Tibouchina Pruning Part 2

[@chuckmalcolmjr1913]

Where are you located? I am in zone 9b of northwest Florida panhandle, about 1/2 mile from Gulf Coast. We do get temps. that dip below 32 occasionally. I was impressed by the size of the main trunk of your Tibouchina. How old do you approximate your plant to be? Do you get to 32 degrees or hard frost in your area?

[@iCultivate1]

Hi, I am in south east Queensland, Australia. We get winter temperatures down to about 40 degrees, but never 32. So never any frost. This tree is about 20 years old and get a very heavy prune every few years :) It loves it 😄

[@chuckmalcolmjr1913]

@@iCultivate1 AH! Your location says volumes about your Tibouchina. Very beautiful and thank you for answering.

[@BigsexyBMF]

Chuck, I am in Orlando, FL. My Tibouchina is about 15-20 foot tall. Every now and then we get a frost and all the growth dies and it goes brown. I hard prune it back in spring, or once it warms up, and it always comes back bigger and better, and it happens so fast.

[@jolus6678]

I'm in Saint Petersburg Fl. USDA zone 10b. My neighbor had a huge Tibouchina tree as tall as the oak trees, maybe 30' tall. I think it was able to get that tall because my neighborhood has dense tree cover and plenty of shrubbery which gives exotic trees like tibouchina plenty of wind protection and also insulates the neighborhood by slowing heat loss from the ground. Anyway my neighbor cut the tibouchina down to the ground and its now vigorously shooting back up as a multi stem shrub. Duration of cold temperature seems to be as important as the Cold temperature itself. Here in St. Pete, cold is generally very short lived. We typically don't get down to the low temp until early in the morning and it's only 2 or three hours until the temperature begins rising again. Our 10B climate is largely influenced by the warm water of Tampa bay. There have been times that the temperature went below 32F here for a couple of hours without Tibouchinas here dying back. But once again it's only for a couple of hours. If it had been below 32F for much of the night, the story might be different.