Re: carissa macrocarpa

Jerry, your report of the temperatures at UC Botanical Garden in the 1972
freeze was a reminder that that was the freeze of freezes. Our temperature
in our garden at home during that week (we are near the Berkeley, CA Rose
Garden) remained at 17oF. I saved my lemon tree by pushing the children's
slide over to it, draping it & the tree with plastic, and hanging a 100w
light bulb on an extension cord inside the contraption. Elly Bade

On Mon, 8 Mar 1999, Jerry Heverly wrote:

> Forgot to pass on the details about C.macrocarpa's fate in the Dec. '98
> California frost.  As you will remember a list member asked about how this
> plant had fared.  Sean & I both mentioned a circular patch of these shrubs
> on the University of California campus in Berkeley.  I related that I'd
> remembered those plants from at least a dozen years previous--which meant
> to me that they'd survived the Dec. '90 frost.
>         According to Bob Cowden's article in Pacific Horticulture of a few
> years ago I found that the low temp for the '90 freeze was 20 degrees in
> Berkeley.  I don't have any official figures for '98 but based on what
> Katherine Pyle and others reported I'd guess the low this time was around
> 26-28.
>         With these details in mind I was confident as I slogged up the hill
> toward the Education Library at Cal that I'd find the Carissa's with
> moderate damage.
>         Wrong.
>         I found a bunch of stumps; little stumps that the grounds crew had
> obviously made out of what was left of the plants.  I counted 24 remnants.
> Three showed regrowth beginning.  The other 21...who knows?
>         I also checked out a hedge of Carissa at a movie theater in
> Emeryville, south of Berkeley.  They are on a south facing up against a
> stucco wall, i.e. I'd bet the radiated heat kept those plants warm and
> toasty while the campus shrubs got blasted.  These I found in near perfect
> shape.  Like most Carissa's hereabouts(soil pH approx. 6.8) they are
> showing extreme 'Lime Induced Chlorosis', aka iron deficiency.
>         Does our S.African correspondent have any idea what the soil pH is
> in Carissa's native soil?  It sounded as if it was desert, but desert soils
> are generally of a very high pH, often over 8.0, so I'm confused.  I would
> expect the pH to be low, perhaps 5.5.  That would explain why they show
> such iron/zinc/manganese deficiency in our alkaline California soil.  But a
> pH of 5.5 would indicate high rainfall, probably 40in or 100 cm/year. Any
> info from SA would be greatly appreciated.
>         Other uninteresting things I learned:
>         I researched the 1972 frost, the last great freeze prior to Dec.
> '90.   Chris Pattillo, who was then a grad student at Cal and is now (or at
> least was the last time I spoke with her) a landscape architect in Oakland,
> did a report on that freeze.  She reported the low on campus that Dec as 25
> degrees.  She also reported that Carissa's suffered 'severe' damage or
> total death.  {At the UC Botanic Garden where the '72 low was 14 degrees
> all Carissa's were killed.}
> 
>         One last note:  I said I'd find a Chorizia and report on its fate.
> I now know where there is one--at the Ruth Bancroft Garden in Walnut Creek,
> east and inland from the San Francisco Bay--but I haven't had time to get
> over there to take a look.  I will report.
> Jerry Heverly, Oakland, CA
> 
>
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