Some plants still showing signs of winter damage, experts urge patience with recovery
By Sandra Averhart
April 30, 2025 at 6:00 AM CDT
Spring is here and there are signs of new growth everywhere. But, it’s also evident that some plants in our Northwest Florida landscapes are still struggling to rebound from the recent winter season that included several days of extreme cold and record-breaking snowfall.
Over the past couple of months, University of Florida Extension Service offices across the region have been working to assess the extent of the cold damage and gauge the area’s recovery. To get more details, WUWF’s Sandra Averhart met with Escambia County horticulture agent Beth Bolles in their demonstration garden.
Beth Bolles: Any time our area experiences cold like we did this past year, where we had several nights of extreme cold into the teens, we are going to have damage to plants, especially some of our tropical plants. The perennials that we like to grow may not always come back, and some of our fruit plants.
Now, the snow was an added benefit. We all enjoyed a few days. It may have insulated some plants, but that much snow was a record for us, and so we’re trying to determine the impacts of it.
We’re waiting to see what regrows on these plants and sometimes we don’t always know what’s going to happen until the plant shows itself in how the regrowth is going to occur.
Sandra Averhart: So, you say it’s not always a good idea to run out there at the first stretch of warmer weather to prune your plants.
Bolles: We always tell people to be patient. Our area will experience a few days of warmup in January, February, or March, and if we act too early, pruning back some of that cold damage, it may be too soon, and we experience another cold night that could damage it even further.
We tell people to be patient through March and now that we’re into April, it’s pretty safe for you to go ahead to go ahead and think about where you need to prune, where you need to prune out and where you see the regrowth, remove any of that deadwood.
Tropical plants in Escambia County Extension's Demonstration Garden are recovering well after the recent winter, featuring extreme cold and record snowfall. (4000x3000, AR: 1.3333333333333333)
Averhart: I imagine every year you get calls from the public. What were some of the calls like for this spring?
Bolles: The biggest volume of calls was about bottlebrush. So many people love bottlebrush in this area. It’s a wonderful evergreen with those brilliant red flowers and they seriously got damaged by this cold weather and they wanted to know should they go ahead and prune all that out.
Averhart: Is this like a shrub?
Bolles: It is. It’s kind of a small tree. Some people treat it as a shrub, but we tend to call it a small tree.
Now, ours, because we have some tree canopy here, looks a lot better than others. But it still has the brown that leaves some dead branches that we’re gonna have to prune out. For a lot of us, though, we completely have lost the bottlebrush and so people are starting over with that plant.
The second one we got the most calls about were citrus, because we do grow a variety of citrus. We have some cold hearty citrus, but we have some of those lemons and other things that are a little more sensitive and they got quite a bit of damage, depending on where you live and people want to prune pretty soon after that, but with citrus we always want to let the plant recover, see where the growth is going to recover, then we know exactly where to prune.
Sego plants are popular, non-native landscape plants. The leaves of sego plants turn brown during extreme cold. But the plant is hearty and typically will survive the winter season. Pruning is recommended after the plants show signs of regrowth. (4000x3000, AR: 1.3333333333333333)
Averhart: Does that principle also apply to sego plants?
Bolles: Segos definitely do not look good after cold damage. But, it is a very cold hearty plant for us. The leaves will often be burned by cold and that snow that was sitting on them, but it will regrow. I don’t know of a sego that doesn’t often recover. So, yes, prune off those brown fronds. But you’ll see new growth coming out from the center, it’s just gonna take time.
Averhart: Are there any other plants of particular note that might be struggling to recover?
Bolles: Yes, the hardest one for people is those that have invested in a palm tree.
Some of these palms have grown really well for us for many, many years and one good example are the Canary Island date palms. When we haven’t had that cold, they’ve made it fine. But, when we go thru these teens for several nights, some of those palms are seriously damaged.
And, a palm is not a quick recovery. It may be well into summer, late summer, before we really know if that palm is going to make it. And that’s not an attractive feature in people’s landscapes, and it’s also hard to just remove. So people do wait quite a bit on a palm tree for those really cold-sensitive ones.
Averhart: And that’s really all you can do?
Bolles: That’s all you can do on a palm. You can’t force it to grow out any faster.
People always ask, ‘Do I fertilize?’
And a lot of times we tell them not to on a plant recovering, because they encourage growth with that nitrogen, but the plant may not have the food reserves to support. So, extra fertilizer on a really stressed plant is not always the best case.
Some palm trees around the area were seriously damaged by extreme cold during this past winter. Horticulture agent Beth Bolles from Escambia County Extension says it may be well into summer before recovery is certain. (4000x3000, AR: 1.3333333333333333)
Averhart: So, Beth, what types of plants do you recommend to replace or put in your landscape?
Bolles: There are a lot of plants that are actually adapted to north Florida; we call them Florida-Friendly plants.
The University (of Florida) has some terrific guides where you can come in and look, or we’ll send them to you.
And you can see what works in North Florida, whether it’s a tree, a shrub, a ground cover, a perennial. Some of these may still freeze, but they’re reliable returners, for example, in the perennial market.
But we have those guides here. You can also come out to our Demonstration Garden at the Extension office and we have a variety of plants that you’ll see made it just fine through our cold and get ideas that way.
Averhart: Any personal recommendations?
Bolles: Oh, my gosh, I like so many different plants, it’s hard to say.
But we have some great evergreen shrubs. If you’re looking for a great replacement for your bottlebrush, one of my favorites is the pineapple guava, it’s a fruiting plant, but still an evergreen. I love blueberries, because that serves as both an ornamental and an edible, so many things of that nature.
And then you have some evergreen shrubs like cleyera, that’s really a tried and true that does well.
Averhart: Beth Bolles, thank you.
