I unwrapped my trees this morning and the preliminary report is that it could have been worse. I'm not going to prune or dig anything up until the first week of April by which time I should be able to determine for certain what's been lost or damaged.

From what I saw this morning I think I've probably lost the Flame grapefruit and the Page orange. Can't tell just yet about the Sunburst tangerine and Orlando tangelo. There's still some green wood showing on the Ponkan tangerine, Ambersweet orange, and Kimbrough satsuma. The unknown satsuma, Meyer lemon, and Seville orange have suffered a lot of leaf loss and some small twig damage but otherwise look like they're going to make it.

The Flame, Sunburst, Ambersweet and Kimbrough were all planted last spring and broke bud to put out a big flush of new growth during our unfortunate two week warm spell in December. The Page is on Cleopatra tangerine and has never thrived for me. I won't buy anything else on that rootstock as I don't think my soil conditions agrees with it. The Ponkan and Orlando were planted two years ago and were beginning to make some size, but also broke bud to put out new leaf flushes during the December warm spell. The Meyer did as well so all of that was lost, but otherwise isn't showing much damage other than the leaf loss. The unknown satsuma and the Seville stayed dormant so seem to have taken the cold the best though both are losing a lot of leaves. Only a little small twig damage.

The Meiwa kumquat which is on the other side of the house and serves as my cold severity indicator has some minor leaf burn and will probably drop the few fruit that I hadn't picked yet. The smaller Meiwa and the Chinnotto orange in containers have dropped a few leaves but otherwise look like they'll pull through. They only went through the 21 degree night from a week or so ago. I put them in the greenhouse for the 19 and 20 degree freezes to keep them from further damage.

I learned about a new source of citrus trees last week in my local area so today I picked up another Sunburst tangerine, Orlando tangelo, and Ambersweet orange. They're all Record Buck trees on Swingle. I grow a lot of their stuff and am pretty happy with them. I'm not going to plant them out but keep them as container trees until they're at least three times the size they are now. By then I should have the power situation for the grove worked out and can provide better protection than I've been able to do in the past.

Historically we've always gotten bad winters every ten to fifteen years so I'm just going to take this one in stride. Next year might be milder. Or it may be just as bad. Either way I'm not putting anything else in the ground unless it's either super cold-hardy or until I've got better severe cold protection worked out.

That's gardening for you.

.....Alan.

Thats surprising. I have about 30 trees in the ground and they get no protection at all and they all came through fine. The Bearss lemon had quite a bit of leaf burn and drop, but the rest (Orlando, Navels, Ponkan, Satsumas, Meyer, Grapefruits, Sanbokan, Yuzu, Sudachi, Chinotto, Valencia, Calomondin, etc...) look great. We had a low all winter of 23F, but we are right on the coast. Inland got quite a bit colder.

I think it was that December warm spell that really hurt me as it's the trees that started actively growing that took the worst damage. I'm just going to have to take more active measures than I thought were necessary. Live and learn.

North Florida is maddening that way when we get two or three weeks of warm weather in December or January knowing we've got at least one more hard freeze coming.

.....Alan.

Alan, I am sure the earlier warm spell, that caused your trees to come out of dormancy was one of the major reasons for the damage. When your trees began to flush, they lost all of the cold hardiness that they had built up. I feel badly for your loss, from some of my passed experiences, I know how you must feel. All the best. - Millet (1,441-)

Sucks to hear that. I am surprised you got so much damage only about 30 miles north of me. I hit 20 degrees two nights in a row and it looks like I probably will not lose any trees. They all have a few sad looking leaves, but I think my worst damage is that I lost pretty much all the new growth and flowers on my red naval but it looks like all of the older growth is fine (it looks like maybe one branch has blooms that survived somehow). I did not protect anything except my smaller trees. The only thing that I may end up losing is a very small Page that was just recently grafted. I am an idiot and decided to plant that mid winter thinking we were going to get by with no really bad freezes. All of the leaves are definitely toast on that one, but the main stem still looks alive. I have a backup page, but I am really hoping it makes it because those were tough trees to locate. Good luck, I hope all your questionable ones surprise you and pull through.

Had mine been larger, more mature trees I don't think the damage would have been so bad. I've driven around my area looking at the various citrus that I've seen planted around and none of them appear to have taken major damage. Burned leaves and small twigs on the tops, but that's about it.

The ones that I have that took big damage were all planted last spring and started actively growing during the December warm spell. The three oldest trees out there are the ones that took the least damage. The Meyer is one of them and even though it too started growing during the warm spell it only lost the new growth and some leaves. Otherwise it appears that it's going to come back OK.

In the eight years that I've been in this location this is by far the most hours in the hard freeze temeprature range that we've seen in a winter and it's still only early February.

.....Alan.