'What is showing signs of stress in your garden?"

Me.

Joe

I guess I didn't phrase that very well. What I meant was which plants were noticably affected by the recent frosts.

I'll let you know when the snow melts. But I did have quite a few fruit trees that were fooled by the 2 weeks or so of warm weather and were blooming or about to bloom.

I won't know about the fruit damage for a while. The plums are in full bloom but the weather for bee movement has been so bad it might not matter if the bloom is frozen. My Brugmansia are both damaged, but I have cuttings doing well in the greenhouse if I lose them. Al

The brugmansia and tree tomato got nipped on new growth, but so far everything else looks ok. Of course, I did cover a lot of things, so that helped. Sue

My Cupheas sustained moderate damage from the 28º morning earlier in the week.

Well, the four tomatoes that managed to overwinter are doing fine! I thought sure they would succumb, but I'm guessing that their proximity to the massive live oak kept them out of danger. They have blossoms on them, so my fingers, toes and eyes are crossed in anticipation of very early tomatoes! The plum tree (on the other side of the oak) seems okay, too. Pretty white flowers just starting to pop! Three days of scraping ice off the windshield...that's enough of that!

Nothing here in NE Walnut Creek near Mt. Diablo foothills, but I have seen some light frost on roofs of nearby homes. We have a unique little microclimate though because cold air drains into a huge Water District watershed valley below our street, so we get almost no serious frost. Bananas, bougies, hibiscus, strawberry guava, jacaranda, clivia, avocado -- all looking a-ok.

No problem here in Davis either. I was sure that I would see some damage on the brugmansias, but they came through just fine. This is the first year that I haven't had any frost damage on them... so far.

So far it looks like just the typical plants one would expect to get nipped, and damage seems light, thank goodness.
My Brugs didn't get nipped either, but they are under a large Arbutus marina which provides protection.

I found one shriveled leaf on Tamara. I'll probably know more in a few weeks.

Living on the back-side of the hill has it's advantages --- so far no damage, not even the Brugs. But then, there's tonight.

My poor pea plants are the main sufferers, got the sweet peas thru this time fine, threw a sheet over them. Worked way better then the row cover I bought.

My sugar snaps and sweet peas are fine...except for the twelve plants my "gardener" pulled today. Meyer lemon fruit, peach and pluot blossoms are fine, for what THAT's worth.

It was reported that my town got down to 26 degrees, but I'm not sure my garden did. I had a Flavor Delight Aprium, Royal Rosa apricot, Catalina plum and Dapple Dandy Pluot blooming. All did fine. I sprayed with a fungicide in the evening, and watered well. Put a bit of flimsy row cover over the Aprium. Some of the weeds under the trees got nipped with frost. Strange to see that when the blossoms above were O.K.

Until today, there hasn't been much bee activity around the trees - too cold and windy. Hoping for enough pollenization to get a crop. I've done a little hand pollination (easier with apricots than most plums - Burgundy plum seems to release pollen better than many other plum varieties, and the blossoms are big enough to work with). Today, I put out bouquets of blooming rosemary and plum branches from mature trees (blooms forced indoors) near the young early-blooming fruit trees, which aren't a big draw for bees by themselves.

A couple of days after the coldest night we got some hail with a thunderstorm, but didn't seem to get any damage from it, either.

A few more plants have started suffering due to the extended nights of freezing temps.

Heliconia sheidiana 'Fire and Ice' have some leaf burn, although the rest of the plant is fine and even pushing out some new growth.

The top foot of a 12' Iochroma coccinea is fried, but the Iochroma cyanea is fine.

Also the leaves (mostly new growth)on the stalks farthest from the house (and just out from under the eaves) on Fuchsia boliviana have toasted.

Also the Cineraria stellata has black tops. Does anyone know if they'll come back from it? And should I cut them back when it warms up or just call it a bust for this year?

On the other hand, the Ligularias (Farfugium) are looking extremely robust and all the tender new Clematis growth doesn't look a bit fazed (yet...knock on wood).

wanda

Well, as I mentioned on another thread, the tops of my potato plants got burned a little, but I think they will be okay.

My volunteer perennial tomato bought the farm however. I'm afraid he gave up the ghost the first night of freezing temps.

Some of my geraniums got burned leaves, but I expect those to recover.

