Your weather sounds just about like mine here in SE Texas. I just called it done after covering what I could. I have satsuma oranges, blood oranges, meiwa kumquats, a calamondin, dancy tangerine, ponderosa lemons, and a meyer lemon. I can't cover everything so I prioritize the youngest trees and the most sensitive...and fudge to give extra help to my favorite eating fruit. I personally think the tangerine and the blood orange are my most sensitive to cold damage. Depending on how big the tree is, I try to put in some stakes, use step ladder, or other support I can scrounge up to help support tarps. I use blue tarps, the supports, and bricks or boards to weight the edges down. In the past, I have added little votive candles under the tarps as a heat source.....but do so with full consideration and protection from risk of fire! I have planted some trees on the south side of my house (the tangerine) and just put out a couple of thermometers to see if I can get an estimate of how much good I am doing (or not doing) with the tarp over the tangerine. It's supposed to get down to 26F in the morning and I'll try to get an under the tarp temp and a nearby open air temp as comparison.

Good luck to all who are trying to protect their citrus tonight!

Ike Stewart, are you using the C7 lights in rainy weather without any problems? Are they just draped around each tree, or is the tree inside some kind of cover with the lights also inside?

For checking temperatures around the yard and at various trees, the wireless units on Amazon work well and you don't have to go outside in the freezing rain.

Here is a small blood orange covered

In the background is a much larger blood orange that I was not able to completely cover with a 12X16 tarp. I shielded the north side so hopefully ground heat will be conserved around the tree.

I put a couple of refrigerator thermometers out to see how much warmer the covered trees are but after getting separate temperatures this morning, I put the two thermometers next to each other for about 30 minutes and the accuracy just isn't good enough to be meaningful. Not only did they read about 8 degrees too cold as compared to one digital thermometer I have outside and as compared to the current weather report, the two thermometers were about 4 degrees different from each other.

I was only able to do a fair job covering this tangerine due to its size. I drug up some wood scaffold frames and used them to help support two tarps I wrapped around and secured. The top was pretty much open but I lacked the fortitude to go find more materials to cover the top.

I put up most of the lights after the rain had stopped just before sunset, they are wrapped around the try christmas tree style. Then the tree is draped with fabric. Will try to get a picture in a bit, dealing with broken outside water faucet now. Well really inside warming up now...

I have 4 in ground citrus trees.

I hold off as long as possible in the fall before protecting. It is so much easier on the trees when the sun is lower in the sky. This helps prevent leaf loss. It was in December when I had to close off the east and west ends to my over head covering.

Houses 1 Sweetlee tangerine tree from seed, 2 Fukushu kumquat trees from seed, and a grafted Meiwa kumquat on Kuharske Citrange.

6b "going down to 6F tonight" Steve

I am counting on them being on the south side of my house giving me a degree or two warmer weather. Things looked good today but tonight scares me more than last night. I don't have the material to cover so will just see if the in ground ones make it. I have 4 in pots and I put them under my carport on the south side of the house. My peppers were hurt pretty bad last night under the carport but I kind of expected that.

I have a ponderosa lemon and a Satsuma orange planted in the ground. I built a greenhouse over both of them with a double layer of plastic. I have them built so I can move them off the tree when it warms up. It dropped down to 17 last night and the orange still looks really good. The lemon tree lost it's leaves but it looks like it will come back. I am really too far north for citrus in the ground but I figured it is worth a try.

Steve, enjoyed that video. I am thinking of trying a citrus in ground. I have a coolhouse for temperate plants in containers. But it may be too cold in there since it is an independent structure out in the open.

In high tunnels and greenhouse with no heat source, it can get colder inside the tunnel than the outside temperatures in certain conditions. If you had a heat source it would probably work. It does not take a lot of heat but with no heat and slight winds outside the temperature will be higher inside than outside. According to someone that has greenhouses it only takes about an hour for the temperature inside and outside to be the same after the sun goes down.

Actually, my coolhouse will not be suitable. It has a poly film that cuts out 70% of the light so that the temperature does not fluctuate too much.

Gary, I'm just east of you in Orange.....I don't know how much of a heat source it takes to keep a greenhouse above freezing....always wondered if a person could put a Franklin stove in a greenhouse to keep it warm.

How did you do the last two nights? It is probably too early to see some damage but I think what I was able to cover with tarps will be fine. I see damage to branches of a tangerine that were outside the tarp....if those branches die and the rest of the tree lives, I'll know I didn't waste all that effort :>) I have a lot of Ponderosa lemon trees and I can already see lots of stressed leaves on them. Kumquats and satsumas look fine.

I have 3 in ground citrus, kishu, sweet lemon, and a navel orange. They are on the Southwest side of the house about 5 feet from the eves of the house. They seem to be doing fine. I had 2 satsumas and 2 meyer lemons in pots under the south facing carport. They all look fine.

