When Winters Hit the Reset Button on Palms and Other Things

[_Keith]

A normal winter doesn't scare us in the marginal zones, in my case 8b/9a. It is the bad ones that stay in one's nightmares like 63, 83, 89.

I picked up a gardening book, actually a Gardener's Diary of over 60 years from the the 1800s. This paragraph brought those nightmares back.

[Phoenikakias]

The deepest fear of mine also.

[vcross]

What is the name of the book? Sounds very interesting. I grew up in Northern Lousiana and the winters of 1983 and 1989 were brutal.

[_Keith]

What is the name of the book? Sounds very interesting. I grew up in Northern Lousiana and the winters of 1983 and 1989 were brutal.

Sorry, I should have stated that if for no other reason than to give credit where credit was due.

http://www.amazon.com/Garden-Turnbull-Mistress-Rosedown-Plantation/dp/0807144118

[Tropicdoc]

Cool book. Like I've said our palm collections are not limited by our normal winters. It is those extremes that are the killer. These extreme winters are the reason that sabal minor is the only native palm here.

[Kathryn]

That's a lot of nights in the teens Keith. What is the normal low temperatures in the St Franciscille area? Probably a few sub freezing nights into the upper 20's?

[Xerarch]

Interesting, I love seeing old documentation like that, among the cold winters listed was the infamous cold of 1835, the one that killed 100 year old citrus trees in St. Augustine FL.

[_Keith]

There was a freeze of the century just before the turn of the century as I recall, something like 1895.

[Xerarch]

1894-95, and 1899 were both really bad, '95 was worse in Florida, '99 was worse in Texas, many of those records still hold today. 1835 in Florida was terrible but we have few records to compare against other years since hardly anyone was around then that could record. St Augustine got down to 7 degrees F though.