Resist the Urge to Trim

Remember the October story about using your own yard waste to make spooky Halloween decorations?  Many of our yards are filled with plants that would qualify after nearly two weeks of consecutive hard freezes.  Folks, the Adams Family would be at home in my once lush yard these days.  If you, like me, are a compulsive gardener, you are itching to break out the clippers, loppers, and electric trimmers to cut the unsightly brown mess away.

I am here to beg you to stop.  Stop right there.  Put the clippers down.  Dare I say... Freeze!

Those dead, brown leaves are doing you a favor. They are protecting the core of your plant, those sad little bits that remain alive, from the next freeze. They are nature's last line of defense against abnormally cold weather--a once-living frost blanket draping your savaged landscape.  As sad as they are, your mature plants may yet survive this vegetative holocaust, provided you set aside your urge to clean up and instead use your free time to consider "now what?"

But wait, don't act now, because there is another danger in early trimming. With Florida's mix of warm and cold days during our winters, a trimmed stem is going to burst into new, tender life. It will falsely believe that spring is here and use stored energy to revive itself and start to heal. But this is February, the month we traditionally get our worst freezes. Those tender new shoots stand a good chance of dying as well and the energy used to create them will no longer be available to the plant for healing. 

When should we trim, then?  Technically, when all risk of freeze has passed us by--which I generalize as "March" in my own gardening schedule.  When the weekly lows are averaging over 50 degrees and the days are routinely over 70, you should start to consider it. 

All this waiting leaves us with a bunch of garden OCD energy to get rid of. How indeed should we spend our time and distract ourselves from the crinkled brown havoc waving in the yard?  With surveying and planning! The entire neighborhood is filled with brown but we also have many green plants. Things that survived without being singed. They are all around us. Natives and native-adapted plants evolved for just this sort of occasional weather. These are what we should use to make up the backbone of our landscapes. Hardy plants that require no more warmth, water, or sun than Tampa gets. They save you time and money just happily doing well without being babied.  Spot those in the yards around you and see which ones you like. You will not get a better chance than this year to see what can withstand hard freezes.  When it is time to replant those dead areas of your yard, those are the plants to use first.  Choose the more tender species for focal points--as the cherries on top of the sundae--and use the hardier plants for the maintenance-lite areas of the yard.

 Plants to consider include:

 Click on an image to see a larger version

Native Coontie Palms.  These are cycads related to the Sago palm but without the bugs, diseases, or mess. They look like rugged ferns and are great for both sunny and shady areas.
Fornight lily. This clumping lily looks more like two-foot tall thick, clumping grass. If grown in the sun, this plant will provide some pleasing lilies on tall stems. These plants also have the added bonus of being fairly inexpensive at our two local nurseries.
Phormium Tenax or New Zealand flax. This comes in many sizes from just a foot tall to over 6 feet tall. You can find the smaller variety at Home Depot and Manny's.  It has a delicate flower but is best planted as a border plant for its variegated leaves.  The larger varieties make excellent focal points.
Asiatic Jasmine makes an excellent ground cover. While drought tolerant, it grows well in in Summer rains and you can speed its growth with more water.  Sun or shade, this groundcover needs edging every few months to keep it looking neat.
Bamboo. The right varieties of bamboo are also cold and drought tolerant.  As a warning, the giant and black varieties are not cold tolerant.  Green Stripe is, and it is quite a looker.   Buy your bamboo at the twice-annual, USF botanical garden sale. The vendors will work with you to find the right variety for every situation.
Chinese Fan Palm While even my Queen palms browned, my Chinese Fan palms didn't so much as shiver. These palms have fewer and less-hooked thorns than their Mexican counterparts and are gracious enough to grow very slowly under full shade or very quickly in full sun.  If you want a lush-looking landscape using drought-tolerant plants, this is an excellent palm to choose.