can I cover my newly planted mango with plastic wrap? Will it help?

Your mango should be fine! If you get really concerned stick with cloth and avoid contact with the leaves (build a tent!).

I just spent few hours preparing the young trees for the upcoming cold front. I use forst protection cloth that raises the temperature between 6 and 8 degrees.

First freeze? you are about a month behind. :)

-Ethan

nice set up Berto

Ethan,
Thank you. The mango looking tree is a grafted kuini (mangifera odorata). The budwood came from Hawaii and I do not want to take any chances...too rare! The avocado is a kahalu'u, also from Hawaii. One of the best avocados as far as the fat content. It varies from 17 to 31% in fat content. I am experimenting growing it here in South Florida.

Nice looking yard berto, you go as heavy on the mulch as I do!

{{gwi:1305225}}
{{gwi:1305226}}
This is what I am using for my small Jaks

If you use plastic, they say to be sure it doesn't touch the foliage of your tree. Cold plastic can apparently cause more damage than cold air.

Jeff

Jeff, Thank you!
My property is very low and I get lot of water during the rainy season. Therefore, I plant my trees in mounds. I buy high quality potting soil in bulk and plant the trees. Afterward, I mulch the trees with 4 to 6 inches of mulch. It gets a bit expensive, but it is worth every cent I spend. I enjoy high quality fruits all year around from my orchard.
I do the same thing you did. I put lighbulbs inside the little tents. My yard looks like Christmas all over again. My neighbors are not sure about my mental state....hahahahahahahahahahaha, me too.

Oooops, thank you pj1881!
I guess it is the mental heath state mentioned before...hahahahahahahaha

I would certainly protect the M.odorata Berto, that would be a shame to loose.

Nice set up PJ and Buddha looks very peaceful surveying the land.

-Ethan

@pj1881
You are the man with the plan. Every man must have a plan. Multiple plans. Parallel plans. Backup plans, redundant plans. All modern airplanes have three independent redundant systems to fly the airplane. So if one fails you have two others to fall back on.

Hopefully this weather sets off some mango blooms.

Ethan, the kuini will get an extra light tonight.

Nice looking shelters berto. I put up mine yesterday. I use a similar setup, but with a domed shape out of pvc pipe rather than square. Took pics, but haven't had a chance to offload them from my camera yet to post.

I posted some pics of my shelters on the thread below. My forecast is for 28 tonight.

Here is a link that might be useful: shelter pics

Calling for 23 for me tonight. I was lazy on getting ready this season. My main greenhouse is up and should do fine, but my smaller one that I use to protect the lychees did not make it though the summer in good shape. Apparently a family of mice found it to be a good home in my shed and it now looks like swiss cheese. I just put it up yesterday so I did not have time to replace it. I patched it up the best that I could but I am not too confident that I will have living lychee trees in the morning.

Sun_worshipper, Thank you!
I saw your photos and you also have a good system in place. Let's brace for the cold. We are expecting 28 F here in Fort Myers!

I hope your trees will all survive :)

Samuel Forest

Looks like we dodged a bullet. NO frost at all here. NOAA was calling for 34 at my house and temps seemed to have bottomed out at around 41. I hate weather service inaccuracy, but in this case, I am obviously very happy they were way off.

Harry

My local temperature about a half mile west of PBIA dropped to 39 degrees early this morning. I guess we need the cold snaps, but I think it may have stressed me more than my trees. They were calling this event the "Siberian Express" in the Palm Beach Post, indicating the origination of the chill from Siberia..

Harry, do you think we will accumulate adequate chill hours this season for Lychee? Or have we passed the window of opportunity time-wise?

I hit 29 last night. Had about 2 hours below freezing. Overall, much better than the forecast said it might be. The sensor inside one of my shelters registered a low of 33.

Hey jsvand - might be too late, but the "gorilla tape" black duct tape like stuff made by the makers of gorilla glue that you can get at home depot works great for patching plastic shelters. It is what I use to hold the seams of my shelters together.

