Rmplmnz

Dave, all of your comments have been supportive, flattering and kind! Everyone in the continental US got hit double hard this past Winter. It was a humbling experience for a guy that has been cheating his climate the last two decades.


Thanks, Mi Casa es Su Casa.

Always good to make another friend!

DaveE

Yes it is!

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Rmplmnz

Just a few more pics to evidence how big Dwarf Brazilians can get:
[IMG][/IMG][IMG][/IMG][IMG][/IMG][IMG][/IMG][IMG][/IMG]

chong

Chris,
Those Strawberry trees, are they the Jamaican Strawberry trees that have fruits that starts out green then yellow than red globular, around 3/8" diameter? Scientific name - Muntingia Calabura? I miss that fruit. That tree is almost a pest tree in the Philippines because it grows profusely. There is no commercial value there because the fruits ripen fast once picked. The fruit is super sweet like fig with really tiny seeds. The leaves have medicinal value and dried to make a great tea.

Not to be off topic, just to let you know that the two smaller Dwarf Brazilians that you sent me are the only one, from the generous shipment you sent me last yea, to survive the Winter. The giant DB corm didn't even sprout.
I have one of them in my temporary home in Richland, WA, but I think that I will bring the other one there as well just to be safe. I did have them in my greenhouse all year, but the lack of sunshine is what I think that is really hurting them. I will post pictures soon.

Those are awesome pictures you posted! Thanks.

Chong

asacomm

The biggest bunch I have ever seen!

Jack Daw

That's a terrible damage. I do share your pain. Losing so many adult and healthy plants must be... simply very difficult.
Have you made plans what to replace them with?

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mushtaq86

That is such a terrible loss.How long did the cold spell last.The problem with growing nanas and other exotic plants is while they can be replaced,but time and effort cant be.

Rmplmnz

Chong,
You are too good!
Yep…our Strawberry Tree aka Jamaica Cherry (“Muntingia calabura L.”) bit it…it tasted just like Cotton Candy…all of our Coconut Palms, Sugar Apples, Macadamia Nut, Plumeria and many others also died.
Jamaica Cherry
Bummer about your bananas..I know Dwarf Brazilians are one of your favorites. You had a lot going on traveling with work. How is the greenhouse doing?




Thanks for the kind words!

It was tough for everyone.....we lost trees we planted 15-18 years ago...many other board members got hit equally hard.

We are still cleaning up (chopping/trimming dead treas).

Coldest winter in Tampa since 1969 ends Saturday

Coldest winter in Tampa since 1969 ends Saturday

By NEIL JOHNSON | The Tampa Tribune
and KEITH MORELLI | The Tampa Tribune
Maybe you've heard this during the unrelenting winter, or even thought it yourself: "I can't ever remember a winter like this."

There's a good reason. Unless you were around four decades ago, you've never seen a winter like this. Well, finally, after months of shivering under the oppressive cold “yes, this is Florida“ winter is over.

At 1:32 p.m. tomorrow with the start of spring, we can bid a not-so-fond farewell to a winter of sinkholes, sleet and soaring electric bills, ruined crops and a deadly toll on wildlife.

Most will remember the brutal cold of early January when freezing or near freezing temperatures sliced into 12 consecutive nights in Hillsborough and forced strawberry farmers to run pumps relentlessly to protect their crops. The result: sinkholes, dried-up residential wells, caved-in roads and a school closed. The cost: millions of dollars.

Records compiled by meteorologists at the National Weather Service office in Ruskin show that December, January and February ”the months meteorologists consider winter” were the coldest in Tampa since 1969 and the 10th coldest since 1890 when records started here.

The winter set records in Tampa and St. Petersburg for consecutive days that did not reach 60 for the afternoon high. The old record in Tampa was seven days below 60 in January 1956. In St. Petersburg, the run broke the mark from December 1995.

And March has continued the trend. Temperatures were below average all but two days so far this month.

The invading onslaughts of Arctic air even brought sleet and some snow to parts of the Tampa Bay area, something that hasn't been seen in 30 years. Frigid air combining with moisture from the Gulf of Mexico brought the wintery mix of freezing rain and sleet across inland sections of Pasco, Hernando, Polk and Citrus counties and even a dusting of snow in a few places.

