I'm wondering how much damage I'll have come spring, we were having it mild and then boom we hit the deep freeze while the sap was still up in most things. That first frost was a killer, then the pineapple express hit, 10 degrees warmer than usual and torrential rain. Now the temps have dropped again, I've got my fingers crossed. No snow yet, as much as I don't care for snow a nice blanket over the garden for the next couple of months would be a welcome sight.

Annette

Yes, it is a concern but, hopefully you mulched around their bases after the ground was frozen / or you had a really good freeze with the mulch in place and the ground is frozen beneath it. That is what we want.
Bottom line. I think it will be fine.
Hopefully you get lots of snow soon.
When we get plenty of snow that protects us from the freeze/thaw cycle in spring which is much more of a concern for us.

One of these days, somebody is going to explain the freeze/thaw phobia in a way I understand. I've spent too much time in places where night=freeze, day=thaw for MONTHS, and plants seems to handle it just fine. Philadelphia is not a desert.

This weather is fairly normal for us. We rarely get permanent snow until January. So long as the snow comes before the temperature really drops, it's all good.

mad_gallica, I generally agree with you. I've always thought the concern over it was overstated. However, it depends on the severity of the cycles, their frequency, and the plants involved. I have seen small plants or bulbs seem to get heaved from the soil if they weren't planted deeply enough and saturated soil froze hard.
And though Philadelphia certainly isn't a desert, there are some kinds of plants that though strictly speaking could be hardy with average or even average-severe conditions there, don't like the freeze cycling and wet soil. The only year I got Pelargonium sidoides to survive in the open garden was some winter back in the early 2000s that, though of average coldness, was very dry by our standards. It also seemed to have less fluctuation. That was closer to what it would experience at its home in the Drakensberg.

While I'm talking about hardy Pelargoniums, worth saying for posterity that Pelargonium luridum had survived since 2007 for me, but died last winter. It's probably the hardiest SA Pelargonium, but, alas, didn't bloom well at all. Probably needed cool summer nights for better vernalization. OTOH, Pelargonium transvaalense will bloom fine in our summers, but is not as hardy and will only survive a mild-to-average zn 8 winter. Someone, please hybridize them!

This post was edited by davidrt28 on Mon, Dec 22, 14 at 19:57

lil... down here in adrian .. snow cover doesnt usually come until mid january ... i am not sure about your premise.. that its late ....

regardless ... its been moist ... which makes lack of snow.. not all that big an issue ... as compared to 30 or 45 days of drought ...

it will come... lol .. have faith ...

ken

wasnt the first day of winter.. like two days ago ...

how can you state ... that its been a mild winter so far ...

lol..

i know what you mean ... its been a mild LATE FALL ...

but i dont hold out hope that winter will be the same ...

write me in april.. if i am wrong....

ken

Meteorological winter began December 1st. This is important to recognize, because it means that spring (March 1st) is a little over two months away. Hurray!

I don't mind at all that there is no snow on the ground and that on my day off today (with temps in the upper 50s and no wind or rain) I was able to cut down and haul off at least 2/3 of the dead perennial foliage (including all of the ornamental grass stalks, a semi-Herculean task).

Very mild here as well. There has been no snow and grass is still green, but that was how last winter has too. 70 degrees on the first day of Winter, then ridiculous, arctic conditions...not to mention the deep snows! (Which does protect the plants.) I think last Winter will go down as one of the worst I ever remember. (The only other that competes was the one offering ice storm after ice storm.). Doubt this Winter will be as severe as last, and suspect it will remain very WET and stormy on the coasts (precip well above normal so far). See they are calling for arctic air to pour in the West and Central Plains and meeting up with the subtropical jet in the East, things should start changing in the snow department.

UPDATE:

And it is this week that we are getting true winter temperatures; specifically some lows under 5 F (ignoring any wind chill). But unlike last very cold winter we have almost no protective snow cover.

This post was edited by rouge21 on Sat, Jan 10, 15 at 10:24

Welcome to zone 7

We only rarely have snow cover when the temp drops in the single digits but most things survive. We are dropping to 8 degrees this week but the zone 7 plants and even most of the zone 8 make it every winter in spite of single digits. Zone 7 is 0 to 10 lows so unless you have something really delicate, I wouldn't worry, Here I worry more about pipes freezing if the wind is up.

