Ardesia looks like you'll get your chance

Cold down here in south GA too. Went to 24 last night and warmed up to a balmy 49 today. Tomorrow is suppose to be 52....ahhhhh a heat wave LOL

The "snow" word is still in the forecast for our area. Can I just say I am SO over this. Trying to stay positive....

It is supposed to warm up today than BAM, the bottom drops out tonight. I have moved so many plants into the house or garage, things that a little cold has never hurt before, and to tell you the truth I am giving up on saving anymore. All I can think of is the mess that will have to be cleaned up in the spring - if I can wait that long. Some of the gingers and cnnas are really slimy.

I've given up too .. it will all get sorted out in Spring. I'll probably be busy trading this year to replace what was lost.

X

I sure chose the wrong year to try overwintering my BOP outdoors.

Deb, Oh my......I'm assuming it's in the ground. Have you mulched it? Wouldn't it just be too cool for school if it lived???
Back to reality - I'm sure someone here has a BoP they'll trade with you when you explain that yours died in this freakish weather.
Holy crap! I just checked Weather.com and it's supposed to be 35 tonight, (Crazy heat wave!), then a whole degree warmer for the high tomorrow. (Le sigh...)
Barb

My BOP is in the ground and is turning brown at the moment. They seem to be able to handle cold very well, above ground just dies off but for me they come right back. As far as I can figure they're good to about 28-29 degrees until the leaves start to die off.

Just checked the gingers .. hedychiums are still hard .. curcuma at the surface are mush. Didn't have the heart to check the canna. Greenhouse is cooking along nicely today .. geraniums, bougainvillea and kalanchoe are blooming their heads off.. its 95 degrees in there right now!!!!!! I don't have to tell you I spent awhile just puttering around .. actually sweated! So far, the coldest it has gotten in the gh is 38 degrees .. heat must be working .. I'm gonna have an epic heating bill for january since the heat in the gh is essentially a space heater and my poor heat pump runs mostly on aux heat. Thank goodness for the kerosene heater .. it certainly helps a lot! but kerosene is running at $3.50 a gallon!

I could kick myself for not remembering that brass shut off valves on the outside faucets usually go .. you can't find any at the moment even in plastic. Checked HD Lowes and Ace hardware ... I'm gonna have to find a way to remind myself to remove them in weather like this.

X

Yeah not a good year to experiment with BOPs. With Freezepruf my two White BOP's outdoors held up very well until the low 20's. Now they've browned quite a bit even under the frost blankets. I'll know the full extent of the damage next week when I take the covers off. I'd hoped for a mild winter - yeah right.

Yes, I had a similar experience with this BOP. It looked great until this week. It had gone through several nights with "light" freezes, but nothing much below 30. After 3 of these nights in the 20s, it went brown. Barb, It's heavily mulched around the bottom, so hopefully it will be back. I had considered trying to keep it warm with some kind of wrap or lights, but the darn thing is just too big! (was)

I haven't checked the forecast since this morning, but I heard the schools in upper Dorchester Co. are opening late tomorrow in anticipation of some frozen precip.

I have two regular BoP's (Strelitzia reginae) and one white one, all in pots. I haven't gotten up the nerve to put any of them in the ground. Maybe when they get big enough to separate, I'll put some in the ground and keep some in pots.
My cat palms seem to holding up nicely. I can see some fronds peeking out from the pinestraw I covered them in and they still have some green.
Here's looking forward to (I'm raising a Corona now) Wednesday, when it's supposed to get warmer!
Barb

I hear ya! Wed. can't get here fast enough for me! I was kind of hoping we'd get some snow last night or this morning, just for amusement. No luck.

Beach Barbie.....what are cat plams?? Do you have a picture. I haven't tried to grow BoP's. Maybe that is something else I can get my little dirty hands into LOL I am really looking forward to spring down here. Wed. is suppose to be back in the 60's. I can hardly wait. No snow here, just light showers and I think they are done because the sun is out. Sun out but windy and cold at about 40 degrees.

