This photograph may look misleading, however, employees with Saxon Becnel and Sons citrus nursery operation say they expect little damage from the recent hard freeze in Southeast Texas.

Ricky Becnel said the company’s greenhouses on Farm Road 105 in Orange, which contain 50,000 citrus trees each, were covered by a winter protection fabric pulled over the tops and sealed at the bottom. “It was almost like an igloo,” Becnel said. Workers ran sprinkler systems over the greenhouses to create ice, which acted as insulation. Becnel estimated the trees never got colder than 32 degrees. “Hopefully we will uncover things and like what we see,” he said. 

The company is some 150 years old and also has operations in Louisiana near New Orleans. “We may have only been in Southeast Texas three-and-a-half years but this was not our first rodeo,” Becnel said.