It’s been a while since The Big Freeze killed most of our garden plants back in January this year (while we were away); Margaret did a lot of trimming, digging up / discarding and replacing, and Florida has since done a lot of growing … much of our front and back garden now looks good (though many plants are not yet as big as they used to be). Here’s a look at how things are now (and a bonus pic of the potted plants on the back patio, which suffered less but are also recovering):
While we were in Egypt back in January, Florida had VERY unseasonably cold weather – the coldest for 15 years or more, with overnight temperatures well below freezing. We knew about because friends told us, and also because I got thermostat alerts that the house was tool cold even with heat running!
When we got back, I took some photos in the back garden; most plants looked very dead. This is already more than two weeks since, which explains the few new green leaves …
We decided to wait a month and see if anything could recover, but more recently Margaret has started cutting down and clearing dead plants. However there’s a few little green shoots on some – and on those we have cut down to just above that new growth:
The big Prickly Pear Cactus in the back showed signs of freeze damage on the tops of some “Nopales” (leaves?) but recently it’s been growing loads:
Hopefully by mid summer there will be lots more new growth.
Mid October but our gardens are still full of flowers! Here’s an assortment from both the back and front:
(the last two are from the same Pinwheel Jasmine plant, but quite different to each other!)
M&I / GBMINI 