Finally, on the first day of spring, forecasts call for the afternoon to hit 77 degrees, the normal temperature for March 20.

Behind it all was abnormally warm water in the Pacific Ocean called an El Niño. It caused shifts in the jet stream that allowed slugs of frigid Arctic air to plunge farther south into Florida.

The blasts of icy air reached all of the state except the Keys, said Amy Godsey, state meteorologist.

Every county in Florida except in the Keys opened cold weather shelters at some point this year, she said.

"The number of Arctic outbreaks was unusual," she said. "We had 12 days in a row when much of the state was below freezing."

The cold did have one positive effect on the winter weather in February. There were no tornadoes in Florida during February, the peak month for twisters during a winter dominated by an El Niño.
That was unusual, Godsey said.

The air was too cold to allow tornadoes to form when storm systems moved over the state every few days, she said.

Here's a look at some of the winter's impact in Florida:

Agriculture


By some estimates, tomato growers lost 70 percent of their plants this winter.

The loss led to a scarcity of Florida-grown tomatoes. And when they could be found, they were more than $3 a pound. Some restaurants served up salads and burgers without tomatoes.

Growers continued to wait for warm weather in March, hoping for a rebound crop. It has warmed up some, but not enough to quicken a second harvest.

"It hasn't been warm," said Reggie Brown, executive vice president of the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange. "It's kind of a sad deal."

The 12 consecutive days of freezing temperatures came at a time when the strawberry crop of eastern Hillsborough County was at its most vulnerable. Farmers tried to save their crops by spraying millions of gallons of water from the aquifer onto the fields. The aquifer drained, pocking the landscape with sinkholes and depressions. Residential wells went dry.

Aside from losses from the cold, farmers were required to pay costs of repairing wells of people living near the 7,000 to 8,000 acres of strawberry fields in the Plant City-Dover area.

It all added up to a pretty slim year for growers, they say.

"It's already a losing year," Florida Strawberry Grower's Association Executive Director Ted Campbell said at the end of January. The 12-day freeze, he said, "is absolutely unprecedented.''

As temperatures crept above freezing, and after all that water had been pumped, the Southwest Florida Water Management District had received more than 600 dry well complaints from Plant City area residents.

Sinkholes Vs. Roads, School


Three eastbound lanes of Interstate 4 were closed by a 24-foot-wide depression for four days in January, a situation linked to strawberry field watering. The Florida Department of Transportation spent $300,000 to repair it.

And the bill to taxpayers kept rising. During the cold snap, Hillsborough County commissioners added $2 million to a contract for stabilizing sinkholes, bringing the county fund to repair ground depressions to $2.6 million.

Eight roads inside the Plant City limits were damaged by sinkholes or depressions.

Besides Interstate 4, two major highways in eastern Hillsborough “U.S. 92 and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard “ were damaged by sinkholes or depressions.

Officials say about 80 sinkholes or ground depressions formed because of the strawberry watering during the freeze. One was adjacent to Trapne ll Elementary School and forced school administrators to transfer students to other schools.

Cement mixers loaded with grout filled the void, estimated to be between 80 and 120 feet deep.

Students will return to the school on April 19, when they return from spring break. The cost: $600,000, said school district spokeswoman Linda Cobbe. "A good majority of it," she said, "will be paid for through insurance."

Plant City officials this month had to spend $255,000 to shore up the ground around a water tank that is threatened by a sinkhole.

The city drained the 500,000-gallon tank in January because of unstable ground.

The cost was the most inexpensive option presented by an engineering study, for which the city paid an additional $57,000.

Cost Of Keeping Warm


Residents trying to stay comfortable in their homes during the January cold snap ran up their heating bills. Some Tampa Electric Co. customers paid three times as much each night to heat their house compared to the first 11 days of a normal January.

It costs 23 cents an hour to run a heat pump when it's 55 degrees outside, roughly the average low temperature in January. But, it costs 85 cents an hour if it is 33 degrees outside, or just about the average low temperature over the first 11 days of 2010.

If the increased power use pushed customers' consumption over the 1,000 kilowatt hour threshold, a higher rate kicked in.

The Toll on Wildlife


The January freeze also took a crippling swing at some critters that call the Sunshine State home.

