A hard freeze caused temperatures to drop to 25 degrees Fahrenheit in Winter Park on the morning of Feb. 1, freezing pipes and flooding hallways at Rollins College. It also damaged plants across the college’s scenic campus.
On campus, entire lines of bushes and flowers wilted and browned as temperatures returned to normal over the following days. Music major Sebie Sanchez (’26) said, “I’ve seen that, due to the cold temperatures in the past week, the plants have suffered have become fragile, almost brittle.”
According to Pablo Tovar, the landscape and grounds foreperson at Rollins, the weekend of Jan. 31 to Feb. 1 marked the worst cold the area has experienced since the mid-2000s. While not all the plants that have turned brown are dead, many are predicted to take months to a year to regrow. Damaged hibiscus plants, for example, can be cut down in a hard cut, enabling them to grow back by the next academic year. With events such as Alumni Weekend and noncollegiate private events scheduled, the Facilities Services Grounds Team plans to replace many of these plants rather than leave damaged plants on campus throughout the upcoming year.
Replacements of damaged plants will not happen yet because temperatures may continue to dip into the 30s (Fahrenheit) during the coming weeks. According to Tovar, Facilities Services staff “are on hold for right now.” Tovar will “present an assessment to the college regarding the damage from the cold snap. Then I’ll put a plan together to move forward – deciding what needs to be replaced and what is not going to come back at all.”…