Phoenix Tropicals Gardening

[Troys123]

I have some small guavas / mangoes in the ground . Can the boxes adequately protect em or should i use sheets/ old comforters in which i am running out of?


BTW Matt i love the way you made up those white tubes for overhead freeze protection, i will make a couple next year.
Thanks for sharing your ideas. I appre4ciate it !

Btw are you planning to protect your bananas, if so how ?

Do you just wrap the truncksw/ something and just let the top freeze to be regrown in spring ?

Let us know your strategy.

BTW i have a few annonas growing i will share w/ the board pollination and growth next year
I have a 6ft seedling cherimoya in filtered shade/ annona reticula custard apple- SAN PABLO SEEDLING 4-5FT / grafted honeyheart cherimoya will plant when it warms up and a small Lisa atemoya

Everything is in the ground except the Honeyheart

[phoenixtropicals]

Hi Mike,

I hope your plants endured the cold weather last night. It looks like things were not near as bad as they predicted. Only getting down to 33 vs. 29 at Sky Harbor which is a big difference.

Yes, boxes work just as well as frost cloth. You just can't leave them on very long because they cut out all the light. Whereas frost cloth can be left on for weeks. However, I found in the freeze of 2007 that just covering things only works if temperatures only go a little bit below freezing and do so for only a short time. So really, frost cloth and coverings really are only "frost protection". When temps get below 29 degrees and stay there for hours you need to put a light bulb in your frost tent.

For example, I had a plumeria and desert rose (some of the most sensitive plants) that were only a couple inches tall and covered with boxes (no source of heat) in 2007. It got to 26 degrees in my yard and both of those plants were frozen solid. You would think that being so close to the ground and covered with a small cardboard box that they would be safe but that wasn't the case.

I do wonder though that if maybe I had buried the edges of the box so that no air seeped in the sides, that it might have made a big difference. Maybe I could have buried the box entirely. I think that would have worked for sure.

My bananas are right against my house. Amazingly in 2007 without any extra protection their leaves burned up, the perimeter of the trunk looked burned but then they grew right out of the trunk later. Not even from the ground but at full height. So, I don't even bother protecting them now. I think being next to the house is the key in this case, and the fact that the "real" banana plant is under the ground.

I'm waiting to eat some of your fresh annonas.