Frost Protection in South Florida!!!
 

Forcasted lows for the next 3 nites here in zone 9b --- 32, 32, 31 ---- gimme a break?!

Full Blue moon decends over pricey tropical 12/31. Of course this means 3 nites of predicted frost! Short duration but lethal nonetheless.


Goldfinger bunch, as yet unripened, comes down today. Will hang in the house.


Frost protection process begins -- leaf tuck up.




Frost protection kept simple. Blankets cut to 7' by 4' for most dwarf types. Larger as required. Top and side edges folded and clipped. Clips - one gross for $16.95 at Orifice Depot. Frost blankets (the good stuff) - $2.00/foot, 15' wide roll.




This stuff breathes real good and can stay on for protracted periods. At $2.00 per foot it had better!

Dan

Re: Frost Protection in South Florida!!!
 

for smaller plants you can just throw a blanket or sheets from your bed over them.

Re: Frost Protection in South Florida!!!
 

They'd be fine at 33 - but 32, 31 - gone pecan. That's very cold for that part of FLA!

They'd come back just fine though.

Re: Frost Protection in South Florida!!!
 

Generally speaking, a 32 degree event, even a couple is ok for most banana plants. You'll get some fried leaves and that's about it. Just trim off the dead leaves and wait for new leaves to spiral out.

Re: Frost Protection in South Florida!!!
 

Your area has been revised, according to NOAA. Upper 20s are coming.. Please wrap your Ae Ae at least twice. Some areas are down to 27 in the Port St Lucie area, but I assumed you were close to the beach so only 29. But you'll need more than a frost blanket. Several wraps should be enough to keep stuff green. With one layer, it will be 100% roasting of leafs.

Overnight

Mostly Clear
Mostly
Clear
Lo 32 °F Monday

Sunny
Sunny

Hi 58 °F Monday
Night
Mostly Clear
Mostly
Clear
Lo 32 °F Tuesday

Sunny
Sunny

Hi 56 °F Tuesday
Night
Mostly Clear
Mostly
Clear
Lo 29 °F Wednesday

Sunny
Sunny

Hi 58 °F Wednesday
Night
Mostly Clear
Mostly
Clear
Lo 32 °F

Re: Frost Protection in South Florida!!!
 

I Like your concept but I don't like the metal clips just because they absorb the cold all to well.. to bad you can't buy chip clips in grosses :^)

Re: Frost Protection in South Florida!!!
 

thanks god in here free of frost hehe. we have sun light all long year heheh

Re: Frost Protection in South Florida!!!
 

Check out our Thursday and Friday ;)

Today
Jan 4
47°
28°

Tue
Jan 5
50°
35°

Wed
Jan 6
57°
39°

Thu
Jan 7
41°
18°

Fri
Jan 8
36°
26°

Re: Frost Protection in South Florida!!!
 

I blame global warming (;

Re: Frost Protection in South Florida!!!
 

tru

Re: Frost Protection in South Florida!!!
 

This is horrible! I mean SOUTH FLORIDA! Its too warm to be protecting plants there!!! (or so you would think)

This cold is very unusual. Luckily over here the nights here arent getting to record breaking cold (most are above 20) but the days are barely above freezing which is about 10F degrees below average. All my palms are covered except of my needle palm.

I hope they cold air gets out of here soon. The only place getting it good is the southwest with ABOVE average temperatures (but they did get some pretty nasty temps earlier this season there too). Florida and the center of the contry seem to really be getting the brunt of it. Some northern parts of florida MIGHT see a little SNOW later this week, but right now thats wishful thinking (if you actually like the snow).


Good luck, hope everything makes it down there! Dont forget to post some pics after this rare and bitter cold event is over.


...
Global warming certainly is looking less likely to me every day. After a cool summer where the hottest temp (93F) was in april (with only 5 days from april to august in the 90s), and so far a forecast that doesnt even take me to average temperatures, I think we are definately in a cool period since probably 85% of the country (not inculding alaska or hawaii) is below average and so is many other northern hemisphere countries. Right now I can use some summer days!

Re: Frost Protection in South Florida!!!
 

I just got back from a week-long trip only to find that we're expecting freezes down here.

making my eventual move to Dade or Broward counties more likely.

Re: Frost Protection in South Florida!!!
 

Good luck to all you Floridians! :coldbanana:

Re: Frost Protection in South Florida!!!
 

Be safe, not sorry. It's a lot easier to cover something once than start from scratch with a small plant. Dan, it looks great, so this advice is for everyone else out there who might choose to risk it rather than cover it.

Re: Frost Protection in South Florida!!!
 

I wrapped bananas with window screen and filled the screen with leaves--about 5-6 inch layer all around--banana leaves are unprotected and will be toast. My new bananas, IC, DO, DR and DC are inside in containers.

For my citrus, I have them covered and have added 5 gal buckets of water--packed the bottom of the trunks with bags of dirt, and have added Christmas tree lights to the most of the ones with fruit still on them.

The pineapples are inside and the avocado is covered and wrapped with blankets.

The weatherman says this is just the first blast--we are looking at teens by the weekend.

Re: Frost Protection in South Florida!!!
 

It turned from sleet to snow around 10am and snowed half the day...... too funny <-shakin head.. this is some weather...

Re: Frost Protection in South Florida!!!
 

Thanks for all the good wishes and info folks. Taylor hit it on the head. Better safe than sorry. Last year I decided to ride out the 4 frosts we had and lost all the big naner plants except the Hua Moa and the Goldfinger. All the pups and mats were ok. Everything grew back. However, on this go around I went for blanketing.

Like the Phoenix, my bananas are going up in smoke and rising again from their own ashes in the spring. I'm not into banana growing to be a pupmeister -- I WANT FRUIT!!!!

Current lowtemp forecast for tonite thru Sun is 29, 31, 41, 37, 30, 34 deg F.

Red flag warnings are up for fire threat due to low humidity and ongoing dry conditions. Chances for rain mostly 0%.

Finished the blanketing about 7:30 PM Sun evening with a headlamp and help from p'd-off wife.

Here's the scene.





The tallest - the Goldfinger. Notice the power lines!


Some good news - one of Tog's favorite orchids

Re: Frost Protection in South Florida!!!
 

Yeah, I've seen predictions of as low as 20 degrees here in the Houston area. It's going to be bad whether we wrap or not. Not looking forward to this at all.

Re: Frost Protection in South Florida!!!
 

The predictions for here are scary--some predictions are as low as 15 for the weekend. We have been below freezing for 3 nights already and yesterday it did not get above until afternoon.

Re: Frost Protection in South Florida!!!
 

The area where I live and the area where my farm is, are both in zone 10. In zone 10 we are to average 1 freeze every two years. Since we have lived here 1 freeze 2007 (Jan), 1 freeze 2008 (Jan), two freezes 2009 (Jan) (Feb),
and for this week the temps have been between 37 and 42 for morning lows all week (which is very unusual in this climate). Tomorrow morning and possibly thursday morning are supposed to be near freezing.Our local weatherman gave us freeze warnings tonight! Lows 10 miles inland are to be freezing or below.

Precautions are to take what bananas, in pots, I can inside the garage. I filled my garage with what I could. The Gros Michael should go into the ground in a couple of weeks, as well as many others.

This is one South Florida style Cold Preparation!

Bananimal I hope your efforts work! Please keep us informed. I did things like this in zone 9 but the efforts were futile.