None of my fruit trees had opened blossoms yet, so they weren't fooled by the false spring of early February.

I don't cover stuff. Sink or swim in my garden.

My Adeniums (Desert Rose) plants had a little leaf damage. Seeing how we had one night down to 36 degrees and the next down to 38 degrees, I can't complain. I thought it would be worse. They are growing in a raised bed of pure sand, so maybe that helped. The soil thermometer never got below 54 degrees.

Some fruit blossoms and almond blossoms but the frost has not been long enough in duration to do any damage. Bee activity has been great with mid-day temps in the 60's and light winds. Plenty of bees with 1,000 bee colonies sitting next door in the almond orchard.

rgranel you are indeed lucky to live next to an almond grower who supplies you with bees. I read recently that the midwest bee keepers depend on the almond growers of California for the income that keeps them in business. Al

Wanda,
I live in Concord and have a Heliconia fire and ice in a pot. I want to plant it outside but was worried. Can you give me any advice on where to plant it, shade, part shade, sun. I love this plant and would like to give it the best possible place.
Not much damage here the strawberry guava got a little leaf damage but the bananas did fine.
Thanks Linda

Al,

I am very lucky that both of my properties are next to Almond orchards. I have a nice supply of bees for my cherry orchard since the beekeepers keep the bees on the neighbor's property long after the almond blossoms have fallen.

We get bee colonies from all over . I have seen many colonies from Idaho and other midwestern states. The price to rent colonies for almonds has gone up dramatically over the past several years due to demand. I can remember growers paying $50 per colony. Today it can go as high as $150 per colony. My neighber told me his bee costs alone are over $100,000 higher today than several years ago. On top of that, the bee colonies are much weaker due to Varroa Mite infestations. In fact, I noticed quite a few dead and dying colonies on my neigbor's place. It is only going to get worse as there has been thousands of acres of new almond plantings over the past couple of years that will need bee colonies for almond pollination in the near future.

Hi Linda,
Concord is a little different climate than San Jose, but I have mine on the west facing wall of my house. It gets warmth from the house, but not really much sun because of a large tree in front and a large shrub to it's left that provides overhead protection as does the eaves it's planted under.
It's pretty bright esp. in late afternoon, but doesn't really get any direct sun.

wanda

I have 2 varieties in my San Diego backyard: Dwarf Cavendish and something else smallish. Anyway - they look brown and very sad. I see a trace of green in the center. I need to know: WHAT NOW? I presume I wait until we KNOW that the frost issues are done for the season before I trim them back. How far do I cut? Just until the fresh stuff is exposed? How far is too far? (They range in size from 5 feet to 3 feet).

Oh, and my bushing "La Jolla" Bougies are skeletal but my climbing "?" is crispy only at the terminal ends of the branches.

All help / advice appreciated.

Monterey Bay Nurseries, a wholesale only grower, has an excellent write up on Bananas.

Scroll down to Musa and you'll find lots of info

wanda

Here is a link that might be useful: Banana info

Hit very hard, Live in San Fernando Valley - West Hills. Ficus- Blow torch Brown, Hibiscus- crumbled, Succulents - wilted; Firesticks- normall green and colorful - completely white, Jade- wilted, Geraniums- rusted to copper color, many succulents lacking color when normally vibrant green. Sad state.

Now that the freeze is over, here's our Walnut Creek damage check:
Hibiscus: mostly defoliated (except bottom most leaves)
Bougies: mostly defoliated but all stems and branches are okay
Jacaranda: same as bougies
Bananas: leaves fried but stalks fine
Mexican Sage: burned to the ground
Gazania: fried in some patches in cold pockets of garden, fine in others

What did really really well and had NO damage:
All citrus
Macadamia
Sapote
Avocado
Strawberry Guava
Bird of Paradise
Philodendron
Clivia
Palms

Wanda- Thank you for a great link.

My yard is 95% native plants, most locally native. Almost everything survived the frost. The only loss was a Salvia clevelandii which is originally from Southern California coast range.

-Arvind

South Orange County - things are not as bad as they looked. Sages, fuschias and cupheas coming back. Pentas gone as are Angelonias. Impatiens also succumbed.
Heliotrope okay under all the brown. The only plant I cut brown off of was the Pineapple Sage and even it is recovering nicely. My winter tomatoes croaked but the lettuce, broccoli and radishes are doing fine. Roses and gardenias are happy. Bulbs all are growing and I wonder if the cold makes them do a little better..

