Luckily, I had my plant spreadsheet open, this is the one I am going to try to plant this year: http://www.rarefindnursery.com/index.php/trees-shrubs/magnolia/magnolia-frosty-pale-purple.html OK, if you were in Denmark or Poland I might say forget it, but if you really are in a 8a borderline 7b location in SE Europe, with fairly hot summers, I would say, yes, try one. Try to give it a position sheltered from north winds, but also protected from morning sunlight in winter. By 'try one', I mean the hardiest clone of it you can find. Later in spring I will probably post a picture of the damage to my M. skinneriana after 0F. It was not really a cold winter per se here, but we had a terrible cold spell in January. The first week of January was the coldest first week in Baltimore ever recorded, since 1871. I am not sure how much of the top will be able to regrow, most of the leaves are definitely brown now. Amazingly, without fertilization, the top had almost regrown to 2m/6.5 ft. after the polar vortex winter killed it to the ground. Took just 2 good, wet growing seasons. I see the same fast regrowth with M. dianica...but...again, most normal people don't want something in their garden that is looking damaged so often. So I wouldn't recommend these shrubs as standard garden material around here.

Mike, I had two 50 ft. lengths of drip hoses wound in, out and around the plants with mulch covering them - all throughout the garden in the veggie garden. The mulch was piled on 8 inches thick or thicker under and around them. I put covers over the tomatoes in late July through August. I have good well water, so no chlorine that can damage plants. Notwithstanding all that I did, when temps reached 110-120, everything just turned brown, and then blister beetles ate what was left. I had tall, dark green, beautiful corn plants with 2-3 huge ears on each plant, but upon checking them, they had few developed kernels. Total loss. I planted more than one hundred tomatoes (seven varieties), corn, beans, cantaloupe, watermelon, bell peppers, three types of hot peppers, Red bells, zucchini, and onions. Normally I get enough to can, freeze, eat fresh and sell at the Farmer's Market & Health Food stores and still have enough to donate to the Food Bank. Not last year. The only tomatoes I got were a handful from the plants I grew in large pots, but only a few. They were sure good though. Cherokee Purples were especially yummy and the Lemon Boys. I think I got about 20 tomatoes altogether. I got more than everyone else around here. Their plants kicked it in June and July. I did get some okra from the plants in the smaller, lower garden and a few pitifully small Early Girl tomatoes, and a pretty good harvest of Jalapenos in September when it cooled down a bit, but that was all. I put so much work into it and expense. But it was just too hot. It was like standing inside a furnace ever day. I lost several small trees, one large weeping willow and several Eponymous shrubs. And what the heat didn't kill, the voles did, chewing the roots off several of my roses. What a horrible year! Sorry to go on about it...

There is a mature 12 to 15 ft Ponderosa Lemon tree growing well about 4 miles from me. It produces loads of thick skinned navel style lemons, similar to Italian lemons, which I understand are even hardier and will grow here in Eastern North Carolina. 3 years ago the owner rooted over 100 cuttings, which he sold ready potted. I bought several at $5 a pot. These were 1 to 2 foot tall small trees, which is pretty good value. I kept one for myself and gave others as gifts and also work colleagues were paying for them. Unfortunately, I planted mine in an exposed area, open to the north wind and quite honestly didn't look after it like I should have. It died after 2 years. In the ensuing years I have driven past the mature lemon tree to have a gentle nose. Particularly in the winter. We have had temps around 20F and slightly below and yes it does it appear to have died back on some of the branches after such cold weather, but it springs back to life again come 'Spring'. It is semi-exposed to the weather, being behind the main house and in front or to one side of a shed. The owner doesn't dress the tree for frost protection and it seems it has to be 20F at least before die back occurs. I guess I know it's there and that i can always get another small tree from him, so I haven't bothered re-visiting the notion. Instead, I am growing an Owari Satsuma. It's been in the ground since March and doing well, of course it hasn't gone through winter yet. The Owari satsuma is a spindly specimen and nothing like the orange trees that we had in Arizona. I have planted this in a south facing location with staking and tying and with some degree of protection from the north wind, about 15 feet from the back of the house. Safer would have been directly against the back of the house, but then there's the house foundations to consider. Anyway, all I can say is that lemons and they are 'true' lemons are alive and well here in Eastern North Carolina, half way between Richlands and Jacksonville.

"How do they look to you? Any comments?" Those questions would be easier to answer if you post some pictures. Just sayin'. I brought my SuperDwarf Novak Banana plant in last winter, and I kept it in a room at 75-80F in the daytime hours and 62ish at night using two electric heaters. My "daytime" heater is on the timer with the grow lights. This setup works well to extend the growing season for my Ginger plants. Last winter was my first winter in for the banana plant, and I had just transplanted it from a small nursery pot to a 20 inch planter pot (with about 3 cubic feet/22 gallons of growing mix), so I really didn't expect it to flower. I have all my "tropical plants" under LED grow lights 12 hours a day. The Ginger plants always blossom under the red/blue (3 red:1 blue) LED grow lights. Everyone tells me ginger rarely blooms, but almost all of mine bloom every year. The red light is supposed to stimulate blooming. Maybe this year, the banana plant will bloom as well. I have three pups on the banana plant when I set it out for the summer, and I plan to separate those later this week when I bring everything in and put each pup in its own 3 gallon nursery bucket for the winter. Two more tiny pups have developed in the past month or so, but I plan to leave those on the main plant because I don't think they are big enough to survive on their own yet. Even if you have some kind of insulated "greenhouse" enclosure, you might get better results (blooming/fruiting) if you supplement winter sunlight with pure red "bloom" lights, or 3:1 or even 4:1 red:blue "grow lights" on a 12 hour timer. If it's for a single plant, use 2 or 3 of the focused "spot light" type, like the PAR-38 size from ABI (available on Amamzon).