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lazy_gardens

Dec 2010 - Hard freeze for 28-30th

lazy_gardens
13 years ago

Bundle up the plants: predicted temps in the 20s and maybe snow!

Comments (41)

  • tim8539
    13 years ago

    What about cold weather plants? I have broccoli, brussell sprouts, lettuce, radishes, cabbage, and carrots. Do you think they need to be covered?

  • thisisme
    13 years ago

    Tim you may want to ask the same question in the Vegetable Forum. I plan on moving all of my smaller potted plants into the greenhouse today. I thought I would be covering my citrus and none dormant fruit trees but we are expecting rain and possibly snow. The last thing I want to do is have a frozen blanket stuck to my trees. I have Fava's and Leeks in the ground and I'm not sure what to do with them.

  • piranhafem
    13 years ago

    Tim, I had a hard freeze over Thanksgiving, and my broccoli, peas, and even my collards got some frost damage at 17 degrees, even though I covered them. My carrots, cilantro, lettuce, and cabbages (covered) did fine. Generally, a light freeze won't bother the winter veggies but a hard one can. Better safe than sorry, right? If they're predicting temps below the 30s in your area, I say cover!

    I tried to put the shop light under the blanket over my tiny orange tree last night but the light wouldn't come on. So pissed! Just bought the thing a few months ago! Hoping a new bulb will do the trick. Wishing I had one of those mini greenhouses for my tender potted plants, should have asked Santa to bring one.

    --Maureen

  • thisisme
    13 years ago

    Thank you Maureen. Now I know what I will be doing tomorrow.

  • grant_in_arizona
    13 years ago

    I am hating this forecast, LOL, but thanks for posting it. For folks who have things to cover with frost cloth or regular cloth, it would be best to wait until after the two rainy days. Of course, schedules don't always allow for that kind of orchestration. Rigid covers could be done earlier of course.

    I've always sworn I would never cover anything, but I may, just may, take pity on my stapelia seedlings from my own seed and my adeniums from a friend, and bring them inside for a few days. We'll see how much I feel like gambling.

    I've got several things I'm worried about in the garden (plumerias, a couple of bananas, a five foot all Aloe 'Hercules') but for those I think I'm just going to see what happens. I *think*, LOL.

    Hopefully the damage around town will be minimal, but "they" are saying this is going to be similar to the big freeze of 2007. SIGH.

    Good luck to all, and if you're covering (or not), let us hear your strategies and the results.

    Take care and good luck!
    Grant

  • thisisme
    13 years ago

    I think the best place for long range weather forecasts is AccuWeather.com. You can change the city to your city and see your long range forecast too. Even so I have found that when it comes to night time lows all the sites that do forecasts are wrong. For some reason they always think its going to be warmer than the actual low we receive. Sometimes the difference is as much as 7-10 degrees lower than forecast.

    Best of luck to everyone.

    Here is a link that might be useful: AccuWeather.com

  • xica_da_silva
    13 years ago

    Good luck, everyone, on the frost! I hope all your garden goodies survive!

    Well, I finally went to Ace Hardware and bought some C9 7 watt lights tonight! The last frost taught me my lesson...I covered them with just some frost cloth and it didn't seem to help...so now I am a little paranoid about it. Anyhow, I just counted 15 strawberry buds on one of my plants...I'll be darned if I lose them after waiting so long.

    My only question is, is it sufficient to just place the lights around each plant on the ground (I'm talking about plants that are still relatively small, like strawberries, basil, tomato, and pepper plants? Or elevate them a bit, somehow (closer to the leaves)? Should I still cover with frost cloth but making sure it doesn't touch the lights (fire hazard)? How close to the plants should I place the lights?
    Any advice would be greatly appreciated! I really want to keep my plants safe this time around!

  • thisisme
    13 years ago

    xica put the lights on the ground near the plant and cover the plants with the frost cloth. The cloth should float over the bulbs. The heat will rise and warm the ambient air under the frost cloth. These kinds of lights have been used on dry trees for many years. The only real chance of fire is if you put to many strings of lights together end to end. Then the cords overheat and can start a fire.