We just received about 3 1/2 inches of snow, just in time to insulate the ground from the cold (highs to only low teens, lows briefly to -5F) expected over the next several days.

It'll be a snowy landscape for the foreseeable future.

So, lilsprout, did the recent dose of reality in the form of snow and cold alleviate your concerns?

I'm surprised Ken didn't say this above..."Patience, Grasshopper".

tj

hey lil ...

down here in adrian ... its been in single digits every night this week ...

i think winter caught up to us ... lol ...

ken

eric said: Meteorological winter began December 1st.

really .... ???? .... it has nothing to do with the declination of the sun in late dec ... crikey .. i want to be a meteorologist.. so i can define my own reality .... and get most of my predictions wrong ... and then declare victory ....

We too had a really mild winter.. so much so I was getting concerned about precipitation.... till three days ago.

Now we have had a goodly couple inches of snow, and single digit to negative digit cold.. Now I'm wishing for the mild winter again, lol.

mad_gallica wrote:

Welcome to zone 7

With -8 F today (not even taking into account wind chill) we are beyond temps that a zone 7 would experience...lucky you.

Wish that was true here but we can and often have gotten below zero and no one can beat us for wind chill, Chicago might give a good run but I think thats just a thing people accept because they call it the windy city. When I worked downtown you had to hold onto something when it was icy or else the wind would literally blow you along down the sidewalk until you either fell or grabbed hold of something.

Nowata, Oklahoma reported a temp at -31 in 2011. Previous record low was -27. On the other extreme the hottest recorded temp in Oklahoma was 113. 63 consecutive days over 100 degrees in 2011 was the longest recorded.

This post was edited by TexasRanger10 on Tue, Jan 13, 15 at 14:10

That is an incredible temp. record. And by coincidence that is the exact same record low for my town (which occurred in the early 90s).
I am just surmising that the hardiness zone(s) in Oklahoma would be a 6 and or 7? Such rating(s) imply a much more temperate moderate climate than one might expect given that record low temperature!

rouge, I think the biggest difference lies in consecutive temperatures and duration. I see very hot temperatures in the NE on the news often which always surprise me but its usually more isolated and a much shorter duration. We fluctuate wildly here because of the gulf stream. When it moves, the north comes barreling down here like a freight train. Sometimes we get trapped in Heat Domes in summer which seems sort of like that Polar Vortex situation. You guys got the full brunt but we got grazed too, it was not near as bad as the northern parts. You must be affected by the lakes and the coast? I'm not familiar with all the weather factors up there. Right now we are freezing under the same system that is making you so cold. Next week we go back into the 50's 60's and even some 70's are forcast.

edit: Just watched the news. Scratch that 70's forecast but we will certainly not complain, I'm sick of dry polar cold (teens & 20's) and day after day of cloudy and look forward to a week of bright sun and upper 50's and low 60's except tomorrow's snow was cancelled, we really need some moisture. The static electricity is terrible.

I looked up windiest cities online. I was surprised at some of them.

This post was edited by TexasRanger10 on Tue, Jan 13, 15 at 17:54

rouge, I think the biggest difference lies in consecutive temperatures and duration.

I am sure that is one of the components of zone determination.

But I wouldnt want to be a zone 7 rated plant experiencing a -31 day!

There were some casualties but the crepe myrtles made it through unscathed. In my whole gardening life there has been only year they didn't but that was because an early arctic front hit in mid December after a very long & warm fall and nothing was hardened off, most of them recovered from the roots however and started over from scratch. In Kansas, they all died. Go figure. I never can.

The only thing I lost in 2011 was a Santa Rita cactus and a couple of zone 8/9 agaves. Compounding the problem with regular blasts from the arctic north is that there is rarely snow on the ground, if you can imagine. Its also very lively in spring when the warm moist gulf air regularly crashes into the dry cold stuff from up north leaving us at the mercy of these two extremes, its earned us the title "Tornado Alley", OKC is dead center of that area. I probably sound like a broken record but people around here do talk about weather a lot.

It makes me wonder about plants that survive just fine here but seem to succumb to cold further north judging by what people post. Maybe its about moisture along with duration because we certainly do get very cold for several days but usually warm back up again-- up and down, up and down.

Its cold here in NJ but no snow and little precipitation. I'm thinking about watering the ground looks dry. I hope we get some significant snow or rain soon.