2018 Florida Freeze

[RedRabbit]

15 hours ago, Zeeth said:

The palms in the courtyard at Tampa General hospital did pretty well. I'm attaching pics of their Adonidias and golden Malayan coconut, but there's also a bottle palm, spindle palm, Dypsis lutescens, and a few royals that were all undamaged. Davis island in general looks pretty good, and the Panama tall coconut I planted at my brother's house on the island is only slightly damaged. 

I thought your brother was in Seminole Heights. How many houses does he have? lol

[GottmitAlex]

15 hours ago, Zeeth said:

The palms in the courtyard at Tampa General hospital did pretty well. I'm attaching pics of their Adonidias and golden Malayan coconut, but there's also a bottle palm, spindle palm, Dypsis lutescens, and a few royals that were all undamaged. Davis island in general looks pretty good, and the Panama tall coconut I planted at my brother's house on the island is only slightly damaged. 

 

15 hours ago, Zeeth said:

The palms in the courtyard at Tampa General hospital did pretty well. I'm attaching pics of their Adonidias and golden Malayan coconut, but there's also a bottle palm, spindle palm, Dypsis lutescens, and a few royals that were all undamaged. Davis island in general looks pretty good, and the Panama tall coconut I planted at my brother's house on the island is only slightly damaged. 

 

 

Thanks for the pictures. I know California can never ever compete with Florida regarding many species of palms, specifically Coconuts. That said, I believe the Corona Coconut looks a lot better healthwise (in all respects, really ) than the one shown in Tampa G. Hospital pic.   I know, Tampa is not known as coco territory, but Corona? Unheard of. Tampa is @ 27.9 latitude while Corona is 33.8.

Caveat: I have not seen any Feb. pictures of the Corona coconut. 

 

 

 

 

 

[DavidLee]

Zeeth,

I remember back in January 2010, Davis Island was spared from the hard freezes. I don't remember seeing Coconuts. I do remember seeing some nice Royal palms and Royal Poinciana trees without any damage.

[RedRabbit]

2 hours ago, GottmitAlex said:

Thanks for the pictures. I know California can never ever compete with Florida regarding many species of palms, specifically Coconuts. That said, I believe the Corona Coconut looks a lot better healthwise (in all respects, really ) than the one shown in Tampa G. Hospital pic.   I know, Tampa is not known as coco territory, but Corona? Unheard of. Tampa is @ 27.9 latitude while Corona is 33.8.

Caveat: I have not seen any Feb. pictures of the Corona coconut. 

 

 

 

 

 

If you think that one looks bad you should see basically any other coconut in Tampa. I haven't been on Davis Islands since the freeze, but all the other ones I've seen around here look terrible.

[Zeeth]

8 hours ago, RedRabbit said:

I thought your brother was in Seminole Heights. How many houses does he have? lol

He moved to Davis island to have his daughter in a better school district for middle School. I'm in Seminole heights now, lol.

[Sandy Loam]

Personally, I'd rather live in Seminole Heights than Davis Island (at least until the recent S.H. shooting spree) even if it's not as good for growing coconut palms.  All of my fave Tampa restaurants are in Seminole Heights, although I guess that's for a different PalmTalk thread . . .   Isn't Davis Island supposed to be crazy expensive anyway? 

I digress --  back to the Florida freeze of January 2018

[Zeeth]

18 hours ago, DavidLee said:

Zeeth,

I remember back in January 2010, Davis Island was spared from the hard freezes. I don't remember seeing Coconuts. I do remember seeing some nice Royal palms and Royal Poinciana trees without any damage.

There are coconut if you know where to look. You don't see them while driving but they're pretty abundant on the waterfront properties. I don't know if they're pre or post 2010, or how they fared during this recent freeze, but they're there. There are also quite a few on Harbor Island in similar locations too. 

[Chatta]

18 hours ago, RedRabbit said:

If you think that one looks bad you should see basically any other coconut in Tampa. I haven't been on Davis Islands since the freeze, but all the other ones I've seen around here look terrible.

I've seen a few near Citrus Park and East Lake area that faired ok, but yeah most of the ones around town are definitly messed up... A few in St. Pete are a lil damaged.

[RedRabbit]

16 hours ago, Zeeth said:

He moved to Davis island to have his daughter in a better school district for middle School. I'm in Seminole heights now, lol.