Cat palm is Chamaedorea cataractarum: http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/60192/
We're up on the Mtns of NC right now,near Mt Airy, visiting my DH's son. Here's a pic of my rat terrier/chihuahua Sugah'bama, romping in the snow.

Temperature has not budged at all since around 5 this morning. Usually it starts to inch up by now but it is still a very chilly 29 here today. Walking the dog was not fun. How do people in Wisconsin do it??????

My sub-tropical island is anything but tthis week.

We stayed kinda warm last night, only got to 26!

I just checked the 3 sylvestor date palms I planted last spring. I protected them by wrapping all three in frost cloth, and two with xmas lights. They look great, even the smaller specimen without lights! Lowest temp so far in my backyard was 17 a few nights ago. Last night's low was 22, due to cloud cover. It's currently 38 and crystal clear, so tonight's low temp is going to be in the teens. My Mexican Fan palms finally succumbed to the cold and their fronds are now damaged and crispy. I've noticed that in northern Fla temps in towns like Jax , Gainesville, and Ocala have been colder than here. I wonder how their date and queen palms are faring?

donnacreation....I live about 65 miles north of Jax and the date palms here seem to be doing okay. They are one of my favorite palms and I hope someday I can plant one. I use to live in Sumter SC many many years ago on Alice Drive. Then my mother and father have a house on Conyers. Use to take my children to Swan Lake when we visited. Temp here currently 33. Suppose to go down to 23 tonight. The end of next week will be back in the 60"s and lows in the 40's....can't wait!!! I covered my sagos with beach towels.

Reporting in from Raleigh. ITS BLOODY COLD. we weren't supposed to get up to freezing point today, but it's 35 at the airport right now. However, even with bright sun and gorgeous cloudless Carolina blue skies, there's a NWN wind straight from the Arctic circle, I swear, that froze my eyeballs. we are almost 20 degrees below our average.

have a lot of cold damage on everything from cannas to roses. My 18' tall camellia was just about to pop a bumper crop of buds open. Frozen all. All I can say is, it'll be time to start seeds in a few weeks.

DH has gotten the idea it's time to make beef jerky - he's going to drive me bonkers with the aromas (I'm dieting) and we're wondering what it will do to the Christmas kitten!

I am 5 hours south of you and we never got above 34 today. This is ridiculous. On a high note, my roses look fine. Most of my camellias bloom very late and their buds are still tight so I am hoping.......

you will be lucky ardesia, if they were still tight.

how on earth are we warmer than YOU??

Hi FlipFlops, I've been following your threads and it's a pleasure to have your input here in the Carolina Forum. I know Alice Drive well - it's currently being widened - and I've heard of Conyers St, too. It's usually a few degrees warmer in town than my countryside location. Lots of date palms have been sold in this area, although I've yet to see one. Maybe I should get out more. Ardesia, if misery loves company, yesterday afternoon around 2:30 it was only 38 in Sarasota Fl, the same temp as in my backyard. On the other hand, Greenland has been exceptionally warm this winter. Hope the gulf stream isn't oscillating.

I had two queen palms in the ground for almost two years. They died after last winter. Now that I think about it, even though I mulched them (as I did successfully the previous year), I didn't water them enough during the winter. I think if I had done that, they "may" have made it through.
Oh well, they were pretty while they lasted!
Barb

My roses are putting out new leaves, LOL> I have a camellia that is just about to bloom, looks fine so I don't think there will be a problem. Odd thing is my azaleas are looking frost burnt??????

Spent yesterday pruning and removing mush, dead or almost dead plants. I was out there for hours.

This is getting old fast.

My azaleas are looking poorly too.

Core is that a good idea to remove dead material? I always thought you should leave it on as it can help protect what's underneath it.

X

your azaleas should be fine. might experience some minor winter dieback at most.

Barb, I lost a Queen Palm last winter, too,even wrapped, with warming lights. :(

My Camellias were in bloom and look a bit sad, but there are still alot of buds, so I'm hopeful about them.

