Week of January 26, 2020

Ghosts in the backyard!  Our Florida Home in Gainesville sits in the USDA hardiness zone 8b. This means that temperatures can get diwnnto the low 20 degree level.  On the other hand,  the freezing temperatures occur only a couple of times a year for a few hours per night, and some years not at all.  There are wonderful plants that require zone 9, so we plant them anyway and take steps to protect the perennials and let the annuals freeze.  One way to protect the citrus is to plant them under the drip line of the trees at the side and back of the property.  Tender plants at highest risk for frost damage are: key limes, avocados, elk horn fern, coleus, penta, elephant ears, and fire bush.  Some plants like the fern we can move inside the garden tool room; others we prune back to the living part remaining on the plant.  There are other frost issues with our fruit trees if they are in bud or bloom; frost will kill buds and small fruit so you will have no crop of peaches or plums that year. For these, the limes, and the avocados, we put on white frost cloth bequeathed to us by downsizing  neighbors.  We had two nights of frost last week and the cloths were draped over nine trees.  Nonny wrote the grandchildren that our backyard was full of ghosts-large white sheets flying above the garden!  None of trees had damage, so I guess they were friendly ghosts.