24 in Ocala. Brrrr...

19F supposedly here. Time to fire up the gh heater and see if it actually still works and buy some propane lol. Spent some time this morning digging up stuff. I still have five 10 ft tall plumeria trees to dig up and some huge brugmansia grrr. I seriously doubt all this is gonna fit into the gh this year cuz its already pretty much full.

The National Weather Service says 35F on Monday night and about 40F on Tuesday. My tropicals are already in the garage. Thinking about moving in 2 geraniums that are 4 yr old and maybe the dwarf pulmeria. I know if I pull up that pot, I'll rip a bunch of roots that might kill it anyway. Frost cloths will go over the broms even though it looks like they will be fine. What if the prediction is 3 degrees off? Can't take that chance.

20F for Monday night and 27F for Tuesday night here. (Every time I look at the forecast Monday's low is lower!) It's been several years since it has flirted with teens here.

I am going to have to cover my winter veggies and hope. My potted citrus (Meyer lemon and Red Lime babies) are coming into the garage Monday night. The Satsuma mandarin orange tree should be fine, but I am about to go out there and start harvesting...I am calling family members and asking how many oranges they want, since this is the last call for this year's fruit.

On the plus side, I have a bougainvillea in a bad spot. It has come back from the roots the past two years. Monday night ought to kill it for me.

Bundle up and stay warm, everyone!

15 degrees predicted here. We plan to harvest as many greens an broccoli as we can. Should we cover them? Would it do any good? We only grew collards before. Now we have mustard greens too. They got kinda knocked down when we had a cold snap a few days ago. I have strawberries in window boxes too. I'd sure hat to lose them. Any advise?

I have heavy blankets over a lot of in-ground tropicals and I've prayed for them - we'll see what happens.

20 is predicted for Monday and 26 for Tuesday.

Not complaining too loud after hearing of the above low temps. Hereabouts it's predicted to drop to 37 on Monday night and 38 on Tuesday. Will be busy nonetheless, hauling inside my 2 potted mango trees and 2 potted Goldfinger banana pups. Will put a small sheet over the planted Goldfinger pup and then plug in the 6 strings of C9 Christmas lights strung out thru 4 of my planted 4 yr old mango trees. The lights on my whole block should dim when I do that !!!! ( smile )
Long story short, am about as prepared as I can be,..still enjoying the fond memories of the warm December we had.

Good luck Jofus. I've got three mango trees in the ground here in Orlando. I've done the tree lights and it was a pain so I am going to try water this time. I've got 360 degree shower sprinklers stubbed up in the top thirds of each tree and I'm going to turn the well on before I go to bed. I have to believe 70 degree water spraying a shower over them all night will have to do the trick. Water has a high heat capacity. I knew it was a risk when I planted them up here though. I'm a south Florida boy, what can I say.

31 and 37 on Tuesday. I have one mango potted and another in the ground. Lights and covers for one and plead with my son to help me drag the other inside! Covers for everything else like orchids and Tropicals. Some stuff will not be happy like the night blooming jasmine, Cherries Jubilee Alamanda and the hibiscus. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.

I'm not sure what a C9 Christmas light bulb is, but it sounds exciting to celebrate Christmas again. I'd love to see a picture of it! The old nurserymen in Vero Beach used to run the sprinklers all night to save their plants. I hope your trees will be ok. Sounds like a good idea. One nursery lost the plants because they got over watered. I guess they should have been on timers or something. I don't know how that works. I'm going to put a heavy blanket over my strawberries. Not sure what hubby is doing with his greens, besides a heavy harvest.

Hi
looks like PB county will be in the 40's !! but since I'm near the ocean my area is usually 5/10 degrees warmer .
Not planning on any moving but will probably put up the portable GH for the Vanda orchids.
Looks like it's going to be short and daytimes will be higher than the usual cold front. That helps a lot
I have some "magic" frost cloth that is supposed to produce heat lol Maybe I'll get a test?? lol
Good luck everybody !! gary

Calling for 35 Monday and 27 Tuesday night! I'm bringing in some plants in pots and moving some others closer to the trunk of a live oak tree--those pots are usually full of ants and I don't want them coming into the house, too! I wanted to whack back my blue sky vine anyway, so if it gets frosted, c'est la vie :)

I'll have to take a walk around and see what needs protected. I guess I'll cover my red shrimp plant since it's still full of flowers. And maybe my small hibiscus, and there are some small pentas.... !