It's about 34F at the moment here in S'ville. High teens expected again tonight, 20s the next 2 nights, then "normalizing", they say.

My toes are cold.

Here's to NORMALIZING! :)

You know X I've been wondering that. I know my tropical hibiscus do better if I cut them down if they die back, tried both ways. Plants like bananas I just cut off the leaves and drop them at the base of the plant. Cananas and EE's do fine being chopped off.

last time we had a freeze this bad, lost half my colocasias, their bulb/roots were mush.

I'm all for "normalizing"!!! We planted some azaleas about two months ago and they look a little frost bit too. The top leaves look fine and I am going to just see what they do. I might put a little more pine straw around them. They are out in the corner of our yard next to the woods on our other lot. My sagos seem to be okay....covered them with beach towels but they keep blowing off!! At least they are colorful when they are covered LOL

I usually wait til the end of February to start clearing stuff out. What makes me think that leaving dead stuff on the plant was a good thing was inspired by a huge spider plant in a 3 gallon pot that I was unable to fit in the greenhouse last year so it literally got left out in the cold with no protection - I had written it off. By the end of February it was a disgusting brown mess and when I finally got around to clearing out the pot to reuse the soil I noticed just a bare bit of green peeking out from the brown crispy mess .. when I pulled it all off there was stunning, robust healthy new growth! I discovered the same thing when I started clearing off dead stuff on gingers and canna! New growth. On the plants that didn't have dead stuff on top of them, it seemed they were a few weeks behind on new growth.

X

Maybe all that dead and mushy stuff on top of the plants acts like a blanket that mother nature has provided.

That's the idea for the regular, dry, dead stuff. Mushy can promote rot and should be removed.

Well, guys, what was it, 12 days? Got up to 66 in my back yard today and the sun felt glorious!

I went around inspecting things that had been under cover. Not nearly as bad damage as I'd expected on the green stuff. Only time will tell about things underground.

I really, really hope we don't get any more long cold snaps.

Tonight - mid30's. but TOMMOROW night (drumroll.......) mid FIFTY's!!!!
Yes!

I did a greenhouse inspection and opened it up to get and air exchange .. It appears a few of my extra tropicals bit the dust.

X

I am loving this warmer weather. This is one of the reasons I moved down here. Wouldn't you know it would turn colder than anytime on record once we moved here LOL I don't have too much in inspect because we are so new here. Hope y'all didn't have too much damage. The main thing I was concerned about was the sagos and I covered them with beach towels. They seem okay. Holly ferns seem a little frost bit but they did that up in VA where I had some planted. I just cut the dead out around March up there and they had new frons (sp I think) coming out of the ground. Suppose to rain all weekend.

X, I'm thinking I might be in the same boat - the cold ground temperatures probably knocked lots of stuff out for me too. I won't know till Spring :(

Been watching the longer term forecasts, out for the next month now - looks like warmer than average and wetter than average conditions for us. I'll definitely take the warmth; though maybe the rain could stay away (calling for 2-3 inches this weekend, ugh). Last fall/winter it was November '08 that was so frigid; I guess this year it was January '10 (though this year remained colder much longer). Hopefully that's the last of it for such a long spell. If it's gonna get that cold, I just wish it'd snow or something.

I just moved dozens of pots out of the garage so they can take advantage of the expected rain. That low soil temp was a surprise and I am afraid we will see losses due to it.

X, don't rule out anything from your GH yet, we are going to have to wait this one out.

Back on Jan 9, I raved about how my 3 sylvestor date palms had survived the arctic blast with no damage, even a small specimen not wrapped in xmas lights. I WAS WRONG! The two large date palms protected with frost cloth and xmas lights do look terrific, but the small palm protected with frost cloth and no lights sustained damage on the outer fronds. The inner fronds are still undamaged. According to accuweather, February may have an arctic blast just as bad as last week's cold. Let's hope they're wrong, wrong, wrong!!!