In dealing with cold weather, I've taken the attitude of what lives, lives and what dies, dies. I've learned my lesson on planting marginally hardy plants since we seem to get one of these cold snaps every few years. Gardening certainly would be easier if we were a solid zone 9 here in Austin!

We have an almost identical forecast for Addison/Dallas; though surprised to see your central Texas low a degree or two below ours.... guess that's life beyond the urban heat island. We're already down over 10 degrees from 5:30am to about 25° F.

I went out and said my good-byes to the blue plumbago, 'Silver Falls' dichondra, bulbine, and some other things normally sold as annuals in north Texas that manged to survive the past couple winters. Though a 40 or 50 hour freeze may still not be enough to do them in.

With the predicted five nights straight of below freezing temps I'm covering some things on which I'm not willing to risk their more slow growing leaves getting damaged, such as dykias and bromiliads.

My question is do we need to undercover on the warmer days or will they be okay covered for that many days straight, especially the ones I'm covering with big black pots on which I've taped over most of the holes?

As for Sagos it's only on very rare occasions that all the fronds have been frozen back. I can think of only one since I've been growing them and they never had a problem quickly regrowing in the spring. The spread of the leaves, even if frozen, have protected the trunks.

Mara, thank you for your photos.

Anything that dies in my yard was probably a bad decision to plant anyways. The only thing I'm marginally worried about is my Windmill Palm.

At least it won't be like 1983. That was brutal.

The 75 watt light bulb is on in the cold frame and the heavy comforter is over the whole thing. Hubby insulated the two wooden ends this past summer when he did some rebuilding on it. I also covered the new cactus garden that has a couple of warmer zone plants (Haworthia attenuata and Agave bracteosa 'Calamar'). I have them warmed with a string of incandescent Christmas lights, then a folded sheet, and finally a folded tarp. There is a teepee stick in the middle so they aren't crushed.

These plants were forgotten last winter and made it through only having fallen leaves for cover, but it was a mild winter.

Here's hoping that they all make it through this freezing spell.

lou 1983 our first year in texas we moved at the end of july, just in time to greet Hurricane Alicia, the center was about 15 miles from our home. Folks told us it rarely got below 32 degrees "this far south" we believed them. Left home to visit with family during the school holidays, got a call from our new next door neighbor that water was coming out of the tops of our windows. We jumped in the car with the kids and dogs and arrived back in Angleton 11 hours later.....floors were covered in water, ceilings had collapsed and were being held up by ceiling fixtures. The neighbor had turned of the water, but it had flowed across the ceiling in the attic and was going down the walls and out the tops of the window frames. Furniture was wet, it was still below freezing. There were 19 holes in the water lines in the attic. Insurance paid 4,500 dollars for the mess....we had to hire a lawyer. It was horrible....and SOOOOOO cold.

It got to 5º in '89 here in Austin. Dec 23,'89 BRRRRRR!!!!! . But it was short and warm 4 days later.

Zippity, that's an awful story. I went to Hawaii at Christmas time a lot to visit my Mom And Dad, and the luck of the Irish was with us. Every one was a mild winter and the one cold front that came in , my neighbor came over and dripped the faucets. But we never thought about it at all. I can tell you, once in Hawaii, it never ever crossed our minds as we hung out on beaches and were doing all the things we were doing. Sheesh, we were lucky to remember to get back on the airplane on the right day. we missed once by 24 hours. They had a blizzard in Denver our connection so we did not have to pay extra. Again,the luck of the Irish . Oh , we are Russian and German.

Ragna. I usually just leave them covered. They are pretty dormant by now, anyway so etiolation won't happen to your Dykias.

I forgot , I put out the heating pad under the cats fleece for the cat that will not come inside to anyplace that has doors that shut. We are getting a dusting snow right now.

I had brought the vulnerable plants onto the porch already and had tacked heavy plastic over the screens. I've been covering the flower pots with sheets, tablecloths, and such on the cold nights. Day before yesterday, I brought all that stuff into the sewing room lol. Yesterday I piled hay around the in-ground plants and covered them with sheets. The dogs go outside for about 1 minute and come back in LOL. Sounds like a long few days here. I will say that the plastic really helped. The porch thermometer said it was 30 degrees when it was about 19 outside. Course the longer it stays cold, the colder the porch will get.

I have all my tender house plants in my shop and it is at 32.3 now. I think I will go boils some water in the alcove where they are at and warm things up. Maybe get the radiant heater in there. It is such a big space, really heating it is out of the question. I just try to keep it above 32. I better get too work. We got to 20.3 this morning. It is about 22 right now. BRRRR.

5 gallon buckets, 26 gallon trashcan ($9) to save tender perennials. Elsewhere, 5 ft tall rain collection barrels & city greens-organics recycle bin. City garbage bin as wind deflector. (Added note - next year I'll try tall cardboard boxes, to allow more gas exchange.)

Temporarily blocking the carbon monoxide vents for garage (containing potted plants; car parked outside this week).