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officials said that more than 3,000 shivering sea turtles have been rescued and taken to various facilities throughout the state this winter.

The frigid temperatures also killed fish. During the first few weeks of January, the commission's fish kill hotline had received hundreds of reports of cold-related fish kills across the state.

Biologists say that when the water temperatures drop, fish don't typically die from the cold, but they do become more susceptible to disease. So, even fish that survived the chilly temperatures became susceptible to fungal infections.

Manatees were unable to come in from the cold and the snap resulted in 193 manatees from around the state dying from cold stress, according to the Save the Manatee Club. The cold kill was the largest die-off of sea cows ever recorded.

Another 151 manatee deaths between Jan. 1 and March 5 were classified as undetermined or unrecovered, some likely also were caused by the cold, the club says.

State officials say the previous record for cold stress deaths among manatees is 56, which occurred in 2009.

The cold also reached into the briny depths around the Florida Keys. The snap that dropped the water temperature to 45 degrees was enough to kill all of the coral along the Keys in 10 feet of water or less, including reefs as far south as Key West and the Dry Tortugas.

"Decimated," said Allan Marshall, vice president of biological operations at The Florida Aquarium earlier this month. "They have recently become deserts."

chong

Oh! No! Chris!

How so very depressing!!!! The worst part is, I know the feeling. Like I said, I lost quite a few bananas this last Winter. Even the reasonably large CA Gold I got from Chironex's "closeout". Not to mention the very large Dwarf Orinoco I've had for years, and the "prized" large TX Star! From Ty Ty no less!

If you need a replacement for the Strawberry Tree, let me know. I'm supposed to be getting one this week, coincidentally.

I just brought with me to my home in Richland, WA the second surviving DB from my greenhouse in Seattle. It actually looks better than the firs one that I brought with me a couple of weeks ago. But I was afraid that my grandson may not be able to tell when to water it or not, so I had to bring it with me.

BTW, how did our infamous Veinte Cohol do last Winter? Is it still among the living?

Thanks.

Chong

Bananaman88

Those DB's are impressive. Mine is about 7' to the tip of the tallest leaf right now.

Dalmatiansoap

And guess who might get one DB pup too, after all year search?

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saltydad

Oh man, what an emptiness in the heart you must have felt. I do just looking at the pics.

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Rmplmnz

Forecasters: Tampa Bay area summer is warmest on record

By Pat Farnan, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Tuesday, August 31, 2010

In what has been a year of extraordinary weather, another record has fallen. It's been the hottest combined June, July and August in history.

"It's really been a fascinating year of weather,'' said Mike Clay, chief meteorologist for the Bay News 9.

In Tampa, the average temperature for those three months was 84.5 degrees, breaking the old record of 84.2, set in 1998. In St. Petersburg, the average was 85.6, breaking the old mark of 84.6, set in 1987.

The average temperature for the day is the high and the low added together, then divided by two.

The record summer heat comes after a historically cold winter. During 2010's first three months, some parts of the Tampa Bay area experienced the coldest winter in recorded history. In that period, temperatures averaged 6 to 8 degrees below normal. This chill was largely attributed to El Niño, which usually brings an active winter storm season to west-central Florida.

"We have a much greater capacity to go cooler in the winter than we do hotter in the summer, because we are in the tropics, and it's always very hot in the summer,'' Clay said.

In fact, despite record summer heat, winter was so cold that the average temperature for the year in the bay area is still 1.1 degrees below normal. Because the global atmosphere recently shifted into a La Niña period, this coming winter is forecast to be warmer than the last, said National Weather Service meteorologist Tyler Fleming.

Floridians haven't been the only ones feeling the heat. Globally, the average land surface temperature from January through July was the warmest on record.

Times staff writer Emily Nipps contributed to this report.

Forecasters: Tampa Bay area summer is warmest on record - St. Petersburg Times

Rmplmnz

cheson74

Here is a picture of a DB I planted around the end of November/early December. It was a tiny pup. Look at the bottom of the photo at the red drink for size reference. This one is only a few months old but grew this large in a span of 6 months.

I have another that I got from a forum member that is roughly 10' pstem. It was also a transplanted pup. I'll take a picture of it when I get a chance.

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