LOL, no sweaters on the plants, though thankfully a decently deep layer of snow has perennials nicely snuggled in and protected from the cold ... and as for shrubs, what I grow is mostly zone appropriate. I'm okay with the at times bitter cold winter temps, it's the Canadian prairie after all, though when winter refuses to give way to spring, that's what gets annoying! Over the last several years, we have though been experiencing more and more notable extreme weather events. Last February being the COLDEST in something like 40 years, then to proceed onto one the absolutely dreariest and depressing grossly WET summers on record! It truly had rained for months on end and drowning out vast regions of crop lands in which were declared agricultural disaster districts. I mean, not just simply a one year event, but for four years in a row, farmers to the west of me having enormous struggles due to severe weather. Seemed in the past, conditions in my part of the world were just more predictable and reliable with the good much dominating the bad, though of late, it's been head shaking, like what's next ?

Those that are now experiencing very mild temps and with their plants already breaking dormancy, I hope that no big arctic high is later marked to come your way, the damage then can be severe and so disappointing!