It freezes now and again at night here in northern Florida, and the
weatherguessers have guessed that tonight is going to be one of those
nights. I've brought plants inside and all, but I can't bring the
pond inside. I have sprinklers all around the pond, so I've turned
those on in an attempt to save the plants around the pond. I figure
I'll either wake up to a bunch of happy plants or an incredible ice
sculpture. Of course, it could also be just a bunch of dead plants
and puddles of water, but that isn't very exciting to contemplate. By
the way, the lily will have its eleventh bloom, if it survives.

It seems to have worked. The elephant ears a few feet away from the
pond are completely trashed, while the ones under the sprinklers look
OK. It got down to 28 last night, but it was still 33 by about 11pm,
when I went to bed. The sun rises about 7am now, and it was already
up into the forties by the time I made it outside. No ice anywhere,
but the ground where the overflow for the pond is didn't seem nearly
as wet as I had expected it to be.

On Wed, 19 Nov 2008 07:45:48 EST, Galen Hekhuis
wrote:

It freezes now and again at night here in northern Florida, and the
weatherguessers have guessed that tonight is going to be one of those
nights. I've brought plants inside and all, but I can't bring the
pond inside. I have sprinklers all around the pond, so I've turned
those on in an attempt to save the plants around the pond. I figure
I'll either wake up to a bunch of happy plants or an incredible ice
sculpture. Of course, it could also be just a bunch of dead plants
and puddles of water, but that isn't very exciting to contemplate. By
the way, the lily will have its eleventh bloom, if it survives.

"Galen Hekhuis" wrote in message
...
It seems to have worked. The elephant ears a few feet away from the
pond are completely trashed, while the ones under the sprinklers look
OK. It got down to 28 last night, but it was still 33 by about 11pm,
when I went to bed. The sun rises about 7am now, and it was already
up into the forties by the time I made it outside. No ice anywhere,
but the ground where the overflow for the pond is didn't seem nearly
as wet as I had expected it to be.
============================
All my tropical's are safely in the Greenhouse for the winter. :-) The
three above ground "ponds" are shut down for the winter. The large pond o
ut
front will be shut down tomorrow or Friday. The fish are all at the bott
om
as the water is now pretty cold.
--
RM....
Frugal ponding since 1995.
rec.ponder since late 1996.
Zone 6. Middle TN USA
~~~~ }((((* ~~~ }{{{{(ö

On Wed, 19 Nov 2008 07:45:48 EST, Galen Hekhuis
wrote:

It freezes now and again at night here in northern Florida, and the
weatherguessers have guessed that tonight is going to be one of those
nights. I've brought plants inside and all, but I can't bring the
pond inside. I have sprinklers all around the pond, so I've turned
those on in an attempt to save the plants around the pond. I figure
I'll either wake up to a bunch of happy plants or an incredible ice
sculpture. Of course, it could also be just a bunch of dead plants
and puddles of water, but that isn't very exciting to contemplate. By
the way, the lily will have its eleventh bloom, if it survives.

Galen, glad to hear that your plants survived the freeze. It is my
understanding the orchards around us use this method in spring and I guess
they leave the water running till the ice melts off. Is that what you did?

We had a small ranch as a kid and I can remember many mornings going down
to an icy pasture from the irrigation, was totally amazing to see.

My taro have been doing great inside. I tented my small pond they're in
with light weight plastic and hung a no-pest-strip. Did in the aphids. I'll
be watching for any new hatchlings in the coming days/weeks, but I'm hoping
the 2 week treatment was long enough. Next year I will do this treatment
while the taro are still sitting on the patio waiting to come in. Currently
I've moved plastic and strip over the cannas in the garage, but plan to put
it over the bog lily I have downstairs also. I haven't really seen bugs on
it, but just in case. It is just about ready to bloom and I don't want to
cover it up at this time. ~ jan

------------
Zone 7a, SE Washington State
Ponds: www.jjspond.us

On Sun, 23 Nov 2008 18:46:00 EST, ~ jan wrote:


Galen, glad to hear that your plants survived the freeze. It is my
understanding the orchards around us use this method in spring and I guess
they leave the water running till the ice melts off. Is that what you did?

We had a small ranch as a kid and I can remember many mornings going down
to an icy pasture from the irrigation, was totally amazing to see.

My taro have been doing great inside. I tented my small pond they're in
with light weight plastic and hung a no-pest-strip. Did in the aphids. I'll
be watching for any new hatchlings in the coming days/weeks, but I'm hoping
the 2 week treatment was long enough. Next year I will do this treatment
while the taro are still sitting on the patio waiting to come in. Currently
I've moved plastic and strip over the cannas in the garage, but plan to put
it over the bog lily I have downstairs also. I haven't really seen bugs on
it, but just in case. It is just about ready to bloom and I don't want to
cover it up at this time. ~ jan

I didn't see any ice, I don't think there was any. It usually freezes
here only briefly here, that is, it usually doesn't dip below freezing
until midnight or so, and gets above freezing within minutes of
sunrise, and I've never seen it below 32 during the day. You can
really see the difference a few days after the freeze. There is no
question the elephant ears got nailed now. But just a few feet away
by the pond I have some black elephant ears (more like deer's ears
now, but maybe they'll get bigger) that made it just fine. I've got
this clump of papyrus that is about four feet tall that fell over the
night of the freeze, I thought it was gone, but it seems that enough
of the plant remained in the zone of protection of the sprinklers that
even it is OK now, it's standing back up! I've got begonias and some
other white flower (if Lowe's has it again I'll try to find the name)
that are blooming like nothing ever happened.

On Sun, 23 Nov 2008 23:52:03 EST, Galen Hekhuis
wrote:

even it is OK now, it's standing back up! I've got begonias and some
other white flower (if Lowe's has it again I'll try to find the name)
that are blooming like nothing ever happened. Galen

Nice, I went out yesterday and picked some roses to bring in, glad I did,
26F around the koi pond this morning. ~ jan
------------
Zone 7a, SE Washington State
Ponds: www.jjspond.us