By Euro Weekly News Media • Published: 05 Dec 2012 • 14:27
FROSTY: Plants can be burnt.
OUR experience is that since the record breaking frosts of 2005 the worst frost each year is getting colder. Even if thermometers don’t actually go below zero the leaves and finer branches of plants can be burnt by air frost, where the wind chill causes freezing on the surface of leaves and bark.
What many people don’t realise is that if the temperature overnight read plus 2.5 degrees and there was a wind of only 16 kilometres an hour, a wind factor temperature of minus five can occur that can cause the freezing of sap even on apartment terraces. For this reason we included a wind factor chart in our book Apartment Gardens Mediterranean Style.
In the past seven years we have reduced the number of frost vulnerable plants and taken special precautions with those that we retain including our succulent collection. Reading this week that the UK is likely to experience the coldest winter for a century it could be that we experience the southern edge of that weather pattern whether it drives across the Atlantic or comes down from Siberia. So what can be done?
As indicated in a table in ‘Growing Healthy Fruit in Spain’;
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So think about this when thinking about what fruit trees to plant. We indicate the best heights above sea level to a thousand metres for some seventy fruit trees in ‘Growing Healthy Fruit in Spain’. For instance cherries, raspberries apples and pears will enjoy a thousand metres but bananas and mangoes will not be safe much above two hundred metres.
Yes frosty weather can be great for walking hills for the clear views that winter cold weather brings but not for a Mediterranean garden.
(c) Dick Handscombe www.gardenspain.com December 2012.
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