It better stay warm

Fruit trees are about to flower. I started watering and fertilizing today. Looked at my tangerine and here comes flowers???? 6 weeks early at least. My harvey lemon which hasn't flowered before this year has a huge amount of buds on. Strange that my peach trees show no sign of flowering, they're the first to fruit so they usually lead the pack. My plum has leaves coming out.

I'm not sure what happens if I get fruit on citrus and then I get a frost??? Don't need a frost while they're flowering, I do know that.

Carolina jasmine is about to flower too. Tea olives flowering full force so if nothing else my yard will smell real good next week. LOL.

I too am worried about the fruit trees. You might want to have some blankets and/or christmas lights ready in preparation for that inevitable cold. My blueberries are going to be goners I am sure, they are already setting fruit. Today I noticed a tropical hibiscus that had lost it's leaves leafing out again while others that did not lose their leaves are still blooming. Weird.

I have a couple of hibiscus still blooming and yes this is weird. I is possible that we're done with the low 30's for this year but the last two years had cold weather late in the season so I wouldn't be betting on it. I'm sure East and North of us have some cold weather coming at them still. If we do have a short winter I might have a chance at getting bananas. One bright spot.

My friends who do get plenty of bananas tell me to start fertilizing around mid March. Apply one lb. of 10 10 10, about a foot out from the base, and put it all in a semi circle on the side of the plant where you want pups to grow. Isn't that strange? They got their info from experts and it obviously works for them.

On the side you want pups? Strangely makes sense to me. LOL.

I was wrong here comes the peach blossoms.

Oh Core, I know you don't want to hear this, but Thursday and Friday of this coming week are going to be in the mid 20's for your area.

Maybe a mister of sorts would help?

X

This message was edited Jan 11, 2009 5:07 PM

Yeah it looks to be the coldest of the season so far, even worse than that cold spell back in late November. We're expecting a low of around 15F here, with a high of only 37-38F on Friday. All this warm weather has been deceiving.

This message was edited Jan 11, 2009 6:40 PM

Plus it is supposed to stay low for several days. I have all of my Daylilies poking up. Hopefully it will warm up a bit during the day - the ground it not frozen, but oh, their poor lil ears that are sticking up will get frosty!
I have to trust that Mom Nature knows what she is doing! And I will be moving my pots inside, so it might be a bit crowded for a while!

Yikes, Friday they're callig for low 20's around here. ?????? This might get ugly. Hopefully nothing starts blooming till next week. LOL. Don't know if the buds will simply fall off even if they're not blooming.

Yep, they're saying 17 here so low 20s seems likely for you guys down that way, Core.
My Carolina Jessamine is in full bloom, but being a native, and a pretty darn hardy plant, I'm not so worried about it.

Pyro, I also have daylilies up and narcissus and even Nasturtiums. Some of the azaleas have very tiny buds, which I hope are going to be ok.

Nothing to be done but prepare and hope for the best. :)
Deb

I will toss some blankies over the ones that I am worrying about the most. And Pray! All of my pots are either inside, in the garage, or banked up and covered against the house.

Brrr.

And my hubby is supposed to be camping this weekend with the Boy Scouts.

Not me, uh uh, I am a warmer weather camper- I draw the line at 30 for a low- my sleeping bag does not work after that.

I got my Polar Bear award one time camping below freezing in the BSA - and that was enough for me, LOL.

I can handle Polar Bear, I just draw the line at Dark-Side-Of-The-Moon temps.

Have any of you SC DGers heard anything from 1cros3nails4gvn? He hasn't posted lately and I was thinking about him recently. Hope all is well.

I heard from him in October, asked about a trade .. said his subscription expired and was too broke to renew it at that time.

X

Trent lives up the road from me and I'm waiting for the riots and looting to start. LOL> Not really funny though. Beaufort county is very loopsided towards real estate and tourism. Things are not looking bright on either front right now. Hopefully everything will stabilize this spring and people will stop moving here. The growth was getting crazy and I kept saying to myself, "what are these people going to do for a living?". Lot of it was crazy amounts of home building going and everything that goes with.

As long as he's healthy. I was worried about him. He's such an eager young gardener.

Can we 'pass the hat' to get Trent a new subscription?

Pyro: I like your idea and had thought about donating a subscription for him myself. Can we do that here? Someone?

I was wondering the same thing. If we can do that, I'll pitch in too.

Seems to me that I saw something like that happen on another thread somewhere.

CoreHHI, can you see if he is still interested in being a member? It would not be productive for us to arrange for a sub if he is not interested in using it or cannot use it because of computer problems.

I don't know how to get a hold of him. If anyone has his regular E-mail you might want to contact him.

He's on the address exchange. Has his street address.
Core? Whaddaya think? Would you feel comfortable dropping by or should someone snail mail him?

Deb

Although Trent is no longer a subscriber I believe you can still d-mail members. Perhaps one of you would like to initiate and coordinate the "let's bring Trent back" effort.

I do worry about his schoolwork; he used to spend soooooo much time chatting with us old (anyone over 17) folks.

Perhaps, it wasn't the cost; perhaps a parent said he had to give it up during the school year?
Deb

Debin: that thought occurred to me, too, when I read ardesia's comment.