Somehow I just never thought about it snowing in Houston. How often does that happen? Hmmm, come to think of it I do remember an ice storm in Pt. Aransas when we had a house there.

Even the photographer (FELGF or VMGF depending on the case) was wearing blue!

Omar

I wondered if those Vulture eyes would spot that! Now I'm convinced they miss nothing ... LOL I almost missed it myself.

What do the acronyms stand for? Or maybe I don't want to know.

A friend posted a picture of a Port A dock with snow too.

Roselee, give David a sweater or something :-)

One is "flapping-eye-lashes garden fairy"...

Omar

Houston: Last snow like this or even more: 2009

We have had several since the last big on in '85. I conceive my son that night along with a whole bunch off other people . 9 months later there was a huge baby boom in the exact border of the storms track. I think we went careening down a nearby highway embankment that was totally devoid of cars, then we walked to the liquor store and got some cognac and then home. The rest,... you know. Snow storms can change your life.

We got quite a bit. Some people out here had trouble getting home that night, I hear. Icy roads. We got to 27.7° sometime during the night, so even though it wasn't freezing when it started, it was eventually. Ragna, good pics...blue filter? 1st one of my pics is sideways, because the internet always reverses my edit on the pics where I wasn't holding the camera horizontally. Go figure.

Bougie - 9:30 last night, and 8 am today. I had shaken some snow off it, after taking the 1st pic.

Foxtail ferns - last winter I lost both to the freeze, so this year I'll try a couple things. This one is small enough to fit under a 5 gallon pail. (The other plants are, from left to bottom to right: sweet potato vine, porterweed, Ixora, butterfly ginger.) I don't know how effective this will be; I'm wondering if I need to dig them up out of the raised bed. Maybe we won't get 2 consecutive 20 deg nights like we had last winter.

Butterfly ginger leaves and stems bent over by weight of snow, 9:30 last night. (also see above, on the right of the foxtail fern, after shaking off some snow). By 11:30 this a.m. it looks like the last remaining active bud wasn't destroyed.

No blue filter. It was early AM and the atmosphere seemed to have a blue glow. I guess I should have lightened the photos a little.

Dan, what was our low last night? It doesn't look like that bougie was damaged any. How does it look now? I was expecting the low to be 34 so I didn't rush to cover a few pots of borderline succulents, but they don't look at all damaged. Time will tell.

we got to 26ºF. I left out some aloes . I am scared to check on them.

Mara, I hope this baby doesn’t die.

I imagine that it would come back from the roots. Cut it back if the top growth starts looking ragged. I managed to get mine inside. I cut my young E.oxipetalum back years ago and it came up healthy. Cutting it back does push the bloom date back a year since it blooms on year old and older growth. The plant will come up with multiple long leaves.

Ragna, I checked the National Weather Service hourly updates. At the SA airport, it dropped to 32 at 7 am, then 31 at 8, then 33 at 9. Wind was 3 mph or less at the time.

http://w1.weather.gov/data/obhistory/KSAT.html (hourly record for the past 72 hrs)

The in between hour min/max readings aren't posted here, but elsewhere it says the 31 occurred at 8:26 am (about the time the sun started peaking thru the clouds, so it didn't last long).

The bougie seems fine a day later; the new growth on the tips still have color, and don't look any more 'crinkled' than usual. I had been more concerned about the relentless desiccating north wind in the preceding 2 days. I put up some makeshift windbreaks for my not-so-tough younger non-natives. Also left the car out in the driveway to divert some of the wind & gusts. But anyway, it wasn't the end of the world (knock on wood).

The weatherstation a mile from my house was below freezing from 6pm- 9am the next morning with a bottoming out at 26 that really only lasted for an hour and a half around seven. I need to check on my tomatoes . I am hoping that the snow acted as insulation. Can you smell my denial head in sand act.

Thanks Dan and Mara, for the temperature readings. None of my plants look freeze damaged. Only the leaf tips of the porterweeds were already looking dry from the winds.

Mara, I was also thinking how snow is said to act as insulation for lower air temperatures so hopefully it worked on your plants.

We had 3” in San Marcos & a low of 31*

I don't have numbers but I got the impression we had lower temperatures here in Kyle because many plants were affected (I know many are tropical but still...): salvias, some lantanas, turk's caps, cannas, portulacas, milkweeds, variegated vitex, purple leaf vitex, some grasses, vincas and impatiens. Sweet potato vines said "see ya next year" (hopefully).

Omar

My tea olive tree just started flowering and wafting fragrance, so I moved it out of the wind prior to the cold front blast. Plus it might discourage the people who ignore my No Soliciting sign. I went to our SA Botanical Garden the second day after the snow to see how theirs were doing; they just started up this week too. (On the right is my feeble attempt at beanstalks with a sweet potato vine and bamboo poles.)

Elswhere at the Botanical Garden, there were a lot less butterflies, not surprisingly. All the banana trees near the Wisteria arbor were looking a little floppy (1st pic) after being covered with heavy wet snow. Last August they got damaged by Harvey's winds and were all cut back (2nd pic).

BTW Ragna I wondered about the blue filter too. It could be all the white stuff fooled the metering. Or someone changed the White Balance setting or switched to one of the fancy "Modes". Granted, taking photos in the early morning hours presents challenges, and the blue looks appropriate considering the frigid conditions. I've seen countless quality photos of yours, these seem different (color-wise only). Could be a Houzz artifact too, they don't preserve the EXIF data so I couldn't get to the bottom of it. Certainly no need to tweak or lighten these photos though. The 3rd photo (snail?) and the tall birdhouse seem the least affected. Just check it please before the Christmas party season family photos?

And now I (picture the Scarecrow after asking the Wizard of Oz for brains) beat a hasty retreat, haha.

It was pretty, ‘sticky’ snow ❄️ clinging to branches.

Dan, you may be right. I'm pretty much a point and shoot photographer and leave the camera on the "foliage" setting and seldom check it. I looked just now and the setting was on "beach". The night before Bob used it and may have inadvertently changed the setting.

I'm not sure how the beach setting affects the color. For curiosity sake I'll take a couple of early morning photos and see. Thanks too for checking out the botanical gardens and giving a report.

jurasico, what is the tree with the red underleaf? The snow really shows it off.

Thanks everyone for the photos. Who knows when we might have a nice wet, but very temporary snow again that give our plants a different and photo worthy definition.

Tree with red under the leaves looks like southern magnolia

Well, I just went out and did some ripping out of a few cold killed tomatoes plants. I guess it is fried green tomato time.