My heliotrope and pineapple sage (honey melon) are toast and not coming back. I still have hopes for Salvia confertiflora, but guaranitica is still blooming and so is S. gesneriflora, even though it fried on top, but nice green foliage is reappearing.

Brugs and Iochromas will be fine, but need some major pruning.

I think the bulbs enjoyed the cold. Mine are growing gangbusters and I've got tulips, daffs and muscari in bloom already. Some of the S. Africans were a little nipped...Babiana, Lachenalias, Chasmanthe, but blooming.

As time goes on - the damage is more obvious. The brugs - even the one under an overhang - will have to be cut back pretty hard. The Bird of Paradise, potted palms have a lot of die back. It's hard to keep from cutting them back on these warm sunny days. Watching the roses begin to leaf out helps a little...

BettyN

You have more resolve than I. I have cleared away most of all the damage. Many of the plants already have lots of new growth and there's lots of bulbs and Clematis either growing foliage or blooming. It was hard to look at brown foliage with all the new stuff coming up.

The Brug. sanguineums already have new foliage sprouting, but my poor Peaches and Cream may not come back. Most of the stems were really yucky, wrinkly, like they had water under the outer layer, even the oldest stalk (about 3" diameter). It looks like it's oozing near the ground level. I'm not sure it can be saved. I cut back the top parts, but I think it needs to be sawed off at ground level, but I'll wait a while longer and see what happens.

wanda

My 4 crepe myrtles are still definetly dead. I pruned the 4 butterfly bushes down as advised to now my 120 pound lab thinks they're fair game to walk over:( One is now half squished and broken off on one side, not fair, they were what survived to loose them to the dog! Well not lost but now look pretty lopsided, were pretty good looking, darn dog. The 8 lantana and verbena are still dead. The mums and sedum came back from the roots and or the bottom of the dead. Surprised me there, 3 plants I don't have to replace. Both hibiscus are dead. The bouganvilla is definetly on the toast list unless it's alive at the roots the branches are all dead. The azaleas are in bloom:) I've got one that's been blooming since Nov. quit during the freeze and started up again a couple of weeks ago and now another one is blooming. The third bush is just sitting there, nice and green though. The two australian tree ferns are recovering, one is looking ok and the other is toasty outside, but has a new frond unfurling through the middle. The 2 english lavenders and one spanish lavenders are all fine and the dwarf gardenia though anemic looking is ok. The roses, all 30 of them are all putting out several inches of new growth.

I have some big holes in my landscaping in the back and I decided I'm filling it with climbing roses, the freeze didn't seem to bother them at all. While the crepe myrtles bit the dust.
Leslie

Top damage:
Tibouchinas
shrub lantana
All cannas
Calla lilies (some were in protected spots and came thru fine)
Some pelargoniums
'Jack Frost' brunnera
Lavatera 'aureum'
Many blossoms on the Meyer citrus, although the fruit itself is fine

Dead:
Variegated fuchsia
Limonium
2 shrub lantanas

Wavering:
variegated agapanthus (it was young, and I had just moved it before the frost hit! Double shock but it's got 1 little leaf poking out, so I've got my fingers crossed)

Temps were down to 18.5-20 deg one night. I covered my bananas (Husky Contractor cleanup bags, 3 mil, 42 gal, from Home Depot...gave one banana in container 10 deg protection...trunk still has some green showing). Some, covered with blankets, were zapped almost to the ground, I'm waiting to see if the corm survived...3 old orange trees(Valencia, Navel, sour) survived with almost no sign of damage. Two dwarf tangerines,in ground, Satsuma and Algerian, also no sign of damage and weren't covered. Lettuce in containers, brought inside at 23 deg, leaves were crunchy, half frozen. Immediately recovered indoors. Container peppers and tomatoes brought indoors at 28 deg, were badly zapped but are mostly still alive and starting to grow again.

Recently planted Royal Purple Bougainvillea, covered with Husky bag, zapped but still has green in branches, two other red bougainvillea about the same, one wasn't covered(Barbara Karst) and still seems to be alive.