How cold did it get for you berto? Is this your first year building shelters? Or have you trialed them before? This is my second year with my shelters.

You guys are way hardcore, I applaud your efforts and hope everything pulls through.

Harry, you got mail :)

Tim

Looks like I only hit 27 according to weather.com. I think my lychees may live to see another day.

Nothing really to report beyond some wilted new growth on some seedlings and the coffee tree, and some discolored leaves on a custard apple tree.

And I didn't cover anything. :)

Patrick:

The issue is not sufficient cooling hours....there will be enough to force at least some bloom. The issue is limbs that have previously flushed out new vegetative growth too late in the season. This has been the case on many of my trees due to the extremely warm temps and greater than usual rainfall. Usually under this scenario the blooming occurs only on those limbs that either didn't flush leaves or have flushed leaves that have had enough time to harden off suffciently. This situation generally signals a lighter than usual crop overall....but I haven't given up hope entirely. I do have some trees that have not flushed leaves recently.

Tim:

You have mail back at you.

Sun_worshipper,
I am not sure the actual lowest temperature last night. I just checked everything including the greehouse heater before I went to bed. I did everything I could to protect the little ones. I have built several shelters before. My orchard is almost 15 years old, and I keep adding new trees every year. Most likely, I am the only one doing that!!!! Right!!

Hey Berto - you are an old pro then if you've been at it for 15 years! My trees were all newly planted in 2010. I'm looking forward to them starting to produce, and trying hard not to become a collector adding more each year=)

Has anyone here tried the kuini? Hearing about a new fruit has me thinking...

Sun_worshipper,
I grew up in tropical Brazil eating fantastic fruits. A rich fruit diet makes one to live longer. My mother eats lots of fruits daily. She is almost 87 years old and ticking. I like to learn about growing fruit trees. This is a fantastic hobby. Good luck, as far as not becoming a collector. If you cover your trees, you got the bug. Keep up the good work!

Jsvands5, I have tried kuini. My friend in Naples has a bearing tree, and I have a small grafted tree that is supposed to be a fantastic one from Hawaii. Kuini ice cream is absolutely delicious! Kuini is a wild mango from tropical Asia, Borneo.

Ooh, I can only imagine what great fruit variety that Brazil must have!

Sun_worshiper,
Put on your bucket list a trip to the Amazon region. Go to Belem, a city on the mouth of the amazon river. You will see some interesting fruits. Make sure to go during the Brazilian Summer time (December, January, and February). Also, don't miss visiting an ice cream store in Belem. They have 100 (one hundred) ice cream fruit flavors. I tried a bunch of them. Great stuff!

Wow...woke up this morning it was 29 degrees! We had NO freeze warning posted for my area so I covered NOTHING! Totally caught me off guard! I'll have to wait and see how much damage I got?

Anyone else had below freezing this morning? Frost all over the lawn and roof tops...

Yah, the weatherman blew it. It was not supposed to get below 49F here and it was 42F (still not bad but I might have taken the soursops in).

Jeff

Hi Nancy,
Man, my heart really goes out to you! You had some pretty bad damage last year also right? You don't seem to get much of a break do you! I hope you didn't have any fatalities! Did your new lychee survive? I hope all is well.

I have some exciting news! I "should" have a fruiting mango tree this year. My 'Maha Chinook' should fruit this summer...I'm keeping my fingers crossed. It did bloom for the first time over the winter but I broke off the inflo.

Take care, and good to here from ya!
Andrew

Thanks Andrew...YES, every single winter my Mango gets damaged, some years more than others. I'm just stubborn I guess, I'll keep trying to grow them till they literally die but I won't be replacing the ones that don't make it. Too much work and aggravation,lol...

The lychee I planted last Feb. is still alive but we still have at least 6 weeks of winter left so who knows what will happen by then?

Congrats on your Maha, excellent news!