Winter Charm in My Garden, sharing plants and trees that like it Chilly

Ive gotton the question of what happens to my garden in the Chillier months? My entire landscaping undergoes a graceful transition against potential damage. I share a few tips on what and how I care for my landscaping in the chilliest of tempertures and what plant and tree material can handle the weather change like a champ. Overall my Florida garden handles the seasonal shift incredibly well barely missing a beat.

Hey you guys welcome back so we are in my backyard garden again and today we’re going to do kind of a kind of a winter wonderland kind of garden tour so I want to show you what my garden looks like what this tropical heavily layered really mixed textured kind of big buffer

Garden um that I have going on back here what it looks like in um mid January so I thought I would share with you um a question I get so very often in the comments which is what do you do during the cold snaps what do you do during the

Frost do you cut cover everything do you um you know do do you lose a lot during the winter and um and a lot of you have questions on on what’s the best way to handle that so I thought let me do a quick video kind of walk through the

Garden and share with you the things that um that I do nothing about I I let be and and they’re super super happy throughout the frost throughout you know throughout the season so um and then there’s a few things in my garden that I

Do have to take a little bit of care for I call them the Divas in the garden and and I mumble and I Grumble but I do do these things and I never lose anything thing I’ve been really really fortunate over all of the years that I’ve been

Gardening that with doing just a couple of these things um in those cold snaps which we have plenty of notice about um I will come out and and make sure that gets done so I thought let me share this with you guys that way if you’re going

To plant in the winter which is a fantastic time to plant in Florida you know um again I’m in Florida Vero Beach area zone 10A so we do get um we do get some snaps it’s a mild winter you guys probably from up North are like yeah but

We do get some cold snaps and we do have tons and tons of Tropicals so you know those cold snaps can can you know wear on those plants just varying on what um what kind of winter that we get so I um I’ve had a lot of luck and I’m I’m

Hoping to pass this along so if you guys are planting this time of the year um then I’m going to share with you the things that that don’t even worry about planting they’re going to be fantastic and then the other things that um I’m going to mention you may want to wait

Till March to pop them into the ground if you you know time of of the essence and you need to plant that then I will be sure to um list that name of that plant in that tree and then um you know pop in the ground and then do a couple

Of these things to kind of help protect it during those cold snaps so um yeah so I will list the plant and tree names down below for those of you guys who are looking for a bit of a shopping list and um there’s definitely going to be some

Things that I miss because look at this Garden we could be here all day so I’m going to kind of just glide through and hit hit a few plants and trees that’ll kind of give you a couple different options but if there’s anything that I’ve missed um that you like oh I had

This particular plant um sck the time stamp um in the comments down below and um I will do my best to answer that question like you know yes this is what I do during that time and you know or no you’re a okay so especially for you guys

New to Florida but um for those of you who um need some inspiration to get out in the garden this winter I hope this video does it for you for those of you who are looking to have some landscape work done then um of course my name is

Jennifer B I a landscape designer here in buau Beach Florida and my husband and I have owned our company for over 25 years now and we specialize in this type of work so we create outdoor spaces for people um the name of our company’s construction landscape and I do all the

Design work and my husband oversees the cruise and um we have an in-house landscape crew that does all of our installation these are men that have worked with us for years and years and years this is not a subcontractor situation these guys know exactly what um we we work really cohesively together

So if you’re looking have some landscape work done and you’re in our area I’ll list all of the spaces down below but it’s right along the treasure and Space Coast from Coco Beach Florida down south to Jupiter um Palm City Stewart area so however in the meantime um please follow

Along and I do a video once a week and share with you guys uh different different Landscapes that we’ve done along the treasure and Space Coast pointing out certain plant and tree species that do super super well in our area things that are TR tried and true

And tough plant plant so I hope this DIY out there I hope it gives you some ideas of what works and what you know what you might want to skip in our area so um but so if you do like the videos then please like And subscribe and that way I’ll see

You once a week and uh for an updated uh landscape tour but for now let’s walk and talk plants in the cold so see you soon okay you guys so we started at the other end of my buffer than where we were just standing so right here this is

Um the rear I guess corner and it’s kind of an L-shaped type of um type of spot and this is green kusia this is the back side of my planting space and just to give you guys a a point of reference this is my neighbor’s yard back here so