  • xica_da_silva
    13 years ago

    Thanks so much, thisisme!!!

  • grant_in_arizona
    13 years ago

    Thanks for the link to AccuWeather. I really like it! I usually use The Weather Channel or the Weather Underground but I really like the way this AccuWeather site is set up. I love it.

    I still hate the forecast though, LOL. Good luck everyone!
    Take care,
    Grant

  • az_pamperedchef
    13 years ago

    Ok, so I've brought all but 3 tomato plants under the porch to prevent freezing. I'm very sad about leaving 2 of the plants out, but they're much too difficult to move. If I lose them, they'd survived for almost year & half! My poor Cherokee Purple & Beefmaster. Hope you survive.

  • euqruob
    13 years ago

    I will be bringing in 3 dragon fruit that are in pots to my carport, and putting 150 watt light bulbs under my passion fruit, Mango goes inside, Suriname cherry goes inside banana gets covered (not expecting much from that), dormant little plumerias will get coverage with mini christmas lights on the ground. Bamboo will all get a burlap cover as well. Hoping for the best, not too worried though.

  • goodluckkitty
    13 years ago

    I brought all my plumeria & adenium into the house or AZ room yesterday. The ones in the AZ room are right against the house. I also brought in most of the tomatoes in 10 gal or smaller. I have so many beautiful plants in the ground. Especially worried for my banana after all this rain!

    Will put out frost clothes and sheets early this afternoon, but I only have LED lights. I take it those would be a total waste of time? What about boiling large pots of water and putting those close to the plant under the cloth? Any other ideas?

    So many green tomatoes!

    Dale

  • sparklynnrose
    13 years ago

    Oh, god, this is gonna get ugly. We left for Vegas yesterday morning and won't be home until Saturday. Didn't have much choice but to cover what I could, put Christmas lights in a few places, and hope for the best. My big orange tree is gonna get fried and I hope the orchid tree survives.

    Everything else, I'll just have to live with. I'm sure the last tomato is a goner.

    Does anyone know of a "quick list" of common plants/trees here and how hardy they are? Like, I know ficus won't be happy and the bougie is toast, but what about ash and mesquite and sissoo and...?

    I don't remember the Big Freeze of 2007 because we were in the old desert house and I didn't have anything I cared about. Ignorance was bliss!!

    Really alarming thought: what happens when drip lines freeze? Do they blow up?

  • cjs111
    13 years ago

    so, I am one of the knuckleheads that planted ficus trees. In 07, I lost 7 nice trees in the freeze. Was out of town and I didnt cover. (anyone remember what it got down to in 07)

    In a moment of weakness I replaced them with more ficus trees.. anyway, my plan for the next couple of days is to cover them with large burlap flats from home depot and or/bed sheets (which ever gives the best coverage). I am wrapping the trunks with Beach towels. I bought some cheap fan heaters from walmart last night for $10 that I am going to position at the top of the trunks where the branches start. I am hoping the heat and circulation these provide are enough to make it through. If I can't get heaters to stay put I have metal have dome shop lamps with 100 watt bulbs that I will put in the trees. I have had success with this in the past.

    thoughts and suggestions welcome. good luch everyone. Regards!

  • thisisme
    13 years ago

    I just got back in from hanging a bunch of C9 Christmas lights on my trees. With this wind I'm afraid to cover many of my smaller trees.

  • thisisme
    13 years ago

    cjs1111 I think parts of the valley got down to 21-23 degrees in 2007. We may see temps like that again in the next 2-3 weeks.

  • mullenium
    13 years ago

    I heard it snowed earlier in mesa, scottsdale, and peoria

  • cjs111
    13 years ago

    "We may see temps like that again in the next 2-3 weeks."

    thisisme, what is that based on? is there a way to see out that far with accuracy.

    I was hoping this was the last cold snap.

