Thanks for the info Barbra.

Lonnie

Good to know, Barbra! Yes, they definitely seem to fare better when the roots are kept at consistent (underground) temperatures and have access to water in the soil.

When that cold front came in I left most of my two- and three-year old plants out, plus my several-year-old seedlings that are either direct planted or plunged. The ones in the ground and plunged looked perfect while most of the ones in pots above ground were pretty droopy. Those that weren't droopy I discovered had grown significant roots into the soil under them.

I think it had to do with both the root temperature (much warmer during the night than the surrounding air if they are underground) and the moisture available to them. The very droopy plants went back to normal after a good soaking. They got dehydrated from the dry wind that blew through.

The opposite about soil temperature seems to be true in the spring, too. I found the big seedlings I planted straight in the ground took much longer to wake up than those in pots, probably because the ground stays much cooler until about June. Next spring I'll keep them in pots and just plunge them when the temps get very high. Hopefully they'll wake up faster then and have a longer growing season.

Is there some sort of special way of measuring soil temps beside depth below surface? I did the most cursory search and found the closest "official" soil temperature station is in Prairie View, TX. I would think the general temperature holds pretty true towards Austin/San Antonio. Maybe some variances due to urban conditions.

I didn't bring anything in except rooting cuttings. Everything else stayed outside. My JL Candystripe started yellowing and rapidly dropping leaves a couple days after it was 42 degrees. but that is the only one that is so prounounced. It does that every year. The rest have been gradually turing yellow from the bottom of the canopy. Most are done bloooming so they just need to hurry up and drop those leaves so I can clean it up and put them in the greenhouse. (DSP, Penang Peach, Dean Conklin, Pinwheel White, and Celadine(s) still have flowers). Some of the DSP buds have brown edges from the cool weather and its leaves are starting to look ugly but still has about 15 active inflos. I think it kept blooming until just before Christmas last year.

Here is a picture i had in my phone from Saturday of the JL Candy stripe.

only the ones up on the backdeck were affected at my house, so yesterday I moved those to the front deck. They were all growing new leaves.

It's too cold!
Tally HO!