It seems everything is slower coming back this year than last year. Must because of cooler soil. I've never had blue plumbagos fail to return in even after the coldest winters, but a friend in Seguin says hers are not returning.

Plants are still in the process of coming back. My Texas kidneywood tree and Molly's apple tree have not leafed out yet and they have done that before...

Omar

Welp, rats I just came in from weeding and noticed both my hamelia and caesalpinia are sprouting from the base. Doesn't make me very hopeful about my plumbagos. :/

Blue plumbago is usually tagged as an annual where sold in north Texas and has always failed to return for us where unsheltered in our damp clay in years lows got below ~15 ° F. However, we do have one in a dry, somewhat sandy, bed along a warm south facing brick wall that has returned for 5 or 6 years now - so they can survive here where sheltered and/or dry during the hardest freezes. It started showing new growth in early March and is going gangbusters now.

Omar, One shoot/trunk (the youngest) of our Texas kidneywood has been putting out leaves for a couple weeks, but the 3 or 4 larger ones are all still dormant. They appear to have some minor terminal die-back, but stems still look green.... so will wait. Think they were late to return last year, too - but not staggered like this time.

I am firmly in 8b, but we did have some sub 15 nights this winter.

We're ~ 20 min. SW of Houston, and our plumbago (1-gallon planted last October) has been leafing out. Wasn't sure such a young plant would make what was a very cold winter for us.

My potted butterfly milkweed, pentas, esperanza and potted white begonias and Blue Daze have also woken up, some a bit more slowly than others.

Fingers crossed, OP!

It's been an odd spring, so I'm with others on giving them more time. Return depends on a complex mix of factors (moisture, exposure, length of freezes, low temp,...). I've just noticed the years they've had trouble returning in unsheltered spots around us have usually been after winters where the temps fell to 14 or lower..... a correlation rather than a single cause. So, you got cold enough to kill them, but here's hoping "life, uh, finds a way". :-)

My Texas Kidneywood is leafed out but plumbago does not come back for me. Pride of Barbados and Moringa were in heated protection and are not showing any signs of life yet.

As Bostedo says plant hardiness depends on a lot of factors other than temperature. With our more recent wild fluctuations of high and low temps I don't think we can depend on the US zone maps to tell us much anymore anyway.

Speaking of which I was about to change my zone zone from 8b to 9a since the zone designation maps have been changed recently, but a search revealed that zones for San Antonio are divided right through the center of the city. Balcones Heights, where we have our swaps, is z8b and a few blocks south is 9a.

Incidentally I thought my moringa was not going to return this year, but I just looked and it is.

Needmoremulch, hopefully your blue plumbagos will soon wake up. Let us know.

To a certain extent, I just look at last winter's 13 degree lows as a swing back toward the expected. We have certanly gotten a bit spoiled by our short term trend of mild winters. I remember it getting down to 7 degrees or so a few time in the 80s. I know it happened once or twice in the 50s and 60s, too. When it only happens every so often like that, human nature being what it is, we will plant things that aren't completely hardy. Most of us find the risk to be acceptable, and cry over the once a decade devastating January deep freeze, or late frost in April, and then we replant it all anyway ( at least that describes me, lol). Tbh, I would replant plumbagos even if they were annuals every year, because it is so hard to find that cool blue that loves the heat.