This is like our typical um backyard section so they kind of have a pretty cleared space here it goes kind of down into a a ditch ditch area and then it starts to rise into this particular spot here um going over into a development that’s full of houses so we have a lot

Of roof lines going on there so I created kind of a more of a natural nestled in tropical space that I really I really really enjoy a whole lot so this is my vibe this is the look that that I love to see um Coming Out My Back

Door and and my seating section which is you know right here and uh yeah this is the space that I spend the most time in so we’re in Florida I mean that time is also includes winter so um actually it mostly includes winter we have about 3 months during the summer

That you guys all know is incredibly incredibly tough but during the winter months we are blessed with being able to be outdoors all the time so so my kusia ignore it needs a haircut I do know this um but but I uh it’s getting it’s getting

Kind of tall for me so I have to wait for my crew to come about twice a year to help me um maintain this but I do want this guy to be 9 to 10t tall and it kind of just really does a good job of

Giving me that break you kind of see how things open up um for the rest of my neighbors and I tend to like a little bit more of a private space so clusia when they’re newly planted um they’re under 3 foot tall I would definitely cover them during that time of the year

So I would want to make sure that um the night before or the day before the frost that morning of I would really saturate them with some some extra watering so that ground all along that B would be really really wet so I would probably put my irrigation system on for about 45

Minutes and really really wet this area then let it dry out through the day if you got two days before a frost that’s even more ideal which you guys if you’re paying attention in Florida we get notice that there’s going to be a frost because the whole world falls apart in

Florida when we’re getting a frost it’s all over the news it’s everywhere people go crazy CU we’re not used to it so when that does happen you know if you’ve got a couple days hit your irrigation system make sure you saturate your entire planting area hit it with a hose make

Sure it’s nice and wet if you have time add some mulch to the bottom of those bases of those roots or those um the bases of the trunks of the plants cuz that really does help insulate it and um on this hedge I have never covered it

I’ve never needed to um but if it were a much smaller hedge what I would do is I would take the plant blankets and I’ll be sure to list those on the screen but I take the plant blankets and I completely cover the whole plant and I

Do it I do it kind of like a um kind of like you do a hot air balloon because all of that moisture that you put into the ground that’s what helps hold that heat in so during that cold snap what happens is that heat starts to rise up

Underneath that plant so so often I see um in Florida cuz you know we’re notices at covering um I see people where they’ll just cover the tops or the round the first couple feet of the plant and kind of like you’re putting a blanket on it and that’s really allowing all of

That heat to escape along the bottom so you want to kind of take that and Tuck that on the bottom of the plant wrap it all the way around and tuck it at the other at the at the rear end so um so kind of I I use landscape steaks uh like

Weed matting steaks and push that push that into the ground so far so it’s nice and tucked in U but you can use rocks you can use pots you can use whatever you have on hand and just kind of tuck it as close as to the base as you can

Get it because um that’s where that’s where it helps and then you want to uncover that um and leave that non-covered leave that where it’s not going to be covered any longer than 48 hours so um but then you’re you’re not going to have any burn you’re not going

To have any issues and it’s definitely definitely worth doing if your plant is a young clusia and if we’re getting into the low3s um if we’re getting into the high 20s I don’t usually cover this plant um but if you know if we get into anything colder than that then I would

Go ahead and cover the plant and do the same you know the same watering cycle on it but um it it can handle temperatures I would say all the way into the high 20s okay so next we have the king seos so I’ve got some King seos here and I do

Nothing to those I water them a little bit before the frost and then I let them be they can handle temps all the way into the 20s so you can King Sego it up um now during this time of the year they have a tendency to get a little bit of

Scale that is their um that is their only only issue and I use Dominion it’s a Dominion product it’s a drench I use that on them during the winter months about 1 a month and um they they do super super well with that so um but that’s that’s since they offer such

Little care I mean I really have to do very very little work to them that I don’t mind doing that um once a month during the winter months especially since our winter months are very short here in Florida so the guy behind us is The Travelers Palm I I’m unfortunately

My fronds are covering some of the most beautiful parts of it right now it’s just at that size but look at that base you guys is that just not gorgeous now this guy can handle our temps our frosts no problem so he um can handle temps all

