I was just thinking the same thing! 47 here in Sarasota at the moment. Who thought gardening in Florida was easy?
I either have to move or find another hobby.....
Hester

Well here in Brooksville it got down to 35 according to DH's phone. But we learned 9 years ago when we moved here that we would have to give up on tropicals. Everything I dragged up from Tampa, only 45 miles away, croaked within 2 years and I promised myself NOT to replace any of them. The biggest thing I regret not being able to grow are the tropical fruits, we have all this acreage that could have been put to use for it.

Well I woke up this morning knowing it would be a cold one. As I set the clocks back last night the weathermen on TV all predicted 47 or 48 hereabouts. I was up at 06:45, immediatedly trotted out to turn on the heat pump. Immediately saw the inside temp was at 60 deg, and the two thermometers outside both read 42 !!! Forty two in balmy Englewood ??? On the gulf yet !!
I glanced quickly at the recently planted penta's and milkweed's, they seemed fine but will keep an eye on them rest of day...
No problem tho, whenever I shiver a bit here, I look at the temps in NY & LI and then can't suppress the wide smile.

This post was edited by jofus on Sun, Nov 2, 14 at 8:36

Well, kills any idea of escaping 40 for Sunshine State beaches.

My thermometer said it was 45 last night in my yard in North Port. For the first time in 5 years, I have some finger-sized bananas on my banana tree. I don't know how that will affect them :( Not sure they would have ripened before real winter sets in anyway.
Marcia

That's the tricky part of gardening in Central Florida, finding plants that can handle the tropical summers and 'almost' temperate winters. And then finding the right microclimates to enjoy the slightly more tender plants. It's a balancing act of what I want and what I can grow. Even if I had a true greenhouse, I wouldn't be able to juggle tenders and hardies due to my back.

There are times I wouldn't mind being in South Florida (or Belize), but my wife doesn't want to go that far south. But each time it gets below 50, I see her weighing the options.

38 degrees feels like 36 this morning with Pachy Frost...Brrrrr!!!!

I guess we were lucky here. Predicted low of 45ú, but only really got to down to a hair under 50ú. Lots of wind, though.

It got to 34 here. Make me want to move back to Vero Beach. So windy yesterday it was evil. I don't like staying inside so much. 5-6 months of cold here compared to about 3 in Vero Beach. Very few frosts there and no freezes. Those are the norm here.

Garden is trashed......Wind, not the cool temps...just came in from watering in the dark. 42 here......this am.

Sorry for your loss, Mark - I've got wind damage on the firespikes and the large potted cassia fell over and busted blooming limbs.

But I'm not packing away my flip-flops and shorts just yet . . .up in the 80's this coming week.

Susie

I'm sorry but you get absolutely no sympathy from me :-). 52 degrees is an *average* July morning for us. Then again, I shouldn't be on this forum, huh?

43F here in Lakeland. Not anything we haven't seen before. Awful surprised at the readings in Englewood and Sebring!

Two mornings with a low of 40ðF. And everything looks like they came through unscathed. If I was worried about anything, it would have been my bananas and maybe my Brugmansia seedlings, but they all look fine.

It was up only two degrees only this morning here in Englewood at 06:30 AM, from 42 yesterday to 44. Still a bit chillier than predicted, scurried out and turned the heat pump on again but it will go off soon as the rest of the day and week will be Chamber of commerce weather.
Just Mother Nature wagging her finger at us for a couple of days, " So you were complaining about those 95, 96 deg highs eh ? "
OK, OK Mom,.no more complaining. ( smile )

We had a heavy frost here last night. It's hard to look out the window at the major damage to the garden.

At my Floral City farm the lows were 33.3 Saturday night-Sunday morning and 33.4 Sunday night-Monday morning. None of the weeds were killed, DANG IT !

Lou

Its been getting into the upper 40's here a few nights lately. No plants seem to be affected so far and all the brugmansia are blooming their pretty heads off. They are liking the cooler temps.
I am hoping it will warm up a little until mid December because I am doing some repairs to the roof of the greenhouse and the heater lol.
I left some plants in there and took the roof off and now there are 12 ft plumerias and a few of the tropical trees (sausage and longan) are even taller. They will all have to be topped off grrr.
~SJN

One thing I couldn't help but notice last night and then today is that while my plantings seemed to have faired well, and indeed most yards in my neighborhood look 'okay', ALL the daylilles in the park got HAMMERED. Even the ones that look, to my eye, to be in sheltered location have gone bright yellow and floppy. I would not have expected 40ðF temps to take such a toll on bulbs, but I guess it did. Or perhaps it wasn't so much the low as the temperature swing?

But the butterflies made it through. They returned to the yard today and even brought with them a couple of Monarchs.