Should I pick my lemons?
Marcia

I feel lucky here in St Pete,, our lows are 37 and 40. a couple of blocks from the bay and I am hoping that helps keep things warmer than that. However, I am taking in all my desert rose seedlings and Bullbophyllums. I have bananas on my Dwarf Cavandish, so i'll probably try to keep it a bit warmer as well. Good luck all.

HUGE difference in the forecast for me in Highlands County between weather.com and NWS...weatherunderground is closer to weather.com.

NWS says 32 for Tues morning and 26 for Wed. morning...

Weather.com says 33 Tues morning and 37 for Wed morning.

What's up with that? 11 degrees makes a HUGE, difference between life and death to a lot of my plants... especially between 26 degrees and 37...I know its impossible to be very accurate...but can they at least get it a little closer than 11 degrees apart from one weather network to another,lol...

Supposed to be 25 here Monday and Tuesday night Southwest of Williston. Just came in from raking up longleaf pine needles and piling them up in my gardens. Too much to cover with plastic and all in the ground so I can't bring them in. They're all perennials so they'll come back but it's sort of depressing because so many are blooming now and most have put out lots of new growth due to the warm weather and rain we've been having.

I shouldn't complain since my family in Ohio is facing snow and extreme cold.

It's going to be 26 and 27 for me in a cold part of Lakeland. I have about 30 Moringa trees to bring into the greenhouse and I'll be pretty good. I drip well water in the greenhouses which heats them to around 40 to 45 so I don't have to worry about propane unless the electric gets turned off, which rarely happens until we have temps in the teens. I designed one greenhouse that never needs heating and is naturally heated by a drum of water buried in the ground and topped with a half barrel. It heated itself just fine even when it was 15f outside a few years back.

Not sure of orchids will survive the cold just being covered. I always brought mine inside when the temp got below 50. My hubby wanted to put a 55 gal. drum of water in our greenhouse. I don't know if thought he about burying it. I really like that idea! We dragged all of the little (8x8) greenhouse plants inside over a month ago. Tired of running an electric heater for some cheap plants. Nothing of any great value. Just buy new in the spring or start from seed. I got so I don't trust the weather man. Got burned before by trusting fully in the forecast. Just use your own judgement and pray it works!

zackey : To answer your question, I got the idea of stringing Christmas lights thru my mango trees from some gal's entry on GW about 4 years ago. She stated that for years that was all she did for the sub 40 deg nights and it's worked fine. I can echo her advise !
The pic is a new pack of 25 C9's with the pkg cover removed. Home Depot and Lowes had drastic price reductions on Christmas day & a few days after that. Will try another pic.

Just use a long cord to get the string back to the tree(s), then plug 'em in before you hit the hay on those cold nights.

Being a former electronic engineer, may I make one suggestion ?
Wherever you buy your strings of Christmas tree lights at,..be sure to consult with the electrical sales guy to verify you are using the correct AWG when purchasing your estension cords, ( misspelled on purpose, keyboard suddenly cannot type that letter betw w and y !!!! lol )
There are two sizes of old fashioned heat emitting bulbs to be considered,..the C7's ( 5 watts ), and the larger C9's ( 7.5 watts )
Even tho each set comes with a fuse, nice to have confidence the string will not suddenly go out at 4 AM due to a current overload,.. when the outside temp drops to 30 degrees,..the time when you need the warmth from the bulbs the most !
They're easy to use tho, have never had a problem.

I was just curious. Nothing I would ever use. I had too many years of the Chinese fire drill of covering and uncovering. I try to plant whatever will grow in my zone and if doesn't grow well, I try to get over it and drive on.

