The last 2 winters have been mild so this is the best you can expect. The good thing is there are so many things you can grow like plums and plucots and black berries that struggle in tropical zones. I want mangos and jackfruit but know I'll likely fail . Limes and lemons are gonna struggle for you Find what thrives in your zone and enjoy it. Thats the lesson I am learning. Except my bromeliads which are small and portable I am learning that lesson

Hi
i have been gardening in florida for over 30 years and i still don't have what anyone would call a "landscape" lol
I've made a every mistake at least twice Every possible disaster has visited it at least twice some three or four.lol
Take heart in 20/30 years you'll still be confused BUT in an entirely different way !!lol The very subtle differences between a" Landscape, a Garden a yard and a mismash of specimens, still elude me lol i think i have achieved the most important goal i still get a thrill when a seed sprouts my favorite plant flowers an ailing plant recovers The struggle may just be the best part of gardening?? lol gary

So well said, Gary - I've been at it for over 20 years and I offen ask myself why? cold,pests,death for no reason,nematoads,too dry, no rain, too much rain, and on and on.
But then spring comes, plants revive, birds and butterlies are prolific, scents are everywhere and I say, "this is why".
Hang in there, Leeke- It will be worth it!
Hester

I agree with Gary & Hester. I gardening here 17 years and made more mistakes then I can count. But I learn as I go and sometimes still make the same mistake again. But the joy when you suceed makes it all worth it. Every garden is the vision of the gardener and beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Some people wouldn't like my jungle, others say how nice it is. So do what you like!

We left saturday morning, but I guess I can assume my corn and bean sprouts are all dead. Sorry about your losses, Leekle, it really is a drag to lose plants and trees.

I have a new strategy for next year: I'm going to do some low tunnels as are often used in cold climates to extend young row crops into winter; in this case they can warm the ground sufficiently in january to get fast germination of seeds and then later use the cover when the freezes come to protect young plants.

I am definitely one of those "zone pushers"...I know I'm not suppose to grow Mango trees here...but I love them so much I'm willing to do almost anything to keep them alive. There is so much satisfaction the very first time they bloom and give me home grown fruits...I almost forget all the very hard work that went along with keeping them alive. I won't do this just for any plant...Mango and Lychee is on my top 2 fruit trees that's worth all the work and hassle. Believe me when I say I have lost many of these trees to human error, weather mostly...but I keep trying :o)...one day I'm sure I will give up and let weather win... but I'm not there yet,lol...

Hang in there and have fun...trial and error (mostly error ) that's half the battle!

Hang in there.

Take the opportunity to observe any areas in your yard that the frost didn't settle on. Areas near walls or under mature trees. Those are your "warm" spots where you'll have the best chance of succeeding with marginal plants. For example, under my oak tree, if I've only seen frost once, when we hit 23 a couple winters ago. I know that plants in that spot will be 5-10 degrees warmer than the true temp. So they only need protection in really bad years. Similarity, I planted 2 of my mangos in the heat reflection zone of my house. Those trees lived the winter it was 23, and are fruiting this year. Whereas a mango planted far out on the edge of my yard died that year. Those little microclimates are huge for zone pushing! Good luck! Happily gardening can be a success by trial and error. I think of it as a painting that I start, and which is finished for me. Doesn't always turn out the way I thought it would, but there are neat discoveries along the way.

I guess I lucked out when it came to experimenting with plants. I was living with my parents when I started really getting into gardening and my mom gave me permission to experiment with their garden while I was there. It was a win win stituation for both of us. I got to try all kinds of neat new plants in their already established flower beds and they got free help in the garden as well as free (to them!) new plants. That would be how I got mom hooked on crinums when I brought the first few plants back from a swap. They still get free plants from me when I go to swaps or thin plants in my own garden. But then again I also get free plants from them when they are thinning their garden. Just a week ago they gave me several dozen baby coonties they discovered around an adult coonties that they had to move.

After I bought my own house I had already learned a lot from my parents garden, including limiting the size of the flowers beds. One thing it took me a few more years to learn was about pushing the zone limits on certain plants. One plants that stands out was the large white bird of paradise that I just had to have even though I knew I was too far north for it. After several years of watching it die back to the ground again and again I fionally accepted reality and replaced it with something that will hopefully do better. I still occassionaly push the limits on certain plants, my currant favorite being my lions tail, but usually I only protect one or two plants from frost and the rest have to fend for themselves. To survive in my garden they have to be able to make it through both summer and winter with little intervention from me! If the plant doesn't make it then it just wasn't meant to live in my yard is now my garden philosophy! This year has been the exception in that I have covered a bunch of plants during the last couple freezes even though I know that all of the plants that I covered would come back if the frost did get them. It's just so many things had started blooming and I really wanted to protect the blooms.