The way into into the mid 20s and does really really really well so traveler Palms are fantastic tree to use um you want to try to get them in about 15 gallon pot size or bigger if you’re planting them in the winter but um other than that they’re just a tough tough

Tree and um I’ve never covered any of mine um and then just fact on the traveler Palms that each one of those um each one of those trunks that are here that provide these big paddle leaves hold almost a liter of water so if I were to puncture you know this with my

Um with with a knife here water would just come gushing and pouring out and that’s where it got the nickname Travelers Palm uh because in Madagascar where their native Travelers would come through and once they see the species they know that they they’re kind of Saved because they could actually get a

Good deal of water from each one of these each one of these limbs here so so yay for the traveler Palms but yes so bonus they hold water and they um can handle frost temps very very well so next I’m going to go with the

Sesia so sesia if you guys follow me at all you know I love love love love San cheia I think they’re such a fabulous plant this is a very dark spot in my garden and they’re just so nice and bright and I love this Leaf texture and

Outline I just it just looks like art to me and I just love how bright it is in a dark spot so these guys unfortunately my camera is going to go off on me so unfortunately they cannot handle the frost so I Do cover those guys if we’re going to get a frost

Longer than a couple hours um and then they’re they will get get a c a little bit of a leaf burn but they rarely ever die out on me they’ll pop right back after the winter you can cut them right back and they’ll flush right back out with beautiful beautiful

Color Queen Emma kram Lily go ahead and plant this guy he can absolutely handle I guess it’s a girl she’s a queen um go ahead and plant her in your garden and she is tough enough to handle that Frost now you’ll notice that if it’s a really

Cold night we’ll you’ll get some burn on the outside limbs hold off on doing any trimming on those outside limbs until winter is over I know you might be tempted to because it will turn brown however they are um they really it really helps insulate the center and the

Center is what really what what you really want to protect so um you know just kind of leave them alone until the end of the season so so Queen Emma is a go-to plant so right here is a laala and and that unfortunately is a diva she has she has

Some pest issues she has um she does not like the sun um and she just really does not like the cold at all her tips will burn she will burn back and could die so that is one tree that I water heavily and then put a plant blanket all the way

Around her and um you know she does pretty well now you can tell on this one she’s not really loving the spot she in she’s getting a little bit too much sun from the rear side of my buffer back there so you can see the light coloring

And tone in a minute I’m going to show you one that’s a little bit more protected and how much nicer it looks but both of those I cover I love their Leaf I love what they do in the garden so they’re definitely worth having but you know and they stay very very small

For very very long so you know you don’t get a lot of that in Florida so they’re kind of worth the extra care and a little extra effort so this is a triple Spindle Palm and um they come in singles doubles triples um a lot of people confuse it with its

Neighboring bottle Palm I’m going to show you both of them since they’re both right here in the garden sorry for the sun you guys I hope you can see that I’ll get around to the other side to give you a better view but I’ve got two bottle Pals here that are reaching for

The Sun and then I’ve got one triple Spindle Palm here now the reason why I mentioned both of those trees I guess you can tell the difference as they’ve get gotten bigger but if you notice when they’re very young and you see them in the nurseries they look very very

Similar um the biggest difference is if you this is obviously covered but if you see the bases they have kind of the same bulbous kind of Base that a bottle Palm has however these have flat sides so they have each of this is a a flat side

For the tree and it has a little bit more of an orange tone to the rear side of the frond so you’ll see this trim here is nice and orange now the spindle pal can handle cold temps into the high 20s so I do nothing even when it was

Young I did not cover this tree it did really really well and it um it’s held up perfectly fine um and through all of our cold snaps and all of our aggressive winds so those of you guys who are out on the island and are looking for something that can really handle beating

Spin Palms do a fantastic job of that the limbs aren’t usually quite this long um on the Spindle Palm but because I’m in a shade spot right here it’s kind of underneath the canopy of this triangle fan palm that it is branching out far into the garden trying to find a little

Bit more sunlight so in the shade environment this is what they do they branch and pull out but in a um Sun environment more compact more like this curl that you see here they kind of pop up and then they just curl a tighter curl so um but overall real real easy