Bolles: It’s been a pleasure. Thank you.
For more information about particular plants, lawn, and garden care, visit your county’s Extension office and link to each county’s (Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, Walton) Extension website.
Over the past couple of months, University of Florida Extension Service offices across the region have been working to assess the extent of the cold damage and gauge the area’s recovery. To get more details, WUWF’s Sandra Averhart met with Escambia County horticulture agent Beth Bolles in their demonstration garden.
Beth Bolles: Any time our area experiences cold like we did this past year, where we had several nights of extreme cold into the teens, we are going to have damage to plants, especially some of our tropical plants. The perennials that we like to grow may not always come back, and some of our fruit plants.
Now, the snow was an added benefit. We all enjoyed a few days. It may have insulated some plants, but that much snow was a record for us, and so we’re trying to determine the impacts of it.
We’re waiting to see what regrows on these plants and sometimes we don’t always know what’s going to happen until the plant shows itself in how the regrowth is going to occur.
Sandra Averhart: So, you say it’s not always a good idea to run out there at the first stretch of warmer weather to prune your plants.
Bolles: We always tell people to be patient. Our area will experience a few days of warmup in January, February, or March, and if we act too early, pruning back some of that cold damage, it may be too soon, and we experience another cold night that could damage it even further.
We tell people to be patient through March and now that we’re into April, it’s pretty safe for you to go ahead to go ahead and think about where you need to prune, where you need to prune out and where you see the regrowth, remove any of that deadwood.
Tropical plants in Escambia County Extension's Demonstration Garden are recovering well after the recent winter, featuring extreme cold and record snowfall. (4000x3000, AR: 1.3333333333333333)
Averhart: I imagine every year you get calls from the public. What were some of the calls like for this spring?
Bolles: The biggest volume of calls was about bottlebrush. So many people love bottlebrush in this area. It’s a wonderful evergreen with those brilliant red flowers and they seriously got damaged by this cold weather and they wanted to know should they go ahead and prune all that out.
Averhart: Is this like a shrub?
Bolles: It is. It’s kind of a small tree. Some people treat it as a shrub, but we tend to call it a small tree.
Now, ours, because we have some tree canopy here, looks a lot better than others. But it still has the brown that leaves some dead branches that we’re gonna have to prune out. For a lot of us, though, we completely have lost the bottlebrush and so people are starting over with that plant.
The second one we got the most calls about were citrus, because we do grow a variety of citrus. We have some cold hearty citrus, but we have some of those lemons and other things that are a little more sensitive and they got quite a bit of damage, depending on where you live and people want to prune pretty soon after that, but with citrus we always want to let the plant recover, see where the growth is going to recover, then we know exactly where to prune.
Sego plants are popular, non-native landscape plants. The leaves of sego plants turn brown during extreme cold. But the plant is hearty and typically will survive the winter season. Pruning is recommended after the plants show signs of regrowth. (4000x3000, AR: 1.3333333333333333)
Averhart: Does that principle also apply to sego plants?
Bolles: Segos definitely do not look good after cold damage. But, it is a very cold hearty plant for us. The leaves will often be burned by cold and that snow that was sitting on them, but it will regrow. I don’t know of a sego that doesn’t often recover. So, yes, prune off those brown fronds. But you’ll see new growth coming out from the center, it’s just gonna take time.
Averhart: Are there any other plants of particular note that might be struggling to recover?
Bolles: Yes, the hardest one for people is those that have invested in a palm tree.
Some of these palms have grown really well for us for many, many years and one good example are the Canary Island date palms. When we haven’t had that cold, they’ve made it fine. But, when we go thru these teens for several nights, some of those palms are seriously damaged.
And, a palm is not a quick recovery. It may be well into summer, late summer, before we really know if that palm is going to make it. And that’s not an attractive feature in people’s landscapes, and it’s also hard to just remove. So people do wait quite a bit on a palm tree for those really cold-sensitive ones.
Averhart: And that’s really all you can do?
Bolles: That’s all you can do on a palm. You can’t force it to grow out any faster.
People always ask, ‘Do I fertilize?’
And a lot of times we tell them not to on a plant recovering, because they encourage growth with that nitrogen, but the plant may not have the food reserves to support. So, extra fertilizer on a really stressed plant is not always the best case.
Some palm trees around the area were seriously damaged by extreme cold during this past winter. Horticulture agent Beth Bolles from Escambia County Extension says it may be well into summer before recovery is certain. (4000x3000, AR: 1.3333333333333333)
Averhart: So, Beth, what types of plants do you recommend to replace or put in your landscape?
Bolles: There are a lot of plants that are actually adapted to north Florida; we call them Florida-Friendly plants.
The University (of Florida) has some terrific guides where you can come in and look, or we’ll send them to you.
And you can see what works in North Florida, whether it’s a tree, a shrub, a ground cover, a perennial. Some of these may still freeze, but they’re reliable returners, for example, in the perennial market.
But we have those guides here. You can also come out to our Demonstration Garden at the Extension office and we have a variety of plants that you’ll see made it just fine through our cold and get ideas that way.
Averhart: Any personal recommendations?
Bolles: Oh, my gosh, I like so many different plants, it’s hard to say.
But we have some great evergreen shrubs. If you’re looking for a great replacement for your bottlebrush, one of my favorites is the pineapple guava, it’s a fruiting plant, but still an evergreen. I love blueberries, because that serves as both an ornamental and an edible, so many things of that nature.
And then you have some evergreen shrubs like cleyera, that’s really a tried and true that does well.
Averhart: Beth Bolles, thank you.
Bolles: It’s been a pleasure. Thank you.
For more information about particular plants, lawn, and garden care, visit your county’s Extension office and link to each county’s (Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, Walton) Extension website.