My toilet supply line froze and the shower drain trap so I had to go under the house, cut the 1.5" insulation off and wrap heat tape around the pipes and rewrap the pipes in the crawl space. I am the only person in the family thin enough to get in this crawl space..... GRRRRRR. But we are now flushing but still waiting on the shower to drain.

I've covered my cactus garden and citrus trees.I took the small tropical plants inside. Home Depot sold out of frost blankets.I live in the country and just use whatever old blanket or coat I can find.

I hated to see my firespike, ginger, and others go bad after they've been so good taking the other freezing nights so far. But I knew it would happen sooner or later. A few things in pots that didn't fit into greenhouse were covered and heat lamp put underneath. Not sure about how they survived last night, since it's 16 here t his morning. We didn't have water and have been worried about that. All other plants in greenhouse with a gas heater.

My turk's cap plants got zapped. I hope they come back in the spring esp the white ones. I had to bring in first year shantung maple seedlings so they would not get damaged. They are small. Maybe dwarfs? That was how I lost a bunch of dwarfs last year. Talking to a former tree farm owner, he had experienced the same and told me to bring them inside when there is a freeze coming.

I forgot to bring in some cuttings and some small oleander.

Well,last night was definitely the coldest yet here.Anything with standing water in it outside was frozen solid.Then this morning the power went out! I had my turks cap plant covered,hopefully it makes it.

The power fluttered here and caused my computers fans to go crazy. My handy husband came to the rescue.

I just had to chime in. We just got down to 24F two weeks ago and now 19F this week here in Houston. Try mini christmas lights under sheets. They are 50 cents a box right now at Home Depot. I had read that you need the bigger ones but calculated that a string of 100 is about 40 watts, same as 25 big ones. The area under the sheet will stay nice and slightly warm (you can put your hand in and feel it) but no spot gets hot.They don't have to be secured as carefully to the ground since you are actually adding heat. And they look lovely, like giant luminarios. I also used big sheets to cover whole beds. Even the pygmy palms (came with the house!), sansevieria and rubber plant (my experiments) were happy.

For important things you can put a space blanket over the lights, blue tape works to secure it, even with some rain. At night you can see the lights through the blanket which is a very nice effect. But it can get TOO warm. Good thing is it doesn't heat up underneath when the sun comes out. It's really good around trunks. Putting it around bushes is a pain! And it burns leaves like plastic. I also used bath towels around the base of bigger bushes (with lights) to make sure there will be something to grow back from.

The only problem was the freezing rain...it covered everything with ice before I could cover it even thought air temps were still above freezing. I could done much more work much earlier and added a layer of plastic well-anchored to withstand the wind but I was waiting until the precip stopped. Our December snow didn't bother even my zone 9b plant's leaves and usually by the time it gets killing cold its dry

From now on I'm stringing the xmas lights in December. Then throwing sheets over at the last minute. Xmas right thru Easter.

Looking forward to the warm up to normal temps today and through the next week. The cold frame plants are doing great even with a low of 16 here a couple of mornings ago. I went ahead and brought in my tender cactus after the early January cold snap. So far, so good.

We got to 13º here . I haven't looked into the building that I roll my tables of aloes and tender succulents or uncovered my vegetable garden yet. That will happen today. No frozen pipes this time. Thank god. I even brought in my agaves in pots. Tomorrow is chain sawing day. The sago palm above is all yellow so I will be chopping off the fronds.

We just now got back from the first post op appointment and the doctor was VERY happy with the progress. My husband has backed off from the heavy pain pills and has halved the next pills down. All the PT and nurses are very positive about his movement. We are very encouraged.

That sounds great! Once he recovers, I bet he will feel so much better than before the surgery.

We are getting some heavy furniture being ordered. Another 500 lb table. I will have call friends up to turn it over or move it.

Dare I say that you don't need to be picking up that much weight either?

Someone has to build it. Only occasionally does it needed to be lifted or flipped over totally. We just built a 550 lb table and a 650 lb table. Normally they are handled in pieces. The 5 x 7' solid oak tabletop will probably weigh in at 300lbs. We get help on the critical points. Thinking like an Egyptian is a must in our shop.

The afternoon before the 15 degree night, my drugged up husband took a walk around the place and trapsed through my shop where I had 20 of my aloes , leaving both double doors open to the wind. ....So it goes. I will see soon enough how many make it. The ones that do seem to get bigger and bigger.

Oh dear! Hope the aloes make it.

I totally understand the Egyptian methods for dealing with heavy objects. We have a massive 500+ pound native limestone rock in our patio that hubby got off of a trailer and into it's place using conduit as rollers for easing it in. He's a smallish man, maybe 150 pounds. It took 4 adults to get it onto that trailer.

Yep, used that method when the ground was hard enough. Also wd-40 on wood planks got the 700 lb. iron cauldron tops over soft dirt into place with two of us pushing. We even used the rebar rollers combined with the greased boards. That really worked.