Ahh, okay gotcha. I'd want to be in South Tampa too if I had kids. 

[Alan_Tampa]

What i can' figure out is why some piper sanctum only shows some damage at the very top and the rest is green and looks great. I use it as an indicator plant, didn't work this time. 

[Matthew92]

On ‎1‎/‎23‎/‎2018‎ ‎7‎:‎37‎:‎44‎, Opal92 said:

Well, with that huge of an area (Continental United States) it's not going to be all of one anomaly across most of it. Like even if the west coast was having below average temps, another part of the continent would be getting the above average temps. I'm sure it will be vise versa the way it is now in the near future.

On ‎1‎/‎23‎/‎2018‎ ‎1‎:‎58‎:‎53‎, Sandy Loam said:

That GFS is unbelievable -- and, as usual, the west of the continent is spared.  If that GFS is a good predictor, I am baffled by what is going on with our climate this winter.  Can anyone explain why this trend is happening?  Meanwhile, it has been mild out west all winter and it has been mild in western Europe too. 

Huh, well that's exactly what has happened. Very warm in Southeast US now, and cold in the Northwest US.

[RedRabbit]

I put away my coat yesterday because WINTER IS OVER. There's no cold weather in the forecast for the remainder of February and historically there's only a minimal risk of a freeze in March.

[Matthew92]

While today many of us are in full summer attire and even breaking out the sweat cloths, 3 years ago to the day, Central FL was dealing with freezing/near freezing temps with a chilly high of 51 degrees reported at the Orlando airport. Actually, the Orlando airport recorded all time record lows for those days with 37 degrees for the 19th and 34 degrees on the 20th.

I happened to be visiting the Orlando area at this time 3 years ago: I remember the day before driving down the winds were fierce as the front approached. I then observed Disney workers covering tender plants at the Coronado Resort grounds.

At my house in the Western Panhandle, my weather station recorded 22 degrees, and the high was around 45.

[PalmatierMeg]

On 2/19/2018, 12:45:11, Opal92 said:

While today many of us are in full summer attire and even breaking out the sweat cloths, 3 years ago to the day, Central FL was dealing with freezing/near freezing temps with a chilly high of 51 degrees reported at the Orlando airport. Actually, the Orlando airport recorded all time record lows for those days with 37 degrees for the 19th and 34 degrees on the 20th.

I happened to be visiting the Orlando area at this time 3 years ago: I remember the day before driving down the winds were fierce as the front approached. I then observed Disney workers covering tender plants at the Coronado Resort grounds.

At my house in the Western Panhandle, my weather station recorded 22 degrees, and the high was around 45.

I remember that time. Up until then I had the mildest winter since I moved here in 1993. Then I recorded a low of 37F. I don't think it's going to happen this year.

[Jimbean]

Freeze damage on some royals and pygmy date palms just south of Lake Monroe right off of I-4.  I would guess around 28F.

[Trópico]

My H. beguinii is still growing. Marked spear has moved close to 2”!

[Alan_Tampa]

Signs of life!

[Alan_Tampa]

[Alan_Tampa]

[Palmaceae]

Looks like it is going to cool off again the first full week of March.

[Alan_Tampa]

It's just going to be about normal after that weather moves in. 

[RedRabbit]

17 hours ago, Alan_Tampa said:

Signs of life!

Are all of your palms going to make it? 

Also, I'm curious if your Archontophoneix hybrid had any damage.

Edited February 25, 2018 by RedRabbit

[Alan_Tampa]

17 hours ago, RedRabbit said:

Are all of your palms going to make it? 

Also, I'm curious if your Archontophoneix hybrid had any damage.

With the exception of a P. shefferi it looks like eveything will make it. 

 

Hybrid archie looks okay, illiwara looks like nothing happened. Crown is above canopy. 

[RedRabbit]

5 hours ago, Alan_Tampa said:

With the exception of a P. shefferi it looks like eveything will make it. 

 

Hybrid archie looks okay, illiwara looks like nothing happened. Crown is above canopy. 

I'm glad to hear your palms did well for the most part. It is interesting to hear the illiwara did so good, I've always heard they're less cold hardy than the regular cunninghamiana. 

[Missi]

On 2/24/2018, 6:52:34, Alan_Tampa said:

Signs of life!

I see hog panels! Are those to contain a critter? 

