There are a lot of small micro climates in San Diego. We have been in the mid 40s three or four times. It was 45 last night - but 5 miles away they were at 30 and heavy frost (I am up higher on a hill, they are in the valley).

We did actually have a few snow flakes this morning for about 5 minutes or so. Enough to say techinically that we had snow, but otherwise not an issue.

The bananas aren't excited about this weather, but they will survive it fine. The winds a couple weeks ago caused far more damage. I lost two bunches, and had three more trees with fruit get their trunks folded, but they will survive and ripen their fruit, and the flower stem were not completely severed.

It's 27F now here. Got down to 25F last night. That's the coldest it's gotten here (Santa Clarita) in a few years. I'm also on a hillside, it probably got colder at the riverbed a few blocks away.

I expect to see some damage to the bananas and plumeria - they don't look great now. The fact that it's dry and humidity is low may help to keep too much damage from happening.

I'm located in the city of Los Angeles. The last few nights we diped down into the upper 30's.

My bananas are not doing well at all. Actually they look very bad. The leaves on most of them are wilted and turning brown.

Does anyone know if they will recover?

I'm in Topanga Canyon, near Los Angeles. Hard to believe but last night temps were down to 18-20 degrees (I have three min/max thermometers, two showed 20 as the min, one showed 18.5). I brought my plumerias and some small bananas in, and all my container vegetables, cherimoya, etc... Put thick plastic bags around the bananas in the ground, and around one in a 15 gal container. Interestingly, the container one showed a 10 deg benefit from the bag and burlap wrapped around its trunk base, 18.5 deg outside, 28.5 deg inside the wrappings. Still not enough, this plant already half fried from 29 deg night a month ago, now the entire trunk is brown. But there's a chance the base will survive so I'll keep it going until spring and see what happens.

I don't expect to see temperatures like this again for a long time. But some bananas, some of my bougainvillea, ginger, cherimoya in containers, can definitely handle 29 degree weather, just not this 20 degree xxjxzzz!!!. And my older citrus trees, Valencia and Navel, and some younger tangerines, look ok even after last night.

jc

My Brazilian banana looks like it was killed by the frost we had yesterday, its leaves are a reddish brown color. Its a shame as it had a bunch of small bananas on it. I measured 26 degrees here in Fullerton in Orange County yesterday and 27 this morning at the crack of dawn. My Apple banana looks bad but may have survived, maybe because it is taller (14 feet) and its leaves are farther away from the really cold air near the ground. I am on the north side of a small hill so I think my yard gets colder than the official measurements taken at Fullerton airport that said the low was 28 yesterday. My passion fruit vine looks like it survived except for some vines that were laying on the ground. My tangerine and kumquot trees look OK too. My other fruit trees probably enjoyed the freeze as they normally don't get enough chilling hours.

Californian. Don't give up on the bananas yet. Remove any rotting, mushy leaves and trunk parts, but leave the nanners on, esp if they have been hanging 2-3 months or more. If the cold didn't hurt the fruit, only the plant, there is good chance they will still ripen. If that fails, cut them off and bring them indoors and see if they will ripen. You just might be surprised.

Wow, I want to move where you are pitangadiego! We hit 21 last saturday night/sun morning. It was 26 when I woke up this morning. Our pipes were frozen on sunday morning, but so far it looks like I'll only lose about 6-12 inches of stem on the big ice cream, my smaller apple and goldfinger will probably end up having to start over this spring. That was with the plants wrapped in black weed sheeting.

I was at anderson nursery getting a persimmon and plum the other day and apparently Poway really is quite a bit of a colder micro-climate according to the chilling hours chart. Must be that we're at the bottom of a valley or something...

Poway is very variable, depending on whether you face North or South and whether you are on a hill or ridge, or down in the canyons and valleys. Some places in Poway are frost free, others might as well be in Ohio.

pitangadiego is right. Don't give up. Its no big deal if your banana leaves are fried. Its the p-stem(Trunk) that you need to check on. Even if the p-stems are bad(mushy> you can cut it off and you should get new growth from the corm(bulb,rootball)come spring.Most bananas are tuff as nails.As long as there corms are still good, then you will get new growth.

Good luck in California. We have about 75 days before we are frost free.

We went down to 30 for a couple of nights in Long Beach. My Ice Creams' leaves have all turned brownish yellow, but the 2 bunches of fruit look okay, I think they may make it. They look so sad. I may cut down some of the large pups, seeing that I let 3-5 grow at a time, I want to wait until we get warmer nights. I have a small Manzano in a pot that has damage on the leaves, but will probably make it.I have a dwarf red in a pot that is damaged but is already putting out new leaves.

Update on my banana plants. The leaves on my Brazilian and either an ice cream or apple, I forgot which one I planted where, turned completely brown after that killer frost we had three days in a row, so I cut off all the dead leaves but left the stems just incase they recover. All but one of the pups was killed too. I have an eight foot high pencil bush that is turning yellowish white so it may be dead also. About half of my huge passion fruit vine looks like it was killed too, particularly the top layers of growth and the parts growing on the roof of a playhouse. My citrus (kumquots, tangerine, orange, and lemon seemed to have survived too).

I'm confused on what to do for my banana plants. After the big freeze all the leaves turned brown and died. I've searched the web and have found conflicting info. Some say to cut the tree at the trunk before the damage infects the rest of the plant, some say to wait until spring to cut it or it may get more frost damage.

I doubt it'll get that cold again this winter so I'm leaning towards cutting the tree about half way down (I'd guess they're about 8-10 feet). But what is the expert opinion on what should be done?

Thank you.

dangle2k, if you have any brown mushy stuff where the leaf stems join the the Pseudo stem you should remove them asap or they will continue to rot and take the pseudo stem with them, before spring ever gets here! I'm still trying to remove all the mush from the 50 or so plants I have. I use a straight edge razor blade and pull the stem away from the plant while carefully cutting it just below the brown mushy part that froze. If the center is dark then you will need to cut the P-stem down in sections until you see no more black stuff inside. They will grow again as the weather warms.