In general, when will hard freeze season end? end of March or middle of March? Thanks

LOVE the 'tree frog' picture!! now...that could be called a Christmas Tree Frog!!!
We're supposed to get in the 30s here...trying to decide how much of the patio stuff needs to come inside: Hoya, Christmas cactus.....?? I plan on the orchids to come inside and we have new (this year) potted plumeria that I'll put in the garage for a couple of days. Do any of you take cuttings before a freeze (or cold snap) for rooting purposes?

Great pictures jofus!!

You're so lucky my lowes and Home Depot ran out of those Christmas lights before any mark downs were taken :(

Some of my hoyas survived under oak trees in 31 degree weather but it was only for a couple of hours last winter. Some hoyas cannot take below 45 degrees but will depend on the variety. Christmas cactus should be brought inside if frost or freeze is expected. Best to bring them inside to be on the safe side. Better safe than sorry :)

Some of the other Central Florida posters noted something I found frustrating. Predictions everywhere from mid-20's to mid-30's. I'm assuming the worst, even though my particular plot has been somewhat mild compared to Highland City and Bartow. Coconut will get covered, bananas will get fried, everything else will be ok.

Christmas Tree Frog,....am still laughing !

Jofus,

It appears to me the frog only wanted a light lunch that day.

MOO

On the barrel, putting a black barrel full of water in the greenhouse will absorb the heat during the day and give off heat at night. The problem is that sometimes we will have a few cloudy, or rainy days before a freeze so the black barrel is useless. Bury the barrel and it constantly absorbs warmth from the ground, and this can't fail. The buried barrel is mostly below ground and has two holes on opposite sides at ground level. The half barrel is out on top and has a three inch hole at the top. The barrel is filled 3/4 with water. The cold air that sinks to ground level goes into the bottom holes, is heated by the warm water, and then rises to go out the top hole. This creates a vaccum which pulls in more cold air and naturally circulates the warm air. When it was 20F outside, I checked the temps, the water was 62F, and the air in the top barrel was 58F going out. The main thing is that one cubic foot of water will produce 54.5 BTUs per hour. Figure how many BTUs you need to heat any greenhouse, and sink that much water in the ground to heat what you have.
On the temps varying here in Lakeland, everybody's microclimate is going to be different. In my place, it is in a low spot. On the second day of a two day freeze event, when there is no wind, my place is 6 degrees lower than it is 1000 feet to the south. You have to look and see what the weather channel says you will have for your zip code and then just observe what you get for your low. After a few times, you can figure what you will get. I already know that whatever TWC says Brooksville will have, that is exactly what I will have. It has been fairly consistent for years.

MOO loufloralcity. excellent! if only all those Christmas TreeFrogs would take a light lunch....
latest prediction for here (Rockledge) for tomorrow night is 36. Too close for my comfort. ALL my hoya are coming in. also pitcher plant and any other potted tenders that I can handle.

puglvr1 : Too bad you didn't live closer, would give you that unused pack of C-9's. Even tho I already knew I had enough C-7's and C-9's, I just can't resist a sale ! lol

Lou, Hilarious!!! "Light lunch" Love it!!

Thanks Jofus...its the thought that counts :o)

Lou,
Yeah, bet that " Christmas Tree Frog " wishes he had more than a " light lunch " now... Here it was 79 degrees and calm at 1:45 PM, stiff breeze started kicking in around 2 PM, and now, at 3:00 PM, it's down ro 57 degrees already and blowing heavy ! Talk about fast turn-arounds !
If today and tomorrow are the worst days we get this winter I will be very happy, but took the 4 delicate guys inside anyway.
Was on my lanai chilling out with a Pina Colada when it suddenly got blustery and chilly, - just surprised at the quick change,.. here anyway.

I wonder what a 4th of July Cuban Tree Frog might look like? I know that's bad... I just finished covering and moving, that's all I can do. I'm always in denial as I work up a sweat protecting things from the cold. I think to myself, "It couldn't possibly get that cold." Then I go out in the morning to frost on my windshield and blighted plants and realize it can and did get that cold.