  • az_pamperedchef
    13 years ago

    I went out to my Cherokee Purple tomato, one of the ones not coming under the porch & found a couple of that were blushing. One just started, my largest on the plant & the other is a little further along. Picked them & brought them in along with one that from a broken limb. The red tomatoes are Siberia on the top and Stupice on the bottom.

    {{gwi:427351}}

  • thisisme
    13 years ago

    cjs111 I did not say we will, I said we may. I'm only saying that because the forecast nighttime lows this year and last in general have underestimated how cold it will be by 3-10 degrees. Seeing the long range forecast there are 10 days in the next two weeks where nighttime temps are expected to be in the high 20's to high 30's. Given that the actual temps we experience are frequently lower than forecasted there is a high likelihood that at least one of those days will be lower than forecasted. Thats why I said we may get some days as cold as we did in 2007. We may not but there is a good chance we will.

  • euqruob
    13 years ago

    Temp in front yard is 34.5 at 1230 am. Strung little christmas lights in the bamboo hedge (3 plants) and covered with Burlap. Both passion fruit are covered with burlap and plankets and each have a nice hot 150 watt clamp on light bulb burning. Not too worried, temp has held within 2 degrees for last 5 hours or so. Mango is in the laundry room though!

  • mullenium
    13 years ago

    my guava was hit by the freeze the other week, so tonight i just covered it with plastic (all the leaves are gone, except maybe 2 right above the soil)

    hopefully I dont need a light source inside the plastic drop cloth since its already damaged

  • cjs111
    13 years ago

    It's 6 am and I just checked ficus trees. All my sheets blew off. There was a slight breeze going when I went to bed.....must have been enough to blow therm off over nigh.t Keeping my fingers crossed for minimal damage.

  • goodluckkitty
    13 years ago

    I used clothes pins on my sheets. I also wrapped a couple of plants in bubble wrap and taped them on. Everything is intact. I only covered my tomatoes and bananas, and I also used Christmas lights. I ran out of sheets so my artichoke and ficus were left to fend for themselves; the artichoke doesn't look too good. Bogies don't either.

  • mullenium
    13 years ago

    I had a puddle of water on my back porch that turned to ice.

    for my banana I wrapped it with a sheet, then plastic drop cloth (since all the leaves are gone it just looks like a tall stump lol)

    also my inground mangos have a PVC structure around them for sun shade, so what I did was shrink wrap the sides of the structure from ground to the top sides, and left the sunshade on the very top with like 3 strands of xmas lights on each mango tree (one dangling from the sun shade)

    I also covered my grapes with a sheet just incase, they already looked dormant but I didnt want to risk anything

    I also bought these pop out greenhouse frost protectors from lowes that I used over a small minnola orange and small improved meyer lemon, and my large trovita had the plastic drop cloth over it with a strand of old school xmas lights inside on the ground by the trunk

    oh ya and my plumeria i put a box on top of it, but that thing looks horrible LOL

    and of course my guave, lets hope I didnt need any additional heat source under the plastic

  • agility_mom
    13 years ago

    I used bricks to anchor my frost cloth to the ground and binder clips to seal the seams around the plants. Everything held and it was pretty windy here. I still have the Christmas lights on and it's about 9 AM. It was 38 on my patio a little while ago.
    Yesterday afternoon, we got a good snow where I live. It didn't amount to anything (thank goodness)but it was sure pretty coming down.

  • xica_da_silva
    13 years ago

    Here in downtown Phoenix, it's about 40F right now and I just removed the cloth, etc. to assess the damage. I used a combo of christmas lights, sheets, old curtains, frost cloth, and towels...sometimes you need to bring out all the heavy artillery to do battle with Mama Nature, no? And it's a good thing I started preparing early yesterday, because as many of you know, the wind and cold were fierce out there. Seemed like I was working in slow motion. Like agility mom, I used some leftover pavers as well as some safety pins to keep things tied down, but it was still challenging with the wind fighting me every step of the way! Now, if it's that hard just to do basic tasks at near sea-level and not too serious cold, I wonder how do those people climbing Everest ever pitch tents in such crazy conditions? Hmmm...

