Jim Lewis wrote:


Why somebody in Florida wouldn't want to do tropicals is beyond
me!


There's Florida and then there's FLORIDA, Craig.

The Florida everyone knows (Disneyland and points south, where
temperatures in the 40s make headlines) isn't the Florida I live
in.

In the winter, here, it gets down to 8 degrees sometimes, Craig.
We can have a few weeks when temperatures never reach 40. Now, I
KNOW that's nothing to you, a veteran of Maine and other New
England winters, but it isn't "tropical" and I just don't have
the inclination to either bring trees in the house (where trees
do NOT belong!) or build and maintain (and protect from falling
limbs and high winds, etc.) a greenhouse.

So it's just a bonsai lifestyle choice, I guess.

Jim Lewis - - Tallahassee, FL - The phrase
'sustainable growth' is an oxymoron. - Stephen Viederman

Just goes to show how much I know about Florida, I guess.

You're right, 40 is nothing for me. Swimming weather. 8 degrees at
night, that's cold, but not really cold.

It all depends on what you're accustomed to.

This past winter here in Orange County, NY was the toughest they've had
in a long time, and I would tease my parishoners about asking them when
winter was going to start. Got lots of strange looks. People would ask
me how the winter compared to Maine winters, and I'd just laugh.

Craig Cowing
NY
Zone 5b/6a Sunset 37

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Jim Lewis wrote:


Jim, up here in the frozen north a few tropicals in the house
can help make those
gray winter days a bit more tolerable.

Well, we have fewer "gray" days than you. Many of our winter
days (our drier time of year -- generally) are blue and sunny.
And cold.

Jim Lewis - - Tallahassee, FL - The phrase
'sustainable growth' is an oxymoron. - Stephen Viederman


There is nothing more beautiful in a winter in northern New England than a very
sunny morning when it's about 25 below and it snowed the previous day. The quality
of the sunlight is indescribable.

Craig Cowing
NY
Zone 5b/6a Sunset 37

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Jay Sinclair wrote:

Jim Lewis wrote:

snip

I just don't have
the inclination to either bring trees in the house (where trees
do NOT belong!) or build and maintain (and protect from falling
limbs and high winds, etc.) a greenhouse.

So it's just a bonsai lifestyle choice, I guess.

Jim, up here in the frozen north a few tropicals in the house can help make those
gray winter days a bit more tolerable. That is at least part of why some of us are
willing to put up with the hassles of lights, etc., not to mention doing the
'bonsai shuffle' in the spring and fall. It's true that unless you go to greater
lengths than most of us can afford, trees simply will not do as well indoors. This
trade-off is, as you say, a bonsai lifestyle choice.

To each his own...

Jay, Zone 5, Michigan
--

Well put, Jay. I feel the same way. This past winter I had a couple of jade plants
and my schefflera in my office. It made a big difference. With my wife now gone I
can actually have my tropicals upstairs where I can enjoy them better!

Craig Cowing
NY
Zone 5b/6a
Sunset 37
In the Bannana Belt

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just a bit to all.Tropical is somewhere around 20 to 33 deg C
[ 70 to 90 deg.F] with heavy rainfall,low/no rainfall,high
humidity,
low humidity,dips to high teens deg.C [ on the mountains the
trees tolerate 55 deg.F even light frost.] but there is no real
winter/ice/and so on.

Florida is still Sub-Tropical,no matter how much you dream
of beaches and Mickey Mouse.

I do wish others would keep using the proper terms.In the
Tropics the high mountain areas have their own zones.

Orange trees do not need heat pots down here and orange
skins stay green when ripe.The blood oranges do not do
well,oranges have been cross bred to withstand the tropical
temperature,but it is a cool sub-tropical with warm temperate
cousins.

A true tropical would die in Miami,without protection.

Actually, to be very picky, the Tropics and tropical are
geographical rather than temperature related terms. Everything
between the Tropic of Cancer (north) and Tropic of Capricorn
(south), a stretch of some 23-plus degrees latitude with the
equator in the middle is "tropical."

Another measure of "tropical" might be whether reef-building
corals can thrive (!) in marine waters. Under that definition
Miami is (or was) tropical; I say "was" because reefs aren't
"thriving" any longer; ocean pollution and warming sea water are
rapidly killing reef-building corals worldwide, though I suppose
that may mean that Savannah, Georgia and San Diego may sometime
be "tropical."

Under this definition, tropical plants include those that live on
the icy upper slopes of the Andes as well as those that live in
Trinidad or the Amazon jungle.

And lowland rainforest "tropical" trees will survive (though some
may not thrive, mostly for reasons of soil and nutrients) from
about Ft. Lauderdale, south through Miami to Key West) with no
additional protection. It's people like me who wouldn't survive
there, but not for climatic or geographical reasons. ;-)
(Though I was perfectly happy living in Hawaii -- which is just
barely tropical, as it lies just about ON the Tropic of Cancer.)

Anyway, the pedant speaks. ;-)

Jim Lewis - - Tallahassee, FL - The phrase
'sustainable growth' is an oxymoron. - Stephen Viederman

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There is nothing more beautiful in a winter in northern New
England than a very
sunny morning when it's about 25 below and it snowed the
previous day. The quality
of the sunlight is indescribable.

Brrrrrr! Send it to me on a Christmas card. ;-)

Jim Lewis - - Tallahassee, FL - "People,
when Columbus discovered this country, it was plum full of nuts
and berries. And I'm right here to tell you the berries are just
about all gone." -- Uncle Dave Macon, old-time musician

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Jim Lewis wrote:

There is nothing more beautiful in a winter in northern New
England than a very
sunny morning when it's about 25 below and it snowed the
previous day. The quality
of the sunlight is indescribable.

Brrrrrr! Send it to me on a Christmas card. ;-)

Jim Lewis - - Tallahassee, FL - "People,
when Columbus discovered this country, it was plum full of nuts
and berries. And I'm right here to tell you the berries are just
about all gone." -- Uncle Dave Macon, old-time musician


T'aint the same. You have to feel the cold air as a part of the experience.

Craig Cowing
NY
Zone 5b/6a Sunset 37

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