Every year I try several new and unfamilar plants in the garden and this year will be no different. I've already cleared a couple good sized areas in the front bed relocating or just getting rid of some plants that just weren't working out and it's my hope to find something unusual to try this weekend at the plant sale!

"Limes and lemons are gonna struggle for you"

I don't know why you say that, rednofl. Leekle is in zone 9a. The Meyer Lemon and Tangerine are suitable for zones 8-11 and the Persian Lime is suitable for zones 9-11. There's no reason to assume they'll struggle, assuming they're properly sited.
My mother lives in zone 9a and owns a huge citrus grove. She has so many varieties of every kind of citrus, I can't even keep them all straight. Some I've never even HEARD of. But Meyer Lemon, Mandarin/Tangerine, and Bearss Lime are ones I know she grows successfully.

Leekle, I really enjoyed your post because I can SO relate. I started gardening about 25 years ago in Michigan. Now I feel like a newbie here in Florida, though I've been here 12 years. I haven't spent all 12 years really attempting much in the way of gardening. I was too overwhelmed at all I didn't know. So, I focused more on actual landscaping until about 3 years ago with marginal degrees of success and failure.
Every time we buy a new house, I have to start over. Hopefully this is the last house we'll own and I can really "set down roots."
I don't want to think of all the time and money spent in this "gardening endeavor." I don't lose things to frost, I lose them for other reasons. Oleanders succumbed to Oleander Moths, annuals couldn't take the heat, etc. But once the weather slapped me around a few times, I started growing more things with wider hardiness ranges. I don't cover plants. *shrug* I just don't. The Crotons are the ones that I keep buying and they keep getting killed in a frost. When will I learn?
But this time, I covered my Geraniums, of all things. They're getting so big and flowering so profusely right now, I just couldn't bear another die-back. I meant to cover more, I just "forgot."
I think I forget because I just can't believe that a plant should really NEED it at 32 degrees. I'm used to plants that can survive being covered with ice and snow for MONTHS.
I guess you can take the girl out of Zone 5 Detroit, but you can't take Zone 5 Detroit out of the girl.

Well, thank you for the support folks. Though it really wasn't needed. I didn't mean this little 'rant' to sound like I was giving up the ghost on this growing passion (pun intended), just an accounting of this past frost and how it brought my first year to a pretty sound ending.

The only thing I fear is that last March a killing frost took my 'garden' from one Key Lime to a Bearss Lime, a Mandarin and a Meyer Lemon. So my collection grew three-fold. Plus the Key Lime is still alive and putting out flowers and fruit at this very moment. So this past frost getting my plants... if last year's reaction is anything to go by, I'm about to have a LOT of plants to find homes for. And when I take into account that this weekend there is a plant sale in Ocala and another plant sale two weeks later in Taveres and another one in April in Taveres as well as the upcoming Native Plant sale at PEAR park... well... my wife might be hiding my debit card from me soon.

Regarding the citrus, for whatever reason in my little grove grapefruit has tolerated frosts, drought and mineral impoverishment significantly better than orange, tangerine or meyer lemon.

Re: "growing passion"...

I just got home from spending $350 on more plants. And I just added them to the pile of $600 worth of plants I still need to pot or plant. I only WENT to the garden center to buy MULCH!

What is WRONG with me?!?! I guess I'm a glutton for punishment.

I did cover my plants for the cold weather, and they did well, only to have deer come around to munch a few to the ground. It's not just the weather around here, I have a lotus in a whiskey barrel and they even took a bite out of that. There is no telling what they eat- I had red castor bean that just sprouted. This is supposed to be poisonous, they ate the tops off the young plants. Once they ate the middle out of my hibiscus bush, what a strange site that was. I read that human hair would scare them off, my friend cut her husband's hair and I sprinkled it on some plants, still they ate the variegated blue sky vine, Chinese rainbells and Vietnamese hollyhock! I finally found some stuff that is really gross, but it works, called Plant Skydd, it's dried pig blood. I won't go into details, but when the neighbors see me with a shovel now...

Oh my.
And ew.
But ya' gotta do what ya gotta do.