Palm to work with um spinel Palm’s definitely a go-to palm for for me um even in the Sun or the shade and this is the bottle Palm now the bottle Palm cannot handle the frost nearly as well so bottle Palms will will burn and almost die if they are um ints

Below 32° for more than 2 hours so they are one that you definitely want to cover when um when these These are so mature that I don’t worry about them anymore but when they were younger what I would do is I would um water mulch the

Bottom of them and cover this base and I would just kind of cover the base to the ground and at the time I would go almost all the way up to where the green would be so I would go about twoot up this tree is much larger now but um and then

And it the tree was perfectly fine I did lose some outside limbs but they popped back a couple months later and it was um it was definitely worth obviously worth saving cuz I just absolutely love I’ve taken a many of pictures especially of the kids underneath this frond kind of

Looking down this way I just love their Leaf curl I love how tropical they look so they’re worth having in the garden they just need a little bit extra care so alas dwarf alas so these are dwarf elephan ears and I do not cover these guys at all um you will get a

Little bit of burn on them I leave them congested like this all winter long so you’ll notice the theme here is all of my plants in this grouping need a haircut pretty badly but because I was not able to get to it just before our cold season

I went ahead and I’m leaving them through the winter because all of this grouping here um thick nice tight together creates humidity creates a bit of um a bit of insulation for each of the plants so it’s better to you know not trim at all in the winter if you can

So the the last time you want to really trim is early October in our area anyway because we’re still getting 80° 8 5 90° weather during that time believe it or not so um so don’t um don’t trim allow them to be thick and Lush and just you

Know give them a haircut early March so um that’s what we have going on here and I’m so ashamed you guys I don’t put up with bullying at all in a garden but look what my dwarf elephant ear is doing to my Dune bom so this is a product of

Not trimming so I’ve I’ve let this guy kind of come back he has a pocket in his own space there but he keeps pushing out into the Dune Palm so I need to decide which one I want in this space and move the other one but that’s a product of my

Garden as you notice so I Do I Do groups of five and five and you know and you know certain sections um to try out new plant material and really see how I like it in the garden and that lets me know that I can use that in someone else’s

Garden and and be WorryFree I can know the pest issues it has I can know how it handles the cold temps I can know you know it gives me the knowledge I think you have to live with something for a while to really really be able to um be

Professional in it and then share that with with someone else so so there’s a lot of a lot of new species in my garden that I am playing with I’m just trying to make sure fit and of course because I don’t have such a large space it really

It really packs in pretty pretty heavy but okay so um elephan ears I do not cover because they’re um aggressive Growers and even if I lose some outside limbs which you will during a heavy Frost um they will pop back on us so um ceria Palms cap Palms they’re in the

Back there I do not cover those now if they’re anything below three gallon size absolutely cover but if you’re at 15 20 25 gallon then they handle that really really well what they don’t handle is the wind so if you could put something there to kind of give a little bit of a

Break you’ll notice I’ve got some clusia back there um and I’ve got a hibiscus tree on the rear side there that actually we haven’t actually seen on video yet but um back there it protects it from the wind because I am backed up to um an

Open area back there there’s a lake back there that uh the other community has so I get a lot of a lot of uh wind from that spot so they um they do need protection from that Winter Wind but the winter cold they handle really really well so um okay

So let’s move right into the triangle fan palm so this is a triangle fan palm and this guy is about about 20 years old he is a old guy and I’ve got a few of them in my garden they are kind of the first things that I put in so they

Really really do have some nice size to them camera’s really not picking up that beautiful silver tone to them they are also native to Madagascar and they had that Madagascar um fur that burgundy fur that’s there now they can handle temps even at a young age into the 20s so I do

Nothing to these Palms you know other than your typical watering before Frost um they are tough tough tough you can put them in and feel completely confident they’re going to be okay in the garden but I love what they offer they’re my top tier and I kind of just

Landscaped and layered around them I feel like the camera is really not grabbing that I’m so sorry you guys I’m down the ground so low but yes so those are triangle fan palms and of course here’s another traveler’s Palm that is quite tall up there this is that other

Laala ruffle Palm that um I’d mentioned and look how much nicer this guy is so he’s completely protected he’s Under The Canopy of these palm trees so he’s Under The Canopy of an arka palm of a triangle fan palm a traveler’s palm and a European fan palm so this guy is really

