Phoenix Tropicals Gardening

[phoenixtropicals]

Well, last night was actually quite a bit warmer than they predicted. They said it would be 37 F. at Sky Harbor which is typically 3 degrees warmer than my temps. here in north Mesa. So, I was expecting 34. However, it only got down to 40. Tonight is still predicted to be below freezing, so I am covering things up anyways.

[GermanStar]

41° at 7 AM. Tonight is supposed to flirt with freezing, with a hard freeze predicted for following two nights.

[GermanStar]

24°

[phoenixtropicals]

Wow. 24, that is cold. 32 here. I wonder if covering plants actually works with this wind. The interesting thing is that I had a mango planted in my yard from 2002 to 2007 and never protected it. Not a single hard freeze in all that time. Also strange is how warm most of December was last year, then it was followed by the New Years freeze. The weather is definitely more erradic this year.

[GermanStar]

Wind is supposed to mitigate frost damage. At 32°, you have no worries. Tonight is supposed to be colder though...

I only did a lite covering last night as forecast low was 29°. I did just go out and cover a couple of my less hardy Agaves that were starting to bathe in morning sun (each is reported hardy to 25°) . Frost damage if any is done, but I can protect 'em from quick thaw at least. I have another Agave good to 28° and it was covered, along with a Euphorbia that took some substantial damage last go-round despite being covered with a 60W bulb. Bad enough this happened once this year, let alone twice....

[GermanStar]

Nearly 10:00 and still 28°. Bye bye Euphorbia! I have a second Euphorbia but I brought it in, since it's potted.

[GermanStar]

I'm gonna lose some plants I really like tonight. I have everything covered, but it doesn't look like that's going to help much. It's already down to 30°, it may get down to the mid teens....

[phoenixtropicals]

Yes, a brutally cold night tonight. I am at 34 right now and spent the last 3 days covering stuff, putting in light bulbs etc. I'm just hoping to keep things alive at this point. I doubt there is going to be much fruit this year. I hope some of your plants make it.

[GermanStar]

I awoke to a ghastly 19°.

[phoenixtropicals]

29°F here. Looks like it got to 32° at Sky Harbor. Sorry to hear about your 18°F. That must have hammered some things.

29° is a big relief for me because they were predicting 27° at downtown which would have been 24° here, and that would have even damaged the citrus. I live on the north end of Mesa where there is a drop off nearby to the river, so I think that helps us out.

Well, on the bright side, I bet your summer nights are way more pleasant than mine are, because you are about 10° cooler than I am. Your weather there seems very Tucson like. I also noticed that your house seems to have significantly cooler weather than the official Fountain Hills readings.

I wonder about this Sky Harbor temperature they always report. I know some people that live in Phoenix proper and they tell me of significantly colder temperatures than are reported. Maybe being at the airport near all that concrete makes those readings higher than they should really be.

The warmest place I know of in town is the ASU campus. In the 2007 freeze their ficus trees weren't even touched, and summer nights there are very oven like. Its all the concrete and big buildings that have that affect. The AZRFG donated a mango tree to them one time, but the grounds keeper pulled it up, and said it would never make it. I'm certain a mango would never freeze there.

[GermanStar]

Our summer temps are about the same, perhaps 2-3° cooler, though it can take 3 or 4 weeks to catch up in the spring (cooler spring & winter, summer and autumn about the same), We do get more cloud cover than the Valley proper, year round. Actual low recorded in Fountain Hills last night was 27°, but that is at least 500' below me in town. I have three outdoor thermometers accurate to within a degree of each other. Two near the house (one under a tree and one under a 15' overhang) read 23°. The other, away from any heat source in the middle of my yard, actually read 15° this morning. So I sort of average them out to guess what the plants were subjected to.

I'm pretty sure I can kiss the Euphorbia goodbye, and I'll be quite pleased if that's where it ends. I have one zone 10 Agave covered with xmas lights that is a very fast grower, so if it survived, the ugly frost damage will be covered by new growth within a few weeks. If not, it's easily replaced. It's under a tree canopy near an overhang, so one of the warmest spots in the yard. Another tender Agave is supposedly good down to 25°. It's large and its cover blew off last night, and is the closest plant I have to the 15° thermometer. The thing is that different populations of the same Agave species can vary considerably in hardiness, and I believe this guy of mine is far hardier than reported, since it survived 22° uncovered without a scratch a month ago. It's a slow grower and not easily replaced, so that would be a real loss. I also have about 5 more 9b 25° Agaves that were covered. It will be a couple weeks before damage is fully assessed, and we still have one more night to get through.

