Of course, I covered the plant as well on much colder nights (last night and tonight). Cover the base. I filled 2-3 gallons of warm water before going to bed and placed them around the tree inside the blanket to soak up any cold that it can.

Hi Seagel,

Sorry I didn't get to replying to you on time. Now I was able to see your plant a little better. Was that a mango tree you have there in the picture?

Anyway, your suggestion using a warm pool to soak up the cold might have been a helpful suggestion. I actually also tried placing a kids pool at the base of each of my three lychee trees. It makes a lot of sense since I've read that plants with water body close to them actually do better than those which are inland.

I love all these tropical fruit trees, but central Florida still can be quite a challenge when freeze hits home.

Nothing beats actually warming the air under plastic. A light bulb works fine..but now they are getting out of date. Maybe a spotlight, even if they do come in high wattage's.
If they are calling for serious low 20's cold-- go with the heater. Its just a few nights.
I wish I could convince everybody in the world in this hobby...COVER,heat maybe. Dont lose years of work in one night.

Over here in the Coachella Valley(California), an Indian farmer I know uses 1200 of these for his 40 acres of moringa trees:

Says they work much better than burning straw or using windmills. He has them all linked up with gas lines. All his trees are 10-20 feet tall so wrapping them all is not feasible. He says the trees will survive almost any freeze we see here, but they take too long to recover if they aren't protected, and he looses out on getting to the market early when it's possible to get nearly $100 a box.

I plan on buying 4-6 cherimoya trees and using a couple of these propane heaters in between them during the winter. My mangoes have done fine during the past few winters because they're up against the wall and next to the pool which I think keeps them warm when we get freezes here, but the space I have reserved for the cherimoyas is more out in the open.

Waterfowler,

Thanks so much for the very interesting information of the propane heater. Sorry that I did not respond to it in a timely fashion--my apologies here. I have in fact acquired a propane heater and have intended to use it. This Winter, we wanted to set it up, but wasn't able to get the propane to be installed properly for use here ... It's good that we're now warming up, so I don't have to think of how to set it up again .. at least for now. But, it's good to know that some people out there are using this as an idea for warming up their plants.

You've mentioned your intention to place them in between your cherimoya trees in the open. My question here is will they give the heat sufficient for warming the plants in the open? But, I'm also thinking ... any heat is better than nothing. So, maybe it's an idea here to consider for myself as well as I do have quite a few tropical trees growing out there in the open space.

Thanks once again for your post. I do appreciate the information you posted here. I hope all your plants will go well for you where you're enjoying your gardening :) By the way, what's your planting zone there, may I ask?