re: Louisiana Tropical Fruit Gardening - Experiences and Updates

The winter of '25-'26 is indeed some bullshite.

Prune it down.

They do fine pruning in winter. Do mine every year to keep small enough to cover.

When I lived in South Florida I had a good buddy that flew helicopters. The orange grove farmers would hire him to hover over their fields on cold nights to minimize the damage.

More Info This company isn't his, but it gives a little more information on the subject. I had never heard of this before moving there.

Fingers crossed. I’m taking an “only the strong survive” approach at the moment. We’re expecting to drop to 29-31 overnight here in my part of Tampa Bay both Sunday and Monday mornings.

It won’t stay there for long as it will warm up after a couple of hours. Hopefully we get spared the worst of it. 28 is when I start getting really concerned.

The central part of the state is going into the low to mid 20’s. It’s going to kill a lot of tropical fruit trees, potentially some citrus and lots of decorative palms, etc.

I am moving most of my potted stuff in the garage on Friday and leaving it there for a few days. Just not going to take a chance. It wont take me long and it will be a good piece of mind. I have two small Christmas palms, a couple desert roses and a few just basic plants.


My biggest worry is this big triple Christmas palm. It is planted outside and Id like to do something to try and save it. I have some of the old clip on shop lights with regular bulbs and some packing blankets. Can I wrap this thing up as high as I can and just put one of those light bulbs inside to keep some heat on it during the nights when its dropping in the mid to lower 30s? Is there something easier I can do? Ive never had to deal with any of this

Tree is about 12-15 feet tall

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The generative bud at the crown

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Tigerlaff, I assume you are talking about the upper green area of the trunks and where the fronds come from? That is the crown?


my tree is fairly wide. I think I could take a couple of thick packing blankets and wrap the entire outside of all three legs up to the fronds then put a heat source in the middle. That would basically cover it from the ground up to the base of the fronds.


Sorry about the terminology

I would go ahead and cut the fronds. Protect the bud at the crown like tigerlaff said

Thanks for all the info guys. Very helpful. As each day goes by, our forecast changes for the better over the weekend. Its creeping up there. For Saturday and Sunday nights, the lows were going to be 33 and 35, now are 37 and 38. We may not need to do anything. Just going to wait till Saturday during the day to make the call. Hopefully it will continue to creep up.

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If you follow any of the Florida fruit growing FB pages, I would advise you not to trust the forecast unless it is 10 degrees above your minimum threshold. People are getting forecasts of 36F and hitting 27-28F all over central Florida. Winter temperatures like these are almost impossible to forecast accurately in your area because they never happen. So unless they are calling for 40F or above in your area, I would just put in the work for what is about to be an historic cold event.

Just yesterday my forecast low of 30F ended up being 25F. Light freeze to a pipe protection freeze with no warning.

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yea, I am watching and seeing those as well. Mostly in the center part of the state. For some reason, that happens a lot more inland. Not sure why but the forecast seems to get botched more. LOL.

I am only about 3 miles from the gulf as the crow flies. We get more accurate forecast. Today my weather station said it was 40 at 6am which was the low and the forecasted low. Somehow they hit the number exactly. LOL

Just gonna keep watching it. I have two Christmas palms that are in big pots that I am bringing inside regardless. I can use a hand truck to sit them inside my big slider in about 10 mins. No need not to do that. I also have some Desert roses that are in smaller pots that I am going to put in for the weekend. I have a small Christmas palm that I transplanted from a pot this fall in the front and I am going to wrap it with lights and throw a sheet over it. Its only about 7 feet tall and will be easy.

I have a Sago thats in a big pot and Im gonna just leave it on the lanai. I think it can handle it fine. The only thing at this point that Im debating is that big christmas palm and Im just going to wait till Saturday. If it is going to be borderline, I can take care of it in a hour or so.

Im very happy that i did not start my big planting project yet. That could have really sucked to have all that stuff newly planted and all my pots full again and have to deal with all that new stuff. Hopefully this is the end for us.