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Friday, February 6, 2009

What Type Of Punch Did Jack Frost Give Us?

15 to 20 degrees for about 8 to 10 hours a pop is cold for us, let's see how we did.

Paperwhites - Narcissus was covered with a sheet and then a bucket. Susie had suggested that I cut the blooms and buds to bring inside. See, I thnk they are beautiful, but boy do they stink to me! These two Hyacinths were covered the same way. Some blooms are fading because they are spent.

Double Erlicheer - Narcissus was covered with a sheet. I believe they will bounce back.


Ornamental Kale, Candytuft, Pansies and Lambs Ear were not covered, they look fine.
Petunias scattered throughout two of my gardens were not covered, the foliage is fine. I was told the frost only kills the blooms, now I know. The litttle Stock to the right is feeling the freeze for sure, it will probably be fine though.

Well, I had a LONG flowering season with these two pots of Gerbera Daisies. The hard freeze hurt their feelings, although there is still green in there.

Rusty's Mom gave me a small pot of Walking Irises two years ago and this is the first time I have seen any frost damage on them. (They multiply well)

Umm, New growth on the hydrangea? This was not covered, it's been waiting paitently to be put in the ground. It was holding down the sheet over my seedlings though.


My seedlings are fine, I did have a light sheet over them.


I had just recently cut the blooms off of all my Snapdragons to encourage more blooms, the frost didn't hurt any of these.

See the difference between these to Rudbeckia's?
They both have yellow flowers with dark centers. The first one is a Susan the second one was given to me and now they are coming up all over as well. This second one hasn't died back to the ground since it was planted last summer.
Bee Balm has some hurt feelings but will recover, had a sheet and a bucket on it as well.

Jacobina was under a sheet and a bucket, it has some freeze burn and

new growth?

It will be in the upper 20's tonight in the 60's tomorrow with abundant sunshine then, 40's and 70's for the next several days!!
We also have buds and blooms on our pear tree, I also noticed buds on our blueberry bushes.


Plants like Alyssum, Dianthus and Petunias were not covered, the frost killed the blooms but the plants are thriving beautifully. All and all living in North Florida and having two nights back to back of a hard freeze I will have to say things don't look that bad. I have learned, that the sheet and then the bucket over plants works a lot better than just one or the other, layering is warmer for us too!

33 comments:

Lona said...

Glad to see your plantings did not get hurt too much. Many will come out of it for you. And I agree wholeheartedly that Paper Whites are so nasty smelling. Be glad that they are outside. :)
Lona

Patsy said...

Will be happy for you when spring gets there and lets your flowers be.
patsy

Peggy said...

You won't have too much damage Darla. I can just imagine you running around with buckets and sheets to protect the plants!I think frost only damages what is out at the time but the plant survives

This Is My Blog - fishing guy said...

Darla: Some will make it while others wonder what is wrong with your temps.

George said...

It looks as if you got through the frost relatively well. I just hope you don't get any more cold weather.

marmee said...

darla,
glad to see you didn't get to much damage. my sis, meems is another story. her garden has had it rough.
you think if we click our heels together we could get to spring any faster?

Dani said...

Your stuff looks great Darla! I did the same and covered alot of my plants. I was worried about my seedlings but the sheets did great.

Susie said...

Darla I didn't know that you think narcissus stinks. Well no wonder you didn't want to cut and bring the blooms inside. hehe! Everything looks like it survived pretty good. We are suppose to have really nice weather for the next several days. Today is picture perfect! Have a great weekend my friend.

Anonymous said...

Looks like most stuff did okay. In Kentucky for winter interest I started to plant Pansies and Ornamental Kale. They are both very hardy and kept looking good through 3 degrees uo there.

Warmer weather looks to be arriving this week. I do have a question where I am still "new" to Florida. I know it has been colder than normal for here, but when do you think warmer weather will stay? I'm not looking forward to it, but I know my plants are.

Jake

Jean said...

Darla, I'm very glad to see that you didn't have too much frost damage. Hopefully you won't get anymore frost. Jean

Rusty in Miami said...

