Turn your irrigation off tomorrow
 

Just a friendly reminder shut your irrigation off tomorrow before the freeze, because if it runs during the next few days when it is freezing you will do considerable damage to the plants. Leave it off until the cold weather passes then turn it back on.

It will take a few days after a freeze before you see the damage done. Don't be alarmed, the ground will not freeze and the plants will usually recover on their own. Even though you will see leaves turning brown try not to trim it back even though it looks bad, by doing so the plant will get hurt even harder if we have another freeze.

Do not fertilize them or give them more water then normal when you turn your water back on, that will also hurt the plants. Just be patient, and wait until around the 1st or 2nd week in March then trim them back and feed them. Remember if we have another freeze, just go through the same routine again and turn your water off, it usually takes about 3 or 4 days for our cold fronts to pass.

Thanks for your good advice. We're covering our more vulnerable plants with frost cloth.

Just remember that "frost" cloth does not stop freezing if the temperature goes below 30 for more than a couple of hours (as forecast).
Some of the truly tropical swill not survive.
In our 10 years here we lost every one of the several hibiscus plants, a robilini and a European fan palm.

We have adopted the process over the years that as a tropical is killed by cold weather we replace them with local cold hardy species only.

Thanks very much for that information. Didn't really know….new to Florida.

Thank you Ron.


Do you have any advice for protecting water fountains? Like this one?

Thank you very much

Gracie - I read somewhere to just keep the water flowing and the fountain shouldn't be a problem.

Thank you for the heads up!

I know it applies to citrus trees, but why then do farmers turn ON their irrigation to protect their trees from the freeze?

BTW, I'm turning off my sprinklers tonight.

Keep it going Gracie, so water continues to move.

Farmers need to turn the irrigation ON to keep the plants at about 32 degrees.
This article explains it better than I can.

SRSFC - Weather

We've also had severe damage to hibiscus plants. We gave away all our robillini trees. I used to put frost covers on everything and even tried to keep them warm with lights. Eventually I got tired of the work and replaced them.

Sometimes "tropical" plantings will survive a hard frost. But after a hard frost, they usually look really bad for a couple of months. As Ron said, don't be tempted to prune anything back until danger of frost is past.

Ron, I'm confused because the citrus farmers I've always heard about expecting a freeze water their trees to give warmth to them and they claim the ice insulates them from colder temps. They even fly helicoptors back and forth putting wind on the crops.

U can put your Christmas lites (the old incandescent type) on palms or plants that may not like the temps.

I will try to keep this somewhat simply so it's not so confusing. The reason the strawberry farmers and orange growers turn on their irrigation when there is a freeze is to keep the fruit and leaves coated with a thin layer of ice. As long as everything stays coated with a thin layer of ice it keeps the fruit at that constant temperature around 32 degrees.

Once everything is coated and the irrigation keeps running, the water running off the plant actually radiates heat back into the air help keeping the plant and fruit warm. If the water was to stop running then the fruit will freeze well below 32 degrees hurting the fruit, and if the temps drop around that 25 degree range for to long, it really does severe damage.

The best thing the farmer can hope for is for the weather not to warm up to fast after a hard freeze, that will give them time to harvest what fruit is ready. If it warms up to fast, the fruit will rot on the trees and plants and just be wasted. That's why our irrigation needs to stay off, once it runs then shuts off, severe plant damage will take place causing severe tissue damage.

That's just a short version of what happens, their is really a lot more to it then that, but that should help you understand why you need to keep your water off during a freeze.