Brugmansias holding their leaves here in Brea. I hid the about-to-bloom orchid behind the furniture and up against the house. Hope it will survive and bloom. I am thinking about bringing it inside, but have kitties so don't want them chewing on it.

Pudge, I have been in the bubble all summer. :O Its very quiet in here. Storms, frost and hail in every month of the summer.....My poor garden had quite a season....and I just left it to fend for itself.....while I was enjoying the view in the bubble. LOL!!!! Marcia, Have you been doing the sun dance......I bet you took a break and now you have to put up with that white stuff. I did the mice be gone dance, frost be gone dance, hail and storms be gone dance...I danced and danced... when I could not dance anymore, I entered the bubble. Come along Marcia the bubble awaits. LOL!!! In here, I don't even look at the temps, I don't care if Jack visits the garden or there is hail or snow....you NEVER SEE THAT HERE IN THE BUBBLE. Ahhhhhhh The bubblebees are busy at work, buzzing away over there...I think there is even some fresh honey that someone collected sitting on the bar over there. MMMMM. Oh can someone check and see that the fall garden cleanup gets done in my garden, before entering the bubble? Thanks! LOL!!! ;) Sierra

It was very cold here and we had a very hard frost....the kind that looks like white snow on the grass. It was 34 degrees here at 2:00 a.m., and I didn't check the temperatures any more after that because I knew it was going to be worse than expected.....and, at that point, the only issue was how much worse than expected. (G.M., When I saw our temps. at 2 a.m., I checked Carter County's on the internet and y'all were showing 38 degrees at that point, so I'm betting y'all ultimately went down to at least 34 to 36.) Pretty much everything in the garden survived and most were not damaged. I have two tomato plants that probably won't make it, but that's not bad considering I had 58 in the ground. There's about another 10 that show some damage. I probably could leave them alone and they'd bounce back, but I might replace them anyway. I have back-up plants to replace them with, so it isn't a big deal. The damage to the tomatoes was hit or miss, and might have been worse on those whose flower pot/bucket was smaller or more lightweight than those on the other plants. Everything else tender was in the house, the garage or the screened-in back porch so they all are fine. All the perennials are fine. The roses that were blooming look fine. The iris flowers look kind of pitiful. The water lilies are unharmed. Depending on how cold it actually got, and how long it stayed there, the fruit on the fruit trees may not survive. We have one more cold night tonight here in southern OK, with "patchy frost" expected. If you believe the data from the Oklahoma Climatological Survey, the "average" last frost in Love County occurs in the March 22 thru March 31st timeframe. However, we ALWAYS have at least one freezing night significantly later than that, and usually more than one. Here's the last frost date for the years we've lived here: 2007: 32 degrees on 4-15-07 2006: 23 degrees on 4-23-06 2005: 32 degrees on 4-24-05 2004: 32 degrees on 3-31-04 2003: 28 degrees on 4-10-03 2002: 27 degrees on 4-05-02 2001: 32 degrees on 4-24-01 2000: 31 degrees on 4-17-00 1999: 31 degrees on 4-18-99 So, the OCS data doesn't seem reliable for us, but it is based on 30-year averages, and we've only been here and watching the weather here for 9 years. One frustrating thing about the "late" freezes is that, even though they predictably occur in mid- to late-April, they often follow anywhere from 4 to 8 weeks where we've had really nice warm weather and only a couple of cold nights. Randy, I think your wind will be worse than ours. We're only expecting winds of 15 to 25, which seems mild compared to the last few days. It is relatively wind-free here today, and that is nice. Kirts, I hope your ground dries up soon so you can rototill and prepare to plant. We have another round of rain forecast beginning around Thursday. I hope to get the rest of the veggie garden planted this week, except for the real heat lovers like okra and melons. My soil is still pretty wet just a couple of inches below the soil surface, but it is getting better every day. Dawn

I winter my glads in pots. Right now my pots are still sitting on my patio. I technically stopped watering in the middle of September, but it has rained a lot here. Tomorrow I will bring the pots inside to my 3 season porch - which tends to stay 5-10 degrees warmer than outside. As the leaves brown, I cut them off. In early December - when we start getting nights in the 20's, and days in the 30's - I will then move the pots to the basement. The part of the basement I use stays in the upper 50's. You don't want the bulbs to freeze. Mid-late April I start bringing the pots outside to the patio again (I bring them in to the 3 season porch if we expect frost). I bring a pot outside every 2 weeks. The last pot goes out at the end of June. This way I have blooms all summer. I also throw a few morning glory seeds in each pot when I bring it outside. So I end up with morning glories and gladiolas in bloom. I do the same thing with my amaryllis bulbs. I have 4 bulbs in 1 planter. I leave them on the porch a bit longer, but wrap a blanket over them. I bring the amaryllis to the basement around the new year.