This cold spell that just came thru has been a real challenge for my citrus trees. Ive noticed leaf curl on some of my trees that were not covered. I tried to cover the more tender types but still have some damage. We recorded 18 F here in my area. I understand Charleston was at 19 F this morning! Tough citrus growing weather for sure! One bright spot, I had a year old Mr Mac Satsuma that I forgot to cover and it seems to have sailed thru with flying colors. I even have damage on some changshas!

Wow, that satsuma must have been conditioned very well!

It only got to 26 deg F so far this season and we still have 3 1/2 months left. Usually we go down to 24 deg F every season, and on the record spells, 12 deg F.

Freeze or frost damages don't usually show up immediately. It takes 2-3 sunny days then all those fried leaves would show up. If it is cloudy, it takes about twice as long before the damages shows up.

I thought about you people. I think it was yesterday news showing snow cover in Charleston, and almost all of Ca. was cloudy, rain & cold.
We are finally warming up...42* right now.

Went down to 25 here at my place. Supposed to be back up in the 70's again tomorrow. It's this quick temp change that does the most damage. Key lime has some leaf curl, but looks ok so far. New growth got wacked on all trees...


Back to normal for the next 10 days...
http://www.weather.com/outlook/health/fitness/tenday/29418?from=yest_topnav_fitness

We bottomed out at about 20 Friday night and around 25 last night just north of Charleston. This was tough to handle for a first freeze this year. My Dancy and Persian Lime got some protection (wrapped in sheets and a heat lamp below) but everything else was left alone. All the cold hardy stuff fared pretty well. Some preliminary looks are below but of course time will tell on all these. Most are 4-5 years in ground.

Dancy - a few leaf curls but overall good
Lime - about the same
Star Ruby Grapefruit looked real good considering no protection
Satsumas, US-119, Ambersweet, Kishu and all the Quat hybrids didn't appear to even flinch.
Meyer Lemon, Harvey Lemon, South African Lemon, Naval Orange simply got hammered.

Eric

It got to 17 degrees here in Cola.
I have nothing in the ground here. Thinking about Satsuma to plant this Spring. I know I'm probably North of the borderline, but I'll give it a try!

In SE Alabama we also had a brush with the teens. 21 on Fri morning and 19 Sat morning. I have a little leaf curl on my Changshas and Kumquats. The Meyer and Limequat were a solid block of ice but are fine. The Thomasville and Ti-Chang were unprotected and passed with flying colors. One of my Satsumas had so much weight from the ice on it combined with the soft wet soil from the sprinkler it was leaning and had to be propped back up. Today, highs are back in the 60's.

I believe we were between 25-27. Nothing in the ground seemed to be hurt. Nothing in pots outside was hurt either, but I did more all Key limes, and some calamondins, with new growth inside.

I did buy a big roll of spun fabric, of the type used for frost protection, and used to cover some elephant ear type plants, and bananas, that I had outside. They came through without damage. It appears that the fabric provided at least 5 degrees of protection.

Ned

41 degrees here last night at my place. 49 today with plenty of wind and rain.
Cheers, Barrie (Vancouver Island, Canada)

We got down to 26 on Friday night and it was suppose to get colder Sat night but only briefly hit 30 around 2 AM and the south winds kicked in and warmed things up. I covered all the small trees some with sheeets and some with the frost blanket material. My mandarin lost the sheet overnight Friday but appears to only have a little leaf curl. The Lisbon lemon was left uncovered--and appears to only have minor damage to some late flushes that were still developing.

I have loads of kumquats on my miewa and they are still good.

Skeet

to about 29-30. Of course, I was out of town when the freeze hits - just my luck. So I had someone else wrap my trees in Chistmas lights. Despite my clear instructions, they double wrapped the cold hardy Red Ruby and Meyer's, but left the Key Lime and Mango unwrapped. The Key Lime looks fine, but the Mango is pouting. Looks like it took some slight leaf damage. Hey Ned, where did you get that spun fabric?

Hi Jack,
Ned may have a different source, but I got my frost blanket at Home Depot-- it was in the outdoor section near some plastic fence at our store.
What I got came in a plastic wrapped package that was about 6 in x 12 in and about 1 in thick -- the sheet was 6 ft x 50 ft. The name on the product was Frost Blanket.

I think there was a roll there as well--several 100 ft.

Skeet

the home depot frost blanket were meant to protect water tanks or big outdoor pipes. But of course we can use it any way we like and good to use when you have higher risk of freeze injury.

It is quite different for our marginally freezing zones, and for that I purchased the sunscreen patio shade cover from Home Depot to be installed over my bananas. The 6 ft x 20 ft roll is $30. This patio cover blocks 75% of the sunlight, mildew resistant, and guaranteed to last 15 years. We seldom go below 22 deg F, so frost protection over the top should be enough. Counter-intuitive that it blocks the sun, so you might say. Actually, that is my intent of shading out partially the sun during winter. It is not only the freezing injury from frosts that could damage tropicals like bananas, it is the chilling injury.

Chilling injury comes about when you have a lot of sunshine in very chilly air temperature, something above freezing to 45 deg F. In this case, banana leaves will suffer tremendous damage, even much more than frosts at times due to the combined effect of sunlight and chilly air. What happens is that the Choloroplasts gets fired up or electrons gets excited from the bombardment of sunlight, but the rest of the photosynthetic team is asleep due to low metabolic activities caused by low temperature. With the captured energy nowhere to go, it creates free radicals that ran rampant in the leaf tissues and damage a lot of cells, the end results are fried banana leaves.

When shading the bananas out during the winter sunshine, I hope to preserve their leaves as long as it doesn't go below 24 deg F this winter, I should be okay, and no need to build a greenhouse either, and hope to get away with this.

Jack, I brought a 300' x 15'roll from a wholesaler. It was kind of expensive, but seems to do the job. I have extra and will sell some to anyone that wants it. Contact me via private message.

Hey Joe-- The frost blanket I got at HD was made for plants specifically. The cardboard insert in the package claims 98% light transmittance and a 4 degree temperature differential. It seems to be more aimed at sensitive row crops like beans peppers and tomatoes as it was claiming earlier planting and harvest times.

There is another product I found on the internet called floating row cover and it is used for covering crop rows and can be left in place indefinitly since it also excludes insects.

Skeet