Next year I'll be ready with a lot of these black Husky contractors 3 mil trash bags, they seem to be very effective for small(up to 4 ft tall) plants.

jc

San Fernando Valley - Los Angeles Update. Ficus - No growth, nothing. Still burned to a crisp. Geranium starting to show growth at base. I am most concerned about the ficus since I have over 15 on my half acre property and they all show nothing but dead. So, waiting for a boutiful spring bloom. Firesticks are gone! Turned completely white from vibrant green and colorful to white now, falling off. Succulents were hit hard. Which is sad since this last summer we had temp's over 115 degrees, and they were thriving. Look forward to checking back. Susan

In Santa Barbara:

Lost my Mango, which had finally given me mangos after eight years.

The passion fruit also died.

The etrog got frosted but survived as did the kaffir lime

My species fuschia are upset, we'll see if they come back in a month or so.

The brugmanzias (sp) were also toasted but look like they will come back.

On the other hand the cherries (lapin and morrello) are very happy.

Gwen

Well, here in Redlands we will use the opportunity of cutting the bougs back to the ground for replacing the rotting top of the arbor. Silver lining to that cloud. I am a bit worried about our two large jacarandas, they sure dropped their fronds in a heap and quickly. I thought my lantana were goners, snap brown, but surprise, surprise there are tiny little leaves around the main stems at groud level. The drooping trumpet trees are also showing new growth at trunk sites. My bulbs are happy, happy, happy about the cool they got. Isn't Mother Nature amazing. Not only will some our favorites really be coming back, but She has now allowed us some additional space for NEW stuff, something we all want!

Newbie here from Fresno, CA. I don't know squat about tropical plants, but I have four birds of paradise whose leaves turned brown and crispy. The stalks are still green. They are out in the open. Should I wait until the end of this month before pruning? When I do prune, how low should I go? Are they just toast?
Thanks for any help you can offer. Sorry, but I don't know what my zone is.
John

John you're zone 9 in Fresno. I can't help you with your Birds of Paradise's, it depends on if you think we'll get any other frosts by the end of the month or not. I went ahead and cut the dead fronds off the Australian Tree Ferns, couldn't stand it anymore. Been staring at them for 2 months. I'll watch the news, I see the temps dipping back under 32 I'll cover them. Your Bird of Paradise's are supposed to be good to 29 degrees according to the Western Gardening Book. If your stalks are still green you've still have viable plants I believe.

Hopefully someone else will stop in and offer you better advice. If you have doubts, wait another week or so, but it sounds like your plants will be fine with a little time.

This post is rather late compared to the last, but just to put out my 2 cents ...

In the Bakersfield area, the big January Freeze knocked down Bougainvilleas, Cut Leaf Philodendrons, Pygmy Date Palms, Banana Plants, Lantanas, Australian Tree Ferns, Jasmines and Bird of Paradise plants.

However, quite amazingly, even the most horribly damaged and dead looking plants are pushing up new leaves and shoots. Stark examples include Cut Leaf Philodendrons that looked like rotting stumps that shoot out new growth from deep in the soil and to the side of the old rotting stump. Banana Plants that looked dead and one might be tempted to root up and trash are regaining good height with new growth. About the only plants that I have that are still painfully slow in recovery are two Pygmy Data Palms, one of which is just beginning to put up new growth and the other, still green and tender at the base, just doesn't seem to want to wake up.

Things have sprouted slowly, very slowly. Everything is acting as if it has been hit hard with the low temps. We were down to 15 - 17 for many nights w/wind and we are in the corridor that the wind blasts through along the big power poles in the Victor Valley. I'm very concerned that I could still lose several plants and trees.

I think as a rule, you can expect things that have rhizomes, coums or are thick or deep rooted to recover. That's why bananas, bird of paradise and cut leafs recover.

We got snow here one morning. It never snows here. Heavy damage to cape honeysuckle and distictis. My bougainvilleas have not leafed out yet. They might be dead. The neighbor got it worse she had two trees (some kind of ficus, I think) that were killed outright.

Just noticed that my golden candles(Pachystachys lutea) is sprouting buds. Since Late Jan or early Feb it has been "dormant". It does look like my copper tree, Euphorbia cotonfolia is history. A good sized and trunked shrub it was.
Reading some of these old posts-are those plants in Davis and Fresno, California? or Davis and Fresno, Hawaii?-ha. Brugs that were not frosted? hmmm......