Wow! Some are calling for 37 in Tampa. I have seen frost at 38. To cover or not to cover?

Cape Coral / Ft. Myers is forecasting 41. I'll be sunk if it goes lower. I don't have room for all the pots and Thanksgiving stuff at the same time!

A few years ago my mother told me she changed the sheets on the plants more often than the sheets on the bed. LOL

Good luck, everyone!

Forecasting below 32 for 3 hours Thursday morning in Williston. Too many plants to cover..I'll just have to focus on the newly planted ines. :(

Oh, no, too early for this!

If this rain doesn't let up, I won't need to worry about covering plants cause they'll all be washed away. Just can't make me happy lol

We quickly found out that here in Brooksville it's cold, at least 10 degrees lower than Tampa where we used to be. I gave up completely on any kind of tropicals by the second year. The only thing I might bother to cover are 2 tomato plants. Hopefully the sugar snap peas, lettuce and greens will be ok.

Underground said 46 then 3 hr later, 43. My husband helped me move orchids and tropicals into the cabana bath. They can go out tomorrow. It's supposed to be 64 tomorrow night.

I quit covering a few years ago. This will be the first year we didn't drag everything in pots into the greenhouse. Decided not to spend the $$ on heating the greenhouse this winter. Nothing really worth what we spent on electric to save. Still hard. I dragged everything I could into the house. It looks like a jungle in here. Not everything will get enough light, but it might survive.

Oh, man - my arms are sore from dragging plants into the greenhouse and florida room! I covered what I didn't have room for and am hoping for the best - it's 34 here this morning. One more cold night, then a break, then more cold nights next week.

It was 37 near the house overnight and 42 at 8am. I brought in just a couple of plants. I'm not going outside again until it warms up!
Marcia

Sounds a bit like what we got here, Marcia. The thermometer shows a low of 37F last night, but when I got up at a quarter after 8 to take the dogs out, it was reading 48F.

Expecting the temps to get down to 32F from Wunderground's forecast, I grabbed some cloth I had in the shed from last winter and built a tent over my tropical area. Immediately after construction, my daughter climbed under (because it was cool to have a tent/fort to play in!) and commented how much warmer it felt under there. So I climbed under as well (because it was cool to have a tent/fort to play in!) and she was right. I almost chalked it up to cutting the windchill, but when I climbed out I realized there wasn't much wind at the moment. It was just warmer under the tent. It's a thin material that has perforated plastic on one side and some sort of felt-like material on the other. It lets a fair bit of light in, enough that I think I could probably house many of my shade-loving plants under it if I could maintain a higher temp, which I can't. Taking a peek under it this morning, it looks like the bananas are okay for now. But I know it could be a day or two before the real effects show. As soon as the sun starts hitting this area I will take down the tent, much to my kids' dismay (and mine!). But I might have to build a better pvc frame so that it looks a bit better and more secure over the winter.

Weather.com said we would get down to 38F, accuweather.com said 36F. Checked the thermometer at 6am, and had 40F on the mercury. Temperature was not near as bad as the wind here.