Cold comfort

A couple of nights ago, temperatures here in Florida hit an all-time record low, with temps here at the Lizard Lounge dropping to a frigid 31°. Brrr…!

If you’ve read many of the posts here on Live from the Lizard Lounge about my flora, you know that I’m partial to my banana plants and fear the dreaded cold snaps we’ve been experiencing here in Central Florida the past few years. Bananas are not very cold hardy. Freezing temperatures will kill the leaves, while temperatures in the high 20s will kill the plant to the ground. This has been the fate suffered by my younger plants the past several years.

Each year, freezing temps have resulted in ‘nanner death to a small stand of young plants on the northern edge of my back yard. Although, as is typical for bananas, new plants sprout from the rhizome (underground banana root-like thingy) each spring and grow to about 2′-3′ over the summer, come winter they invariably get struck down in the prime of life just like their brethren and sistren from the previous year (see the photo to the right).

To help this year’s crop of bananas avoid this fate and survive the cold, the night it was projected to freeze I created a makeshift greenhouse with a big sheet of plastic I happened to have on hand (not sure why), some saw horses, a couple of lengths of cast-off lumber, and a big ol’ outdoor light bulb for heat.

Trust me when I tell you it wasn’t pretty. (See for yourself in the photo to the left.) It was kind of a low-slung, amorphous, glowing hulk of polyvinyl chloride anchored down by chunks of lumber and flower pots, with blurry images of toasty little green banana plants intermittently visible through the translucent plastic.

Although it was white-trashy looking, I have to proclaim it a resounding success. So far, no tell-tale leaf browning is visible on any of my banana babies.

Such a proud papa.