Week of February 27, 2022

The Florida garden is recovering from several hard frosts in early February, and with the end of this month, the risk of further frost damage is much reduced. The rather late frost damaged the cold sensitive plants, now able to be pruned. The citrus foliage was not damaged, but the buds and blossoms for many were lost, especially below 5 feet above the ground. Several citrus, such as the Key limes and Meyer lemons, appear to be setting a second set of buds. Despite all this lost foliage, it is AZALEA BLOSSOM time with the buds apparently surviving the frost and now the many varieties in the neighborhood are all blooming at once. Our Florida garden has large banks of magenta “Formosa” azaleas around our live oak and across the front yard. More of this variety grow on our neighbor’s side of a fence north of our lot. They are very tall and spill over to our yard. We have smaller plantings of pink and white, deep magenta, and salmon colored azaleas around the back yard. Our neighbor to the south has a long row of white and pink azalea bushes along her fence. This display is repeated across the neighborhood, encouraging admiring walkers and announcing that Spring has arrived in North Florida.