    Anyhow, good news: no damage on anything except a little on some of the tips of my osteospermums. Even though I covered them, unfortunately, I didn't have enough Christmas lights to drape over them so that's why I think they got burned a bit. But they're such big critters (a year and a half old!) I suspect they protect much of their own undergrowth just by being so large. They'll live. Amazing critters! Interestingly, I noticed that the one that's currently in full bloom seemed to be protected by the protruding flowers themselves. No damage wherever the flowers were.

    Well, looks like 1 or 2 more night of this to go. Good luck, everyone!

    PS. What's up with the current weather? I kept hearing the forecasters say that the clouds would go away. I'm worried that with all the clouds, the ground won't get reheated by nice sunlight. Or is this good...maybe the clouds will wrap in whatever existing warmth there is? Hmmmm...anyone here understand the science?

  • wabikeguy
    13 years ago

    How's everybody holding out?

  • pgde
    13 years ago

    Greetings from Tucson. Here is a picture of my new citrus covered to protect them from the hard freeze. When this picture was taken it was about 10:00am on 12/31, rain/slush/snow mix, temp about 35. I have frost cloth, 250 watt halogen work lights (available at Home Depot for $7 each) and C7 Xmas lights. I added the Xmas lights when the hard freeze warning came out, just in case. Am leaving the lights on continuously to make sure it is warm enough.

    {{gwi:427352}}

    Low temps have been:

    12/30 27.5
    12/31 26.5
    1/1 24.5

    Projected 1/2 low is 27 but with more rapid warming than the past two mornings (on 12/31 and 1/1 we did not get above freezing until about 0900), perhaps around 0800). Believe it or not, we are in a relative warm microclimate because other parts of Tucson were 3-4 degrees colder than we were. And, as you can see from the picture, the citrus are planted on a slope allowing colder air to sink away to the wash at the end of the property. While I do have a recording weather station and upload to Weather Underground (www.wunderground.com), here are a few sites/features that you might find useful in monitoring the temperatures and seeing what your microclimate is.

    (1) Goto www.wunderground.com, input your zip code and then click on "Wundermap" in the left column. It shows you reporting weather stations and the temperatures associated with them. Here is an example: http://www.wunderground.com/wundermap/?lat=32.17956543&lon=-110.80342865&zoom=10&pin=Tucson%2c%20AZ.
    (2) Goto http://forecast.weather.gov//wxplanner.php?site=twc and input your latitude and longitude. While this is for Tucson, you can choose other sites. They are real close on temperatures based on comparison to my weather station results.

    Happy New Year's and here's to warmer temperatures!!

    P.

  • thisisme
    13 years ago

    looks good pgde. With temps like that there is little doubt your efforts saved your trees from sever freeze damage and perhaps even from a premature death.

  • puglvr1
    13 years ago

    mullenium, do you have a photo of your PVC structure for you Mango tree that you shrinkwrap? How did it work out?

    I live in Central FL...I have 6 mango trees planted in the ground and we had three nights of freeze last week...about the same temps you guys are dealing with now. I had some severe damages on at least 3 of them :o(

    Good luck to all of you!

  • Azscapes
    13 years ago

    Just wanted to post a link i found very helpful , and insightful relating specifically to frost protection in Arizona enjoy and good luck!

    http://ag.arizona.edu/pubs/garden/az1002.pdf

    Here is a link that might be useful: Arizona Frost Protection

  • MaryMcP Zone 8b - Phx AZ
    13 years ago

    Great article. Thanks.

  • sparklynnrose
    13 years ago

    Still keeping all fingers and toes crossed, but it seems to not be nearly as bad here as I feared it might be. Every lantana on my street (including mine) is stone dead, and my front bougainvilla, which weathered the November freeze untouched, took a hit. The top of my orange tree was burned too. But my orchid tree appears untouched, along with most of my other tender plants.

