Twilight in the garden as wicked cold arrives
As I look out the window, it’s hard to believe this beautiful, warm twilight by the pool was just two evenings ago. Today a cold rain is freezing to tree limbs and encasing ready-for-spring plants in heavy ice. Shrubs are bent low. Bamboo is nearly prostrate. As I stood on my patio a little while ago, I heard a splintering crack and watched over the fence as one of my neighbor’s big live oaks smashed through their back fence into the greenbelt, a victim of the ice.
I’m worried about our trees and agaves and all the young plants I’ve been planting over the past few months. (Winter is normally a great time to plant here.) Austin weather forecasts are showing insane overnight temperatures of 15F and 7F. Seven degrees! What hardiness zone even is that? It’s certainly not central Texas’s zone 8b. I’ve heard we’ll have 4 days starting Sunday where we won’t even climb above freezing. I’ve also heard this will be the coldest weather Austin has seen in 30 years.
I know many of you reading this are worried about your gardens too, as extreme cold affects much of the U.S. this week and next. Hang onto your mittens, and here’s hoping our gardens come through this visit to the North Pole with minimal damage. One bright side: our independent nurseries will surely have record sales this spring, and we like to help our nurseries thrive!
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Digging Deeper
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Ice is the worst! Hopefully you get through relatively unscathed.
Thanks, Elaine. I hope so too.
I agree, ice is the worst. We too are having awful cold but luckily we have a blanket of snow to help the plants. That is not always the case so I am not dreading the coldest of the cold so much.
I wish we were getting our (highly unusual) blanket of snow before the ice, but it’s coming the other way around.
That is extreme! I hope the cold doesn’t hang on. We’ve escaped the plummeting temperatures here but, regrettably, our rain situation is still bleak.
Drought is dreadful, Kris. Hope you get some rain in L.A. soon.
That’s nasty cold! I am so sorry. I get very worried when temperatures stay below freezing day and night (that’s where we currently are) and ice is just so damaging. That 7 degrees though? That’s just criminal.
It sure is. We Texans don’t put up with extreme summer heat to have to deal with extreme winter cold too. I know Portland is being hit hard too. I hope your plants pull through OK.
I don’t live in central Texas to have THIS kind of cold!
The whole point of tolerating the summer heat is that at least we don’t have cold.
There are so many broken tree limbs here in Fredericksburg.
Ice…….AARRGGHHH!
So true!! Fingers crossed our trees make it through this terrible week relatively unscathed, Paula.
Stunning pic Pam of your yard, such a welcoming vibe. This is going to be the coldest weather I’ve had in my garden since I started working outside, so I am not sure what to expect. I guess I will try to protect what I can, and hope for the best! And here I thought I was getting ahead of the game by taking advantage of that wonderful springlike weather and worked on enlarging a flowerbed. Oh well, you are right, this will be a banner year for our nurseries!
I’m with you, Heidi, in having planted quite a bit lately during our until-now balmy winter. It’s usually a smart plan. Ah well.
It is forecast to be even worse here in Dallas. Looks like perhaps a week below freezing, with lowest around 1F! I tied the leaves of my smaller Butia odorata and tied a blanket around them, which may save it. I’m afraid the larger one will be toast. I’m also afraid for my two Sabal brazoriensis as well as some of my Agaves. My garden may be a different one in the future.
I’m sorry, Peter. I hope your palms and agaves make it through.
Wow, your garden is absolutely gorgeous. As to the cold (Brrrr!), I’ve covered what I could. This is the coldest weather, I think I’ve experienced since living in Texas. (In Austin, for me in my yard, it got down to 13 degrees one winter) and here, in east Texas, the lowest has been 9 degrees. They’re estimating a low of 6-7 degrees for Monday morning with a high of 20. I truly hope your plants and especially your agaves aren’t seriously damaged, Pam.
This will definitely be the coldest weather I’ll have experienced as a gardener. The cold winter of the ’80s that everyone is comparing it to happened before I got here. Fingers crossed for your garden too, Laura.
That photo does capture your garden’s unique character and beauty, and so much of that cold weather can’t touch! What a test this will be for so many gardens across the country. Take care and hang in there, Pam!
Thank you, Denise. It’s a test all right. I wish I could let go of denial and bargaining and move into the acceptance stage of grief already. 🙂
Beautiful “before” photo. I hope you have a beautiful after photo too. Our yard looks like a towel, sheet, and frost blanket factory blew up in it. I hope something survives! But not the bugs!! Will this kill the aphids, mealy bugs, white flies, scale and other aggravating pests that are eagerly waiting for more fresh growth to devour?
Oh, you know they’ll always be back. Life finds a way – hah! Let’s hope our plants do too. 🙂
Pam – I seem to remember that in Florida, when they are expecting a hard freeze, they spray the orchards to give them a coating of ice that supposedly protects the trees from the cold. Maybe it will work for you. We wish you luck.
It was just too cold for too long. I covered as much as I could with sheets and blankets, and moved into the garage (and then into the house when it kept getting colder and we lost power) as many pots as I could move. But this past week was just a killer. Nothing to be done but clean up, watch and wait, and, as necessary, replant.
My poor whale tongue agaves. First the snout weevils now this! They are to big for me to cover. Actually the Bastrop fires in 2011 was their first test ,they made it through. I don’t know about this though. Pot plants on my porch covered with layers of blankets don’t look any better. Aloes I’ve had for decades gone I’m afraid. Ifeel you’re misery and pain. But we’ll endeavor to persevere. Start anew . And happy digging to you.
Linda, yes, we’ll keep on planting. It’s what we do. I’m holding out hope for my whale’s tongue agaves. Although several got very freeze-burned. they’re not yet piles of limp, gooey leaves. (But I’m sure my garden is warmer than yours in Bastrop, if I understand correctly that you’re there.) Alas for ‘Green Goblet’ though. And many other plants. It’s hard.
The cold that came down from Canada to hit Texas is quite troubling. We don’t even get temperatures that low up here in Washington, but we are fairly close to the Pacific Ocean and the Columbia River probably helps moderate our temperatures too. I hope your plants recover well from the cold.
It was certainly troubling. I hope never to see anything like that again. Thanks for checking in and your hopeful words, Nancy!
Hi, Pam,
This is my first post on your blog. I have read your local gardening advice and enjoyed your beautiful garden photos for almost a decade.
I hope your garden fared better than mine after this Armageddon of ice and single digit temperatures. All my agave and cactus plants are in gooey piles resting flat to the ground. Who knows if the dormant natives I’ve nurtured for years will resurrect in the spring. One can hope, right?
We lost several big cedar tree branches, but the large live oaks are intact with no large branch losses. I’m celebrating their resilience very much.
Thank you for sharing your expertise with all of us over the years.
Thanks for being a long-time reader, Austin gardener, and for leaving a comment! I’ve got gooey piles of succulents too. It sucks! But I wonder if the hardy Opuntias might return from the roots. They are so tough. The gooey agaves I’m going to be pulling out. Other dormant natives will, I feel confident, return from the roots. Of course “native” means different things to different people. I sometimes see adapted exotics like Mexican bush sage and Mexican honeysuckle referred to as natives in Austin.
The only thing we can do right now, besides scooping up the goo, is to wait and see what comes back from the roots and tidy up any tender plants (like Mex honeysuckle) only after freeze danger is over. In that way we give such plants, if still alive at the roots, a little protection if another freeze comes. Which it better not!