I don't think tarps without a heat source does much good. Now if they go all the way to the ground and are tied down with rocks or mulch, it will help a little. Without a top, the only good would be keeping the wind off which would raise the wind chill a little. The news showed about 26 degrees both nights.

I also had a Pitomba, Cherry of the Rio Grande, Barbados Cherry, and sweet peppers under the car port. All but the peppers seem fine.

John, I don't think it takes much heat. A Franklin stove should provide enough heat for a good slzed greenhouse. But that is a guess. You would only need to heat it up 5 to 10 degrees. I would be worried a Franklin stove would give too much heat.

They do make a thermometer that gives you the minimum and maximum temperatures. They use to cost about $40. It would be worth it to see how hot and cold it would get in one night.

Gary, glad to hear you came through in good shape. It may be a cold winter, given that we haven't seen February yet!

I clearly need to invest in new thermometers, if only so I know how my 'fridge and freezer are doing. Even though the thermometers are inaccurate, I think I can estimate that the temperature under the haphazardly tarped tangerine was only 1-2 degrees warmer at best. I think one big advantage of tarps is they hold in the humidity and that helps keep the tree warm because of the release of heat from the moisture as it freezes...like misting a citrus grove. I do my best to try to flare the tarp out over the ground below the tree and weigh it down with lumber or bricks. Sometimes I wonder if my efforts are futile though on really windy nights and for trees that are just too big to seal up good....like the tangerine. I'll see if I can photograph the tangerine branches that were outside the tarp and compare with those that were covered. Even though there were LOTS of openings, the tarped parts of the tree looked significantly healthier yesterday. I also have a blood orange I essentially only was able to shield the north side....will be interesting to see how it looks in a few days.

I did talk to 2 people today about freeze damage on satsumas. One stated that satsumas are safe as long so temperatures are not below 24 degrees for 18 hours.

The other one stated he had satsumas that survived a low of 16 with temperatures below 24 degrees for 24 hours. He lives up by Buna. He did not cover the satsumas on that freeze because the trees were too big.

My unprotected tangerine tree was in the teens and single digits for almost 36 hours and it barely survived but looks good after leafing out to replace the small dead branches.

Sweetlee Tangerine · More Info

Sweetlee Tangerine · More Info

I found the picture of what survived after the big freeze of the top picture above and what the bottom picture above grew from.

Sweetlee Tangerine · More Info

I am about75 miles north east of you guys in the DeRidder area, according to the local PWS at the fire station about a mile away our low hit 20 for about an hour with winds gusting to about 15-20 miles per hour all night the first night of the freeze last weekend. It looks like everything survived with minimal damage, for its size the Meyers lemon that has been in the ground for about a year took the hardest hit even though it was covered and had a string of old style C7 christmas lights, I am estimating freeze damage to about 20-25% of its leaves, it was somewhat sheltered from the wind, but I guess not enough. I had probably 10-15% leaf loss on my other smaller citrus that were wrapped and lighted, as to the three mature (7-10 ft tall 12-20 ft wide) Satsuma's that were not covered all had minor new growth leaf damage, and probably half the remaining fruit is showing freeze damage and dropping (I had harvested about 3/4 of the fruit prior to this last freeze). There is still probably 75-100 pounds of good fruit on the trees.

Ike, thanks for sharing your experience. I haven't tried using the Christmas tree lights....just tarp what I can. Clearly, the Satsuma is a great tree for this area since it can handle several hours of sub-freezing temperatures. My impression is that by the time the trees are too big to cover, they probably don't need the cover unless it gets really cold for a longer period.

By now, damaged leaves are either on the ground or are browned out. Seeing quite a few leaves on the ground under the mature Ponderosas. The Satsumas and kumquats look pretty much undamaged. I see some damage to young, outer branches on the calamondin, Ponderosa lemons, meyer lemon, and a little damage to a medium sized moro blood orange. I didn't cover the one meyer I have or the many Ponderosas. I'm particularly curious to see how much stem damage some one year Ponderosas get from being fully exposed. My temps didn't get as low as yours....I was seeing 26 on a digital thermometer near my house and a nearby weather station recorded 24. I don't know how many hours it stayed that low. I think we will be fine if February is kind to us....fingers crossed.

In my experience things start getting questionable with Satsumas when the temperature drops below 20 degrees and stays there for several hours. I lost one a few years ago when the temperature dropped into the upper teens, it was probably 6-7 feet tall and maybe 8-9 feet across. It was planted at the same time as my 2 largest ones were planted, and only 20-30 feet away. I now have a La. Early Satsuma planted near that spot.

I just wanted to post back on this thread to say that 2 of my 3 large mature Satsuma's which were not covered in this event suddenly dropped most of their leaves and all their remaining fruit about 6 days after the hard freeze, the other mature Satsuma dropped about 1/3 of its leaves and still has a little fruit. There has been no additional leaf drop since then.

It got real cold last night. Greenhouse needs freeze protection.

6b Steve