[Alan_Tampa]

Burmese mountain tortoises

[Alan_Tampa]

4 hours ago, RedRabbit said:

I'm glad to hear your palms did well for the most part. It is interesting to hear the illiwara did so good, I've always heard they're less cold hardy than the regular cunninghamiana. 

That's weird. At one time was touted as more cold hardy than average. 

[RedRabbit]

1 hour ago, Alan_Tampa said:

That's weird. At one time was touted as more cold hardy than average. 

I've heard that is a myth which is why I got a regular cunninghamiana. Mine wasn't damaged either though so I guess we can conclude both are pretty hardy. Who knows which is really more cold tolerant, I certainly don't. 

[Missi]

17 hours ago, Alan_Tampa said:

Burmese mountain tortoises

 NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!  OMG! PICS??!!!  Those guys are RAD!!!  I have a male Indian star tortoise, but he stays too small to leave outside (7-8"). A coon or bear could make a snack out of him. On the weekends I put him out in a big guinea pig cage in the grass while the sun is out for supervised outdoors time though.

[IHB1979]

I was really lucky in Coastal Brevard, not much damage. I do have a question about one of my coconuts. I have many growing well after the cold event but one is showing some damage. Two of the newest fronds have collapsed and are hanging down. In the photo below you can see my Son pulling on one of them. Is this cold related or a deficiency? We had quite a bit of rain with Irma and then had about 7-10" from an Invest in October.

Edited February 27, 2018 by IHB1979

[Missi]

Welp. I'm looking at a few days of the mid-50s early next week.  Time to think about bring the uber tenders back in the dining room AGAIN. 

[Matthew92]

I figured this would come. We had the warmest February I've ever experienced here. Mostly upper 70's and some low 80's through just about the whole month. Our Februaries can be very cold here with low 20's being common- in 2010 we had snow flurries. I work at one of the big box stores, and we started receiving warm growing annuals and other plants (even tomatoes) early February. My co-workers talked about how they seem to keep sending them earlier and earlier each year and that they've had to protect them some years with the inevitable cold. And in the last 2 weeks, we got all the tropicals- Mandeville, crotons, elephant ears, bleeding heart vine, hibiscus, blooming/leafing-out citrus etc.. We were basically sitting around twiddling our thumbs through January with the cold temps and not many plants or customers, but the minute the warm season stuff and the warm temps came out in early Feb, you would have thought it was late March with the hordes of people buying the aforementioned product. I shook my head on Feb 19 during all this madness when I was reminded that 3 years ago in 2015 we had a 22 degree freeze (ref. my comment above). This area historically has even had temps in the 20's in March before. Both customers and vendors should be thanking their lucky stars we didn't have a regular freeze in Feb. But still it may not end that easy. Forecast is trending lower and lower now with 41 deg one night. I won't be surprised if we get a frost.

 

[Chatta]

Yikes I'm looking at a low of 46, I suppose not so bad, considering I already lost all my uber tropicals lol.

[Walt]

Sebring, Florida, FAWN (Florida Automated Weather Network) recorded 22 straight days (last 22 days of February) 80 degrees or above. February had 13 days 85 degrees or higher. Only four days with highs in the mid to upper 70s, the coolest being 75.67 degrees. I think most of Florida set an all-time warmest February record.

The February average temperature between daily highs and lows was 71.55 degrees. Solidly tropical.

[kinzyjr]

Another extremely warm February leading into a cooler March... interesting pattern.

[Matthew92]

GFS for March 9th. Northern FL freeze?

[Missi]

I have a low of 50 NEXT Saturday on this morning's forecast.  

[bubba]

A cool March is something to embrace after this Feb. Likely the last 50’s we will see north of the Old Monkey Jungle. Fearful of the upcoming lows in the low 80’s. Constant breeze makes it better together with ability to tolerate constant perspiration!

[Alan_Tampa]

On 2/27/2018, 8:57:01, Missi said:

 

Somehow a quote is stuck here, but name the brown frond pictured here : (space between posts is about 5 or 6 ft)

[Xerarch]

5 hours ago, Alan_Tampa said:

Somehow a quote is stuck here, but name the brown frond pictured here : (space between posts is about 5 or 6 ft)

Oh I hate it when that happens, it happens when you either start typing something and change your mind and quit, or when something goes wrong when posting. Then every time you try to respond on that thread until the end of time that quote will come up no matter what and you have to delete it.  I’ve never been able to find a way around it.