    Went over to my inlaws' in Gilbert last night. Lots of big ficus in their neighborhood were definitely hit, but (at a drive-by glance, by a ficus amateur) it looked survivable. I hope all the efforts everyone here made paid off!

  • mullenium
    13 years ago

    Here is my mango PVC structure. I have shade cloth on the top, and the past couple nights i used a plastic drop cloth over that sun shade to help keep the warmth from the c9 lights inside

    {{gwi:427353}}

  • mullenium
    13 years ago

    btw, my low for the past few nights has always been 35 inside of that structure

  • jojosplants
    13 years ago

    Hello All!

    I hope your plants are doing well!

    I moved all my containers up under my awning, and I'm hoping it's safe enough to put them back around the yard tomorrow.

    Boy it looks naked! lol!

    Nancy! What a surprise to see you here! :-)! I hope your trees are doing O.K.

    The past few days sure have been cold, were just not used to it here.

    I've been using weather.com, it can give you a break down by zip code and the hour, but also like the link give.

    I see some great ideas here for protecting my plants next season.

    It was alot of work to move them all. Not so much the weight, just the # of them.

    Hoping the worst is gone, and were heading for spring. ;-)!
    JoJo

  • puglvr1
    13 years ago

    Thanks Mullenium for posting the pictures...NICE set-up!

    Hi Jojo, my trees took a really big hit...I'm just hoping they will come back in Spring? I was perusing the different forums looking for any posts on Mango trees protection,lol...
    I'm all over the place :o)

    Good luck to you guys...I hope we don't see any more freezes in FL either!

  • grant_in_arizona
    13 years ago

    Hi everyone,

    These are update are really neat to read--thanks for all of the updates and ideas. I don't know about the rest of you, but I was carrying around my digital min-max thermometer display evenings, nights, and mornings, like a kid with a stuffed animal! I hated going to bed watching the temperature get lower and lower and lower. :(

    I did bring in several potted plants from my patio. My garden got down to 28.0 F on the 31st and 1st. I took pity on my big clump of Echium fastuosum that I've had for a couple of years and tossed a fleece cover over it (since it *should* bloom in March if it makes it).

    The only real damage is what I expected: lantanas are fried but will come back; 95% of my many self-sown basil plants are mush, but a handful look GREAT (natural selection in action?), and a few large mother of thousands plants (Bryophyllum) that I let self sow here and there were liquified (though not all). My Japanese fiber banana (Musa basjoo, ornamental as the fruit is small and seedy) looks totally fine, as does my little sapote and half a dozen citrus trees (one Washington Navel orange tree was utterly wilted for two days and now looks 100% fine). Even my huge 5 foot tall Aloe 'Hercules' seems okay (so far, but they're sometimes slow to show damage); various aloe blooms and bloom stalks look fine. My several pitayas and climbing hylocereus and selenicereus cacti on my north-facing walls seem totally fine so far too. Potted geraniums turned to mush, LOL, but the petunias and pansies in the same pots look fine and will enjoy the extra room I imagine. All in all pretty minimal damage I'd say, and only in the back yard (front is all bone-hardy here: totem pole cacti, golden barrels, hesperaloe, Aloe vera, agave parryi, ocotillo, mesquite, some Euphorbias etc).

    Neighborhood Ficus trees are singed and blackened, and everyone's lantanas and bougies are fried (but should recover).

    Hopefully everyone's damage is as minimal as possible. I sure hope this is the last frost/freeze for a looooooong time, but you never know.

    Thanks again for sharing your updates, strategies, and casualties. There's nothing better than sharing first hand with other gardeners!

    Take care,
    Grant

  • grant_in_arizona
    13 years ago

    One other thing that looks AWFUL, that I expected to since I didn't cover it, is my popcorn cassia (C. didymobotrya). It went from a 7 foot tall leafy, green blooming tropical looking wonder, to a big pile of sticks covered with boiled spinach, LOL. They *should* come back in spring, but even if not, they bloom quickly from seed so are easily replaced. We'll see!

    Happy gardening!
    Grant

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