Two weekends ago I cut back several thousand brug seedlings that were damaged by our freeze. I also learned a valuable lesson, you really can get sick from handling brugs. I have not had a problem in the past, but I think because so many of the stems I cut back were oozing out sap, and the fact that I was wearing shorts and no shirt, was a bad combination. At first I just had puffy eyes and a major headache, but later ended up with cold like symptoms and insomnia.  It was ...

This is a continuation of yesterday's post showcasing an assortment of freeze damage plants from my yard.

The smell of death is the air as plants damaged by Florida's recent devastating freeze succumb to Mother Nature's wrath. The visual impact is bad enough without the need to max out the senses with the smell of decaying foliage.   I thought I would share some pictures of the ugliness in my yard. At least I have enough evergreen plants scattered around to balance out the signs of death. My dog Inga blends in well with many shades of brown the freeze has generated. Here you'll see brunfelsia ...

Last week's freeze was the biggest cold event in over 20 years according to the local media.  I'm hoping that it will be at least another 20 until we have another one!   For those of you who do not think it gets very cold in Central Florida, I thought I would share a few photos from my winter wonderland here in Clermont.Citrus really took a beating this time.  I spot checked a bunch of oranges on scattered trees and all showed signs of cold damage.I had to rely on constant watering to ...

With record setting cold blanketing Central Florida this week, nothing was spared from Mother nature's wrath.This orange tree happened to be on the outer fringes of my outdoor brugmansia growing area and got caught by my sprinklers during the sub freezing weather.  The sprinklers were on to provide a protective ice blanket for my brugmansia during the freezes.  I'm not sure if it has gotten cold enough to damage the citrus yet, but many of my brugs took a beating.  We have a hard freeze ...

My field of Angel Trumpets has turned into a Winter Wonderland as the icicles glisten under the Florida sunshine.Of course this is no Winter Wonderland for me, it is devastating to say the least. It is too early to tell what the extent of the freeze damage is, plus another hard freeze is forecast for tonight with more cold weather moving in on the weekend.With temperatures finally above freezing, the sprinklers are working hard to melt the protective cover of ice that was formed overnight. ...

Here's an Angel Trumpet seedling carry over from last year.  It is a cross from brugmansia Pink Beauty x Native Habitat Double Peach.This brugmansia, with its  super-sized blooms, put on such a show last year that I just could not stand to toss it out.  This past Spring I planted it in my yard where it has been performing nicely ever since.The blooms start out white and then slowly age to a nice peach color.  While it is blooming you end up with white, peach, and in-between colored blooms on ...

This year is off to a frigid start as cold air plummets south and puts Florida in a deep freeze.  We have already had two nights of below freezing temperatures and now the forecast shows below freezing temperatures through the weekend.This is how Rosalie looked this morning when I went out to check on my brugs.  I rely on sprinklers to protect a large percentage of my new seedlings.  I started the sprinklers at 1:00am last night and kept them on till 10:00am this morning.  It will most ...