I am just sick. Tonight will be the 4th night with temps in the mid 20's here in Summerville. All of my heavily mulched tropicals, Brugmansia, Elephant Ears and Canna started to grow because of the unusually warm January. When I checked this morning, I was greeted to brown, black and flopped over new growth. I'm just sick about it.
X
This weather is unreal!
Just awful out the past few days-who left the refridgerator door open??? I'm not experienced enough with the tropicals to know what this will mean. Are they lost, or just set way back? I'll have to check my few canna and elephant ears...seems to me those will recover. Some brugs apparently are more hardy than others, so you may be OK. Better days are on the way.
i know its just a bad thing but living here forever i know theres always that last freeze time before the end of feb. i tried to mulch over my stuff but to no avial either.
its disheartening.
Up here in NC - it's not wise to let your guard down until into April. Some of our worst weather happens in March. I'm sorry for your plants, and probably folks up here in milder areas may have some of the same things happen to them if this weather patten repeats itself a couple more times. We had flurries over the weekend and into the 50;s today.
Swoznick
Just when we thought we'd skate through winter without a hard freeze....sure hope last week was the end of it. Coralbean asked how the new growth dieback will affect the plants -- I'm interested, too if you have time to explain.
Looks like a lot of rain coming up..that will set my transplating back a couple of weeks.
Cathy
Hi Cathy,
When you see new growth, the plant is producing a lot of growth hormone, gibberellic acid and getting juicy. When a hard freeze comes along, the danger is that the freeze can go as deep as the core because the new growth acts like kind of a conduit, killing the whole or damaging it considerably. One hard freeze is bad, but not as likely to kill the whole thing. 2 and 3 hard freeze back to back is devastating because the damage goes deeper. Rhizomes and bulbs, like canna, elephant ears and ginger are especially susceptible. With the brugs, there is less danger of total kill but the results can be a weakened plant.
Hi Xeramtheum,
Thanks for the explanation. How awful for you after all that hard work. I'm rooting (groan - yup - meant that!) for you and your plants. Keep us posted.
Last year the hardest freeze we had down here was in late March. It always gets chilly around the time of the full moon.
I lucked out this past week; lowest temp recorded at my house was 37 on Monday, no damage.
shoot we got down to 21 the other night. everything was frozen. my car wanted to give me a hard time cranking. it was cold!!