I am sorry to see the damage to your plants. We were lucky down here, we were expecting temps in the high 20s but it never got below 35, I had very little damage, mostly my ground orchids.

Anonymous said...

I was wondering how your garden faired through that unusual freeze you Floridians got this week! Looks like your bucket & sheets did the job!

Catherine@AGardenerinProgress said...

It looks like most everything is doing pretty well. I hear it's been pretty cold there. Hope we're almost all done with frosts so we can just enjoy our plants!

Dorothy said...

Looks like your flowers came thru the cold without much damage. I'm convinced that you could grow flowers at the North Pole!

Corner Gardener Sue said...

I've been thinking of you and your state when the Weather Channel is on, and talks about your cold weather. It looks like you are holding your own so far. It's 55 right now in SE Nebraska. What wacky weather!

Rosemarie said...

Oh no, the poor daisies. Let's cheer them up! (Can't believe you got so much frost - that's nuts!)

Val said...

I can just see your yard now with all the sheets and buckets. You should have took a picture of that. What we do for our plants!! That is really cold you your area, isn't it? We are suppose to have warmer weather this weekend.

Marsha said...

As I watched the news, I was wondering how all of your beautiful blooms fared. It is nice to see that most of them were saved by covering. Our petunias are the last to freeze when we have hard frost each fall too.

Rosemarie said...

... and thank you so much for the birthday wishes. We had a really nice day and evening. Here's to another year!

Stevenson Q said...

Wow it feels refreshing to me to see so much flowers! I love it especially hyacints (Have I spelled it ryt?)

By the way, Thank you so much for your comments on my skywatch post and I was delighted to see your stunning skywatch as well!

Hope to see you back soon on Cavite Daily Photo!

Steven^^

Sue Catmint said...

It's interesting, how frostbite is like sunburn. I think the important thing is whether the plant survives. Hopefully your efforts will result in high survival rates.

Anonymous said...

Hi Darla, I am so glad your losses were so minor. That is good to know about sheet PLUS bucket too. It is supposed to really warm up now, hooray!
Frances

Janet said...

Glad to see your plants are faring well after that cold shock!

Shelley said...

I can only imagine how beautiful your yard must be in the spring & summer!

Anonymous said...

Looks like they all faired pretty well. I've never had a frost I had to be concerend about. If I do, at least now I know what to do. :-)

Gardeness said...

You've got so much going on in the garden.I just have nubs of bulbs and such pushing up. You'll have a full beautiful garden to enjoy in no time. Cheers.

Anonymous said...

Couldn't wait to see your beautiful garden with all those blooms ...

Shionge said...

I am so impressed with your series of flowers and plants and I want to know if you tend to your garden everyday?

Do you read up on the names of the plants too? In Singapore, our national flower is Orchid :D

Linda said...

That must be a difficult combination - so much green stuff and then such a severe frost.

And I agree about the paperwhites. I've had to put the ones I had on my living room windowsill outside, where I can enjoy them without having to smell them!

RURAL said...

Darla, I am so sorry about the snakes. I did put the warning on the top of the page. I really hope that you recover soon. If I had known that you don't like them, I would have emailed you, DON'T READ MY POST TODAY.

I really thought that this was a important thing to get across. If you could have seen how their faces lit up when he came past them, and when he moved on, they went back to dozing in their chairs.

Gar did have a hard time looking at the photos also. He is snake phobic, and I understand. For me it is spiders. This is one time where I felt that the pros outweighed the cons.

And I promise no more snakes!!!! Oh and no more spiders!!! Can't stand the poor things.

So sorry, Jen

Catherine Holman said...

Looks like most of your pretty flowers survived. Everything is pretty dry and gray around here. Can't wait for everything to green up!
Hugs,
Cathie

LeatherneckJoe said...

Well we are just getting rid of our snow cover up here in Indiana, can't wait till we have plants growing again...till then we will enjoy your blog. If you get a few minutes, check out my site and let me know what you think. Joe

www.gardenharvestsupply.com

Leedra said...

I used to have the paperwhites in the house for Jan blooms, and John always complained about the smell. Teenage boys are not tolerate of those things, and the blooms were definitely not worth the smell to him.

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