It seem's we often get our coldest weather in February. Not unheard of for fruit trees to leaf or bloom then be hit with freezing temperature that ruin's crop for that year. Texas weather has been called many things but certainly not boring. Same as Texas women. (:

My husband and I were just talking about this at lunch today. Lots of people around here are saying winter is over, but my husband said that February is always the coldest month. It seems like it got cold very early (mid October for us), then it got warm again. I was out walking the neighborhood in shorts and a t-shirt yesterday - in January!

For the most part, I like it because I grow ornamentals, no vegetables or fruits. So I am not worry about ruining a harvest and having some growth and flowers is better than having everything around dead. I am still keeping my tender perennials indoors.

Omar

Omar, the temperatures must have gotten a little lower here than your place. Even with the warm days recently I'm not seeing much sprout except millions of seeds. I can handle 50 larkspur plants, maybe even 100, but not 10,000! And everyday there are more ... !

I guess so. I do not have larkspur seedlings but all kind of weeds and bluebonnets which is a challenge when it comes to weeding out.

Omar

I would not be so bad if they were only sprouting in the flower bed which I can hoe, or the grass which will be mowed, but in the gravel and between pavers the larkspurs, Mexican feather grass and white wine cups have to be pulled by hand. Vinegar works well in hot sunshine. Weed killer sprays are tempting, but I don't want to expose myself or the dogs to it. It might have been easier to weed if I had covered those graveled areas with decomposed granite instead, I dunno ....

These have been in my back garden since we bought the place 3 years ago and they have bloomed this week for the first time ever (narcissus paper whites, I believe). Shrubs and young trees are setting buds, too. Have tried to post the photo 3 times and it won't upload today for some reason.

It’s crazy, but I read that a solid freeze is expected in my area this weekend. We’ll see what happens...

Omar

The mountain laurel panicles are still tight, the mesquites still have their old leaves on them and every pecan is still sleeping

They seem to be backing off on the cold. Maybe a freeze maybe not in Drippin'. Not the 27º that they had before.

Same here as in a freeze is no longer predicted.

What is weird to me right now is there are still green leaves on the huge 30 year old Cedar Elm tree in the front yard; not a lot, but enough to make me wish for them to all fall, once and for all, so that I don't have to keep blowing and raking them.

Same here Omar- I noticed today I have plants pushing growth that shouldn’t be: bauhinia, vitex, lantana, some citrus- way too early for that. I hate to see them get zapped when normal cold shows up.

It’s a very particular winter, indeed. I have to go back and confirm, but I think I spotted a tree in bloom yesterday while driving my way back home from Wimberly.

The frost expected yesterday never happened, instead, I noticed that my coralbean is already sprouting. That usually happens in March. I also noticed that my Molly’s apple tree still has several leaves on. I doubt it will bloom this year.

My paperwhites are about to bloom and some daffodils are already out. However, beautyberries, which usually leaf out before many other plants, have shown no sign of sprouting. I have not seen anything like this in my 12 years living in Central Texas.

Omar

We got down to 30º this morning so it is officially a frost. I did not take in any of my aloes. Too busy building. I guess it is time to cut back the beauty berry.

Yeah, here too, but it was just for a couple of hours, so "nobody" went dormant. Right now it's 54 degrees with sunshine. It feels like spring. I just checked next week forecast and it shows a minimum of 31 for Wednesday.

Omar

I have lettuce and arugula bolting in the vegetable garden and huge heads of broccoli. Usually that happens way later,

Wantonmara, how far back do you trim your beauty berry? I've been only trimming back the parts that overlap or encroach on the walkway but they have gotten really tall over the past couple of years.

I trim them back one half.

Pruning advice that came with our American beautyberry was to cut out 20 to 30% of the oldest stems in winter/early spring.... which never made much sense to me without any context. Like PKponder, I've also just been trimming it back in winter to fit the space. At 6+ft tall, it's gotten a little bigger than wanted, so am going to try the other recommended approach of cutting it all back to about half a foot this year. Differences with these two approaches are touched on in the last paragraph here: Care of Beautyberry.

Confirmed. There are some late winter blooming trees already blooming in my neighborhood.

Omar

My Easter lilies are about to bud.

I saw a lot of daffodils around the neighborhood already at full height and blooming, but I do expect some cold nights in February, even if not freezing, which means it is still cold enough for some of the typical normal spring/summer plants. I think we got down to 31-F recently.

But I do enjoy seeing the early perennials coming up in people's yards.

One of my two TX Mountain Laurels is opening up a couple blooms today. Seems so early, especially since it has been so cold!

Mrs. Winter decided to show up in March. We are expecting a minimum of 26 tomorrow and 29 on Tuesday. I had taken all my plants out. I need to decide if I take them back inside today or if I cover them up for two days. No bueno.

Omar

ME TOO, Darn it. I am moving pots again and covering my vegetable garden today. I committed to spring awhile ago knowing it was a dangerous move, but I did it anyway. I couldn't help it. I am splitting the difference. Some get covered, some come in. It still won't be THAT cold. I mean , not down in the teens brutal cold. This would be a normal slight freeze kind of thing.

Yes, it was a fairly mild freeze as freezes go. Got down to 30 and then 31 last night. The dogs water bowl didn't even have a thin coat of ice.

I did relent and cover a few things, but even when the cover blew off some newly emerged cannas they did not get suffer any freeze damage whatsoever.

The blossoms on the red bud and and mountain laurel are NOT singed so I hope that means fruit trees in this part of Texas were not damaged.

I guess it was worse around here then. My loquats and hibiscuses looked droopy when I left the house at around 7:00 am. I also saw ice on some lawns. I’ll find out what the real damage was in a couple of days.

Omar

I woke up to 23º. I have not uncovered yet. We will freeze again tonight but barely.

We hadn't been below freezing on the north side of Dallas for more than 2 or 3 hours at at time this season until this week . From early Monday we stayed at or below 32° F for 30+ hours and hit our lowest (22° F). Tropical milkweed, Turk's caps, and mealycup sage finally froze back.... but, still plenty of color in the garden ;-)

Our wisteria vine is blooming... never has bloomed before!