Polar Vortex 😵💫
In 1989, I spent Christmas with my family. One of these suckers blew through then with devastating effects on the foliage. I specifically remember the Thousand Islands in the following years. Most everything was either killed or suffered serious damage. But the nice thing about Florida is that stuff grows back quickly!
35 years later and now I live here. This one had plenty of warning, unlike a hurricane, but not really a lot I could do. It dropped down into the upper 20s in the early mroning which persisted until about noon. The next moring it dropped to just above freezing.
I have some nice, mature plants in the yard. Seems like most everything took a hit, including the two philodendron plants passed down from my Mom 50 years ago now planted in my backyard.
By the beginning of May, I managed to clear out the damage from the front. The Bismarck palm doesn’t seem to have sustained much of a hit. The Areca palms shown piled on the curb for pickup are growing vigorously. Hard to say what will happen to my beautiful azalea hedge. It’s coming back in places, although not so well under the living room window.
On the patio, the two plumerias are now gone, and the bird of paradise is cut way back. Mom’s two philodendrons look like nothing even happened. Very happy about that!
The backyard fared the worst. My six-year, unsuccessful experiment to grow my own mangoes came to a close! The existing bamboo trunks, some of them very large, look to be all dead. The Traveler’s Palms took a big hit but seem to be coming back.
