Clearly leaves were the saving grace. I might think it was a microclimate advantage but the plants have the same exposure and the only variable was the amount of leaves.

Interestingly, I found that leaves on my hostas acted as better insulation against frost damage than mulch around them. This is on hostas where they already had approx. 4" or so of the leaves coming up...not just eyes. Those piled w/ leaves did much better than those piled w/ mulch.

Wonder if it was the lighter material that allowed for better air circulation or...?????

EO, can't remember....did you have either BA near the garage piled w/ leaves differently than the other? In other words, the BA's that are near the garage....were they piled w/ leaves at different depths or the same?

Curious as to whether you saw a difference in the placement near the garage vs. the placement near the "back 40" and if the heat off of the sandstone of the garage made a difference. And, if it did...was there a difference between the plants near the garage.

Hope that made sense...it did in my head but it's scary in here. LOL

EO I'm just fascinated as to why you keep changing your name on the forum. What is the story about your multiple personalities.

Not sure why EO is doing it, but I do know others who get banned for whatever reason and keep joining under new aliases over and over again.

My husband and I spent the weekend w/ EO and his delightful wife. I can assure you that he only has one personality and it is thoroughly enjoyable, generous and kind.

I haven't been on this particular forum long enough to have lived the history behind the comments but for whatever it is worth, perhaps there has been something lost in the translation between the written word and the intended meaning/humor/etc in the past.

Anyway, I am probably stepping in the middle of some "pissing match" that I have no place in but I have done stupider. lol

EO I'm just fascinated as to why you keep changing your name on the forum. What is the story about your multiple personalities.
Highjack

Roses are red
Violets are blue
I'm schizophrenic
And so am I

Ademink I'm not aware of any contest between myself and Esther Opal. I'm sure Esther Opal and his wife are charming and generous people as are all of the people here on the forum who share their experiences in the garden. The meaning/humor of the post can be chalked up to curiosity as to why someone would change their screen name multiple times. Instead of curiosity killing the cat, I asked the cat.

The cat has replied.

The house and garage set E-West so the plant on the left gets the first morning light and last evening light while the one on the right is just the opposite. So, the one on the right, which looks the best, gets the same number of hours of light but it is afternoon instead of morning. Therefore it should be warmer and come up earlier; it did not with the heavy leaf mulch and shows almost no freeze damage.

Btw they are the same age planted the same day.

Leaves v mulch; mulch is usually in place and the plants adjust to the new height created by the additional mulch. Leaves do not have the R-factor of mulch but they do have great insulation value. If you put 12-15 inches of mulch on hosta in the fall or winter they might not come up until June and I wouldn't recommend that much mulch.

At my compost facility mulch insulated 6 inches down at Â12 degrees. At 6 inches it was above freezing. I did put mulch 8-12 inches on liners one time and they didnÂt come up until the middle of May, 4-6 weeks after other plants. Again I donÂt recommend this.

The hybridizer of H.ÂSultana Bill Zumbar grows his seedlings out side in flats. In the fall he sets the flats side-by-side and puts 4-5 inches of mulch on top of these liners after fall freeze. In the spring when they finally start to come up he shakes off the mulch, lets them grow a bit and starts the culling process. This would work the same with leaves but I would run the mower over the leaves.

Esther Opal, thanks for this series of photos. They drive home a lesson I'm really striving to remember every spring: I should leave everything alone until April 20, at least, no matter how eager I am! And that means leaving my unsightly heaps of leaves in place on the nice days in March when I imagine the balmy weather is the arrival of spring, instead of the cruel annual hoax Mother Nature plays on me every year.

I'm a slow learner. The photos are a stern lesson!