After The Freeze

Well, I've gone around and inspected the landscaping here in Palm Desert. We had at least one night of freezing weather, maybe two.

Pretty much all the bougainvillea froze pretty severely, it looks like. Our gardeners cut them back to live wood and they've coming back very robustly. The root systems weren't damaged by the freeze, so that's what I'd expect. The rest of the shrubs look OK, with a little damage here and there, but not enough to worry about.

The sansevierias and euphorbias are kind of a mixed bag. Some of them look just fine and are growing very well. Others have a fair amount of damage to the ends of the leaves. Did you know that if you damage the tip of a sansevieria leaf it will stop growing, even though the growth takes place and the bottom, not the top? One of my sansevierias, a hedgehog type, has sent up a flower spike that will bloom in a week or two. The crowns of thorns are both blooming very abundantly and one of the cactus-type euphorbs has flower buds amid the spines.

As for the trees, the only one that seems to have had much damage, based on how much they pruned off it, is the lemon. There are still a dozen lemons left on it, even after the pruning. I don't know how good they are, but if they're OK I may make a lemon meringue pie.

Other than having most of the plants look as if they got a buzz cut, not a pruning, everything is find. I see some damage around the neighborhood, all about the same. It may well be worse further south, where it's lower and the cold air drains and pools. You'll be able to tell by watching the price of lemons.