Jack Frost nipping at my....Pandan

My hopes of growing my Pandan outside in my Temecula courtyard garden was dashed on Friday. The lower leaves of the pandan were limp showing signs of frost damaged. Thankfully the larger upper leaves were relatively unaffected. I peeled off the damaged leaves but ultimately decided to dig up the plant and pot it up and move it inside the house. Hopefully, it will recover.


It is a bit disappointing although not totally unexpected. An experiment that ended in an unwanted possible outcome. I am chalking it up as experiment#1. Earlier in the summer, I had separated an "anak" - a plantlet from the mother plant for this experiment. It settled in very well in the Temecula courtyard garden.

Pandan "anak" separate from mother plant ready for transplant to Temecula garden.

I planted the pandan inside my wall garden nearest to the house. This spot will be my asian herb garden. Installed drip irrigation to minize water usage. 

Pandan seems to love the location. It is growing rapidly and has many new leaves .

Looks like I may soon be able to cook some Nasi Lemak in Temecula with Pandan fresh from the herb garden!

I was shocked to see the frost damage on my beautiful Pandan plant! It appeared that most of the damage was on the bottom of the plant as the top leaves were still green and healthy. I had thought that by letting the Chen Hong (Hokkein) Rau Ram (Vietnamese) Polygonum odoratum, grow around its base it would offer an additional layer of protection. As you can see, the Chen Hong was still fine but the Pandan succumed to Jack Frost's nip.....

I dug out the Pandan plant and stripped off the damaged leaves. The center section seem it was still viable and the roots still look healthy. I potted it up and took it into the house. I set the pot by the sunny picture window and prayed that it would recover.

Alas, the Pandan plant did not survive....... Apparently, while it looked like the center of the plant was unaffected by the frost, it was not so. The frost had froze the plant from the inside out. By the time, I came up to Temecula the next weekend, a limp brown Pandan plant greeted me. It was all mushy and excrude water when I gently squeezed it. Now, I understand why, the nursery I bought it from kept saying how cold sensitive the Pandan was. The nursery had to reach out to its clients to buy back some root stock when the nursery's mother plant died. This nursery was in NJ. In San Diego, I had 'mothered' my Pandan (mother plant) moving it in and out of the house as the season changed. As time passed, I got more adventurous and left some "anak" outside during winter and they survived San Diego winter, slowing down their growth and looking more yellow during those months, perking right back when weather warmed up. The easy growing weathert of San Diego lulled me into feeling that I was less vunerable to frost that I actually was. It is a lesson I need to heed in my Zone 9A Temecula garden.