so many of the plants didn't get foliage damage.

[JonathanBelles]

Looks like my orange trees took a slight hit. Overall a slight hit. All of the northern plants have few leaves left. It looks like fall around here finally.

[jasons2k]

i live in pinellas county and this freeze was not as severe as the one on jan 24,2003. i recorded a low of 29. i am in the northern part of the county(east of US 19) so most of the county was warmer. this is validated by the official temps (31 at st pete clearwater and 34 at albert whitted). i observed no evidence of damage to the landscaping in my neighborhood. in the 2003 event damage was evident as soon as the sun came up. not so today. i work in the carillon office complex in north st pete. a walk around the area lake revealed no traces of damage except for the tips of a few ferns... and there is plenty of tender vegetation in that region. the earlier report of a 26 degree reading in dunedin is simply not believable. the isotherms set up in pinellas county in very predictable patterns. 26 is the same reading that was recorded in brooksville (central florida's icebox). there is simply no way that a community that entrenched in the pinellas concrete jungle matched them. in fact, with the exception of the northeast quarter of the county, i suspect very few, if anyone slid under 30. there are mature coconut palms on honeymoon island (with fruit) and i am sure they did just fine ( probably didn't go below 36 there, just like anna maria island to the south). the unique geography of pinellas county allows us get away with growing stuff typically associated with south florida. we won again.

I know this is from a long time ago, but I did some follow-up checking on temps there.

This site in Dunedin recorded a low of 23.8:

http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstat ... &year=2008

Notice the hardware is a Davis Vantage Pro system.

Corner of 19 & Alderman - 29.3F:

http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstat ... &year=2008

Clearwater near 19 & GTB - 29.3:

http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstat ... &year=2008

It looks like several locations did dip into the 20's with Dunedin being the cold spot from what I can find.

[Tampa Bay Hurricane]

My thermometer did dip to 32 and I kept checking it but the lowest
it got was 32 but that is because I am right along the Bay (inland
by about 20 feet but have canals). That was the coldest day in several
years.