[GermanStar]

I just removed the mid-yard thermometer from it's wire stand and placed it on the ground to see the result and the temp jumped 6° in about 5 minutes. But what temp are unprotected leaves 4' off the ground subjected to, 15° or 21°? I've had nursery owners tell me of 10° temp differences within a few steps of each other that can mean life or death to a tender plant. It's a strange phenomenon.

[mullenium]

same in the copa lastnight.. a wunderground station in cobblestone farms, which is one of the first subdivisions when you pull into maricopa showed 19 degrees at around 8am.. and my subdivision is about 5-10min east of there past barren farmlands (next to the VW testing site)

I was determined lastnight, I used plastic tarp over the mango PVC structure, added 2 more strands of xmas lights bundled up around the graft line so the graft wouldnt get damaged. I also covered my banana stump and passion fruit vine 3 times.. once with burlap, then a strand of xmas lights, then a plastic tarp, then a bed sheet.

my trovita orange is too large for a single frost cloth, and the last freeze back in dec I used a frost cloth and one plastic tarp attached via clothespins, so one side was frost cloth.. other side was plastic but I used patio chairs to stretch the plastic trying not to touch foliage.. but with the winds I couldnt manage that again and had to use the frost cloth skirt method around the base of the tree up midway, with a clamp light inside and 75w flood light.. leaving the top half unprotected.

my guava (the one you helped me pick out at the azrfg sale, was it last year?) which was hit by the last freeze is starting to push out lots of new growth from the trunks.. I covered it and used a clamp light inside. the dragon fruit which is planted next to the guava up against the house recieved all the benefit of the guava's light and frost cloth.. 2 birds with one stone =)

and check these out: http://www.nuvueproducts.com/gardenacc_wintershrub.htm

I have a couple of these in the larger size and used them to cover my small sickly tangelo, and the meyers lemon that got zapped by the last frost.. they are weird though, its sort of a sunshade material.. I didnt really trust it on the lemon so i covered it with a blanket and had some xmas lights inside. but on the tangelo I just flooded the basin and had this tent thing on top.

I was surprised when I turned on my hose to water all my plants and it was like opening the nozzle to the slushy machine at the gas station lol, after flushing it a bit i was able to get the water flowing

hopefully everything made it

[Dauntless]

I live close to Usery Park, east of Mesa and at 7:30 AM it was 31 degrees. I only have the one thermometer so, who knows what it was farther away from my house.
That wind was a pain but luckily my frost covers all stayed on the plants. I just hope that between the covers and the 125 watts worth of lights that I had on everything worked to minimize any damage. At least some of my plants like my Glenn Mango, Mexican Lime and Starfruit trees were kind of protected from the wind in addition to my other measures.
Fingers crossed.

[phoenixtropicals]

Only 31° way out on the east side of Mesa. That is surprisingly warm for the edge of town. With a full covering and light bulb you should be good. I only use 75 watt bulbs, and my trees look fine. Furthermore, if it really was on 31° at your house a mango wouldn't have been damaged anyways. They are normally fine until about 29°. Star fruit is a little more tough than a mango and limes are even more frost resistant.

http://www.phoenixtropicals.com/frostDamageChart.html

The temperatures at my house were such that my oranges should not have been damaged, but I did see some peripheral leaves that looked damaged this morning. I think the desicating wind might have left some of the leaves more vulnerable to freezing than they normally would be. Also, even though temperatures did not go horribly low, I think it was a very prolonged freeze with temperatures below freezing for hours and hours. Usually here the temperatures only dip down quickly and and then pop right back up at sunrise. Not this time. Even several hours after sunrise they were still below 32°.

On the bright side. If your plants and your protection techniques survived this, you can handle about anything AZ can throw at you. I recommend getting frost cloth and a thermostat for your lights so that you can go out of town during Christmas and not have to fret about your plants. You can leave frost cloth on for weeks. I recommend getting frost cloth on the internet, where it is cheaper and you can buy larger pieces of it.

Here is the thermostat I have.

http://www.charleysgreenhouse.com/index.cfm?page=_productdetails&productid=3139&s=thermostat&cid1=-99&cid2=-99&cid3=-99