Not a bad winter, as winters go. The coldest it got was -10F. My hardy C&S outside had a reliable layer of snow and the stuff inside stayed nice and cozy. I did turn the heat on...and kept it on. ;-)

tj

Grace

Nice to see you back. Plants in your photo look fantastic, hope ones that suffered will recover.

Not much to say about our winter, more or less typical for here...still too cold to take plants outside....my furnace is still going :(

Rina - I moved my new pot of Sempervivum outside to be on the roof last week. It's raining so hard now, I hope they survive!! It's supposed to go down to 2°C overnight. Hopefully I didn't make a terrible decision.

Grace - For a bad winter, your succulents still look fantastic!

My succulents had a pretty cushy life indoors under lights this winter. They've been spoiled. =)

I too bring my plants in where it's safe, and everything I repotted too early (my impatience) survived also. Glad your beautiful jades did well! And nice to see you posting again! Maybe our San Diego connection, Neil, will follow suit.

ez

I had a delightful, almost Californian winter. I think it got to 28 once , 30 a couple of times. I didn't move my aloes inside at all. This could get addicting. La Nina coming and that means cold winter for us ,.... and no rain.

I look for the succulents that have some cold hardiness to them so I don't need to bring them in ALL winter. I put them on rolling coffee table high benches and this are organized in the winter to how hardy things are. On the labels , I put a hardiness degree, SO , if a cold front comes in I deal with them in stages. Blue northers have me moving and covering like a maniac. I will cover small things with pots, frost covers, dried leaves. I even saw when this subject came up, a woman made hats out of several sheets of newspaper during a Californian cold front. I use Old cardboard boxes, bubble wrap, blankets, frost covers. I even lean outdoor chaise mattresses against plants. My yard will look like a tornado went through a white trash garage sale. I do not go to that extreme for most cold fronts , just the Blue northers that head down to 15F. Normally , we very rarely get them.

You made me laugh about your bundling up inside with the windows open. That is how I am or how I would be if I didn't share my home. My husband has a very narrow "comfort Zone" . The heat gets cranked up and he is still in his underwear complaining about the cold. I have to shame him into putting clothes on to work. I recommend a sweater and long pants. He is now freezing me out with the AC (first day yesterday). He hates humidity, Eye roll.

Haha, after 26 years I finally convinced my wife to try sleeping with a window open in the winter. Now she values the fresh air, warm blankets, and cuddling up! (Us manly men can safely say cuddle up! b/c it sounds just like huddle up!)

Grace, I've been thinking more about your winter losses- I would be devastated to lose that much! Maybe you can set up the rolling benches like wantonamara, and check out Crenda's thread http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/3754940/construction-zone

ez

Nov. and Dec. were cold here, but spring has been going for a couple of months now.

Mara, my roommate likes the house at 80 in the winter and 68 in the summer, it's gotta be a mind thing. I'm a cold house person, so he puts on a coat to come into my part and I strip to go into his;-)

Put about half the succulents out last week but covered them the last few nights when it's been down to just freezing.

Grace, succulents (and other plants) go out as soon as nightime temps are staying around 50*F, and that is in May - probably late May. I am sure some would be safe even at 45, but that would mean bringing many in and out and I am not willing to do that :)

And, btw, Neil has not been around for a long time, I hope that he is OK and just very busy. Miss his funny posts.

Kevin, semps should be np outdoors - you know I preach that they should not be grown indoors, lol. All of mine stayed outside and are OK, with just few casualties - and they happened when we had that freezing rain for few days. There was a thick crust of ice on all of them, I picked it off but left few - and those guys are gone from too much water. They are all in containers, and some may not have best drainage :(

You know what's funny is that I met him when he was a starving artist living on a back screened porch in Down town Austin. We are talking about those hippy daze of '76. He used the bedroom as an office /living room and the living room as a painting studio so we slept on the screened porch under lots of blankets. Things have changed. Houses, husbands , plants, you name it. One Ice storm , I heard this crunching of someone walking toward us and we got real concerned and peered over the sill from under our blankets and it was a GRACKLE, a bird crunching on the ice!.

Being cold doesn't make me angry. While it hurts my bones, I am the same person I am temperamentally. But me while hot--or sweaty--no, that's not the same person and I can't control what comes out of my mouth when I'm hot. I hate everyone and everything! Haha

So yeah -- I tend to live w/ my windows open over winter (noting I'm in CA, so take "winter" with a grain of salt) and come summer, AC is on at about 72 degrees, which in my area means it's on 24 hours and my bill is about $700-900 per month over the summer. That said, my winter bills are impressively low (like $120?) so I make up for that exorbitant summer cost to be about even w/ anyone else in this size of a house.

EZ, that is brilliant. I don't have anywhere near as many small pots to lug back and forth. A small part of it is just not wanting to make 15 trips--but the real aversion is that I like my outside plants being outside and my inside plants ALWAYS inside so as not to get bugs in the house. I just can't stand bugs and this area--we have more spiders than any other place I've ever seen. Even when I move one pot to another location outside, I turn that pot around multiple times to make sure there's no snails, no slugs, no spiders and no other creepy crawlers on it before I touch a little 4" pot LOL. YUCK.

700-900 per month!? Wow, you need a home energy assessment STAT!

ez

Sorry, that was a knee-jerk emotional reaction. We have pretty brutal summers here, and I complain about my 150/month level payment plan!

ez

EZ - big house, me w/ massive temperature control issues (and I shudder to think what'll happen when I head into menopause lol), and outdoor temps of 105. Basically, it's on all day long except for early morning hours to 10am or so.

The overnight temperatures here are starting to creep up again - about 5C overnight this week. My Sempervivum survived the wet and stormy cold (I really shouldn't be surprised), but wanted to update that they look like this now:

My sempervivum live outside year round. A different kind than yours (i need to learn more about these, have had this plant for a while, but no others), this weather is their favorite and they really take off at this time of year especially in cooler less sunny conditions. This was 2 tiny tiny rosettes 2 years ago, what you see is the middle of their second growth spurt.

it's likely much smaller than yours overall (pot is 2.5 x 3.5 inches or so), but came from a much bigger plant that is no longer with me.

otherwise the winter wasn't kind to my outdoor plants.

Sorry about your babies, Grace, but at least the ones that survived look great! We had a typical winter with more than average water.

I often think about people living in a more temperate place and then having to deal with the occasional unusual weather that may harm/kill their plants. It can happen without warning and that can be devastating I'm sure.

I have to move all the potted plants in or lose them--but of course trying to house plants indoors all winter has its own set of drawbacks. Most of them are back outside waiting to be moved to their summer spots. Crossing fingers for tons of flowers :-)

Didn't lose any pig plants this year, but the beds are loaded with 2' weeds--yikes! I HATE pulling weeds in cactus beds!!!! At least when they are that tall I can try and avoid the spines. Have to say that I pulled many out of the big bed this morning and it's looking a lot better.

My neighbors ran a weed wacker close to my Echinocereus bed that's right by the fence but fortunately they didn't hit any of my babies. They did take out my Cactus Cowboy antenna guy that was on a stick. I love that they try to be helpful, but really????? Now if they want to pull the weeds by hand I would be more than grateful :-)