The saga of cleaning up the abnormal freeze damage here in Florida continues.
This post is about the Aftermath. The plant was so damaged, it needed a major pruning to salvage the roots and allow to regrow. I tried a few tools, a small pruning clippers (too small), a larger 24 inch pruning shears (too big), and ended up just cutting through with my trusty favorite kitchen knife.
Yes, all the work you are about to see in the following photos was completed with this trusty 20 year old Farberware kitchen knife. Turns out it was just the perfect size and of course very sharp to slice right through the frostbitten branches and create a decent size pile of debris.
Here were the cuttings. It's about the size of my Chevy Blazer. Yes, all cut with that handy kitchen knife. How I said how much I love that knife even more now? Keep in mind that the 1st picture was the knife still sharp enough to slice a very ripe tomato into thin slices after the cutting with just a few strokes on the honing steel and a wash.
As a reminder, here's what it looked like before the frost. Check my previous post for what the damage looked like. I had really hoped to save a lot more of them, but ended up only saving about 6 or 8 branches that were not damaged.
Then the post trimming picture. If you've ever wondered what a large split leaf Philodendron Selloum (Tree Philo) looks like below the canopy, well this is it. If you look towards the top right of the plant, you can barely see a few of the branches/leaves I was able to save. I hope it can recover back to it's former glory. We are currently looking at what to replace on the big open space closer to the driveway, thinking maybe a large Agave or Aloe plant, but still pondering.
Our cold weather should now be over for the year and ready to start watering. I was very sad that our Philo's took such a hit as shown in my post a couple weeks ago. I'm hoping they recover and healthy again soon.
How's your garden growing so far this year?