Really really happy in his spot and um I am just thrilled I can see him from um from our seating section over there and the hot tub area and it’s just he really really pops out with that Dynamic frond I’m just absolutely in love with that

Palm tree so I do baby it I Do cover cover it um during the frost and only during the frost um you know when you Google it it says into the 40s but I’ve I’ve let it be out here into the 30s and it’s been perfectly fine um now I do

Have some extra foliage around the plants and trees so I do know that that really does help um protect it some but but it is overall they are a fantastic um tree to work with and definitely worth putting into the garden a lot of people keep them in pots um but in

Florida you can absolutely put them into the garden um I know a lot of my clients didn’t realize that and I tell them all the time stick that bad boy right into the garden they’ll be super happy there they do grow very very slow if they are

In a pot and that goes for just about anything if it’s in a pot you probably want to bring it in during a frost um into the garage because the you know the pots freeze it’s just too hard on the plants so okay and then this is a European fan

Pal this is a very old man here oh my gosh he has been here since the very beginning so about 25 years old and um he is well I mean he’s older than that but in my garden he’s been here 25 years and he is um he is fantastic tree I just

Love love love love The Rustic charm they bring into a garden and um look how different that leaf sprawl is it’s just kind of Lacy and it moves a lot in the wind and then you go down to something more form compact um like those little windmill fronds on those I just love

That mix of texture I just think that just looks so fabulous together okay I’m going to stop patting myself on the back there um but yes so European fan palms cold tolerant Palms plant them all you want they’re fantastic pool Palms um they’re just a fantastic overall Palm

They live a long long life so you can feel confident in keeping them in the garden um so let’s go down to some of the bigger Lea Tropicals so unlike the elephant ears these um giant leopard’s ear farfugium tractor seat they’re they called so many different names these

Guys do not love the cold now they will handle the frost temps but anything anything into the um into the low 30s 30 31 32 um I start I Do cover um if we’re going to just be hovering over that 32 Mark I do not cover so um fortunately in

Florida when we do get those really heavy temps um they don’t stay more than a few hours so that’s really really helpful um to our tropical plants Rojo Congos same here so if we’re going to get below 32 for any length of time and trust me the news will let you know that

We are going to get a cold snap we go crazy here in Florida when we get a cold snap everybody knows and the News makes sure that everybody panics so um I uh I I if we’re going to get it too long I cover if we don’t I don’t bother

Covering so um so they’re one of the ones that you can go ahead and stick in the ground and not worry about covering unless we get a long snap so um I guess I’ll since we’re right here I’ll go into the gingers so these are my cone gingers I just love their Bloom

They’re still blooming a little bit even in the cold now they do not like the cold so they’re almost like a heliconia during the cold time of the year you almost have to cut them all the way back Unfortunately they just really don’t like um they just really don’t like the

Cold weather so I do um I don’t usually cover I just usually cut them back what’s great about them is um I let them I let them get burnt and then I cut them all the way back to the ground in March and April and then during the summer

Months they flush back out so to me that seems to be the best situation I know a lot of people will just cut out the burn but that leaves a real stocky love to them and they’ll flush all all back out nice and evenly with brand new growth if

You do it that way so you can kind of see we had some cold snaps and you can see the burn underneath these guys and I am you know I’m so tempted to cut them off cuz I hate seeing Brown in the garden but at the same time I know that

That protects it from the very next snap that we’re going to get so so I think that pretty much um covers a lot of the the material that I do worry about versus not worry about um the Dune pal um that I mentioned here that is being

Overcrowded um it’s almost like the SEO there I do not cover during the cold snaps I let let that guy go um be natural all right you guys so there we go so that’s just kind of a little bit of insight on some Palms plants and

Trees that um that do well and not so well and during our cold snaps and what it currently looks like here in my backyard in the mid January um time frame so I hope this was helpful and if you guys made it all the way through the video um please comment true Gardener

Because you are a true Gardener um down below and uh and I’ll reply with a with a hi but um you know I uh I appreciate you guys tuning in and watching these videos and of course share and um you know like And subscribe if this is something that you enjoy watching and

Then I get to see you once a week so thanks so much for letting me um you know let me share my space with you guys so I hope you enjoyed it I hope you found some inspiration by it and I’ll see you in the next video take care A