The Aftermath of Winter and New Beginning
The saga of cleaning up the abnormal freeze damage here in Florida continues.
This post is about the Aftermath. The plant was so damaged, it needed a major pruning to salvage the roots and allow to regrow. I tried a few tools, a small pruning clippers (too small), a larger 24 inch pruning shears (too big), and ended up just cutting through with my trusty favorite kitchen knife.
Yes, all the work you are about to see in the following photos was completed with this trusty 20 year old Farberware kitchen knife. Turns out it was just the perfect size and of course very sharp to slice right through the frostbitten branches and create a decent size pile of debris.
Here were the cuttings. It's about the size of my Chevy Blazer. Yes, all cut with that handy kitchen knife. How I said how much I love that knife even more now? Keep in mind that the 1st picture was the knife still sharp enough to slice a very ripe tomato into thin slices after the cutting with just a few strokes on the honing steel and a wash.
As a reminder, here's what it looked like before the frost. Check my previous post for what the damage looked like. I had really hoped to save a lot more of them, but ended up only saving about 6 or 8 branches that were not damaged.
Then the post trimming picture. If you've ever wondered what a large split leaf Philodendron Selloum (Tree Philo) looks like below the canopy, well this is it. If you look towards the top right of the plant, you can barely see a few of the branches/leaves I was able to save. I hope it can recover back to it's former glory. We are currently looking at what to replace on the big open space closer to the driveway, thinking maybe a large Agave or Aloe plant, but still pondering.
Our cold weather should now be over for the year and ready to start watering. I was very sad that our Philo's took such a hit as shown in my post a couple weeks ago. I'm hoping they recover and healthy again soon.
How's your garden growing so far this year?
Mine is frozen!
Sending you some Ecency curation votes.
Thanks and big wave!
Well, I assume in a region where winter is not a normal season it must be devastating when a real cold spell hits. What about the state in general, flora and fauna everywhere?
It must feel weird, especially since you come from a region where winter - even much severe - is normal every year.
Yes, it was a 5-10 year cold for here even though pales in comparison to what most of the rest of the country dealing with. I'm very glad to be avoiding the brutal cold and feet of snow the NorthEast is getting. It's already back to spring here with many of our plants in full bloom already, grass greening up after the short 3 weeks of brown.
Yes, this winter was pretty rough in general in the US, it seems. And also here in Germany it was a bit colder than the average in recent years. But not really disastrous, like in spme places in the US.
Thank God spring seems to show its first signs now, a bit of sunshine, mild temperatures and no rain or show for over a week. If it keeps going like this, it would even be a fairly early start of spring, so early in March. I just hope we dont see a relapse... :)
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Oof ,that's rough. I am really sorry. Maybe you need to invest in a big tarp for next year!
Hopefully we won't see a cold snap like this for another 5-10 years! I don't know a tarp would be doable, maybe some kind of tent, but I think we'll just let it go on it's own again.
Ah okay! Fingers crossed then!
whoa now thats a cut! i hope it can make it
the first picture tricked me, seemed dog with knife on his mouth lol
It was a lot more than I anticipated for sure. Hahaha, no knives for Betty, her tail is dangerous enough!
It looks like octopus tentacles when cut like this.
If I can see clearly from the close-up photos, there are already young leaves. That would mean that your bush survived the frost and will grow back quickly.
Thanks and yes, it seems to already have some new growth. Mulch coming in another week or so to finish it off.
I expect you to post a photo of the bush happily growing in a month at the latest :-)
That is a lot of pruning with a kitchen knife :O And it stayed sharp?! That's a good brand XD
The philodendrons we have in our garden survived 17 years of neglect and counting so hopefully yours recovers.
Yes it was a lot for that knife! I should do a commercial with it to sell them. I would certainly buy this knife again, it's been my favorite for a long time.
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