The smell of freshly killed foliage was everywhere! Bananas, hydrangeas, hedychiums, brugs, even centipede and zoysiagrass were heavily damaged in the holdout patches of green.

yah, that is right gaalan, I never considered thinking of it that way, but the smell was unmistakeable. I found my 2 hydrangeas bit too. Not sure what I'll do with them now. I've posted on that forum for advise as to whether to leave them alone or prune off the dead leaves blooms etc.

Wouldn't worry about the Hydrangeas. They can survive temperatures of 0°with only minimal flower bud damage.
No need to do anything with the leaves, they will die and fall off, very soon. The spent blooms can be removed anytine. I often leave them on until new growth appears in the spring, as they provide winter interest, in an otherwise drab landscape.
This is the first time in memory that I've had 12 continuous hours of below freezing temperatures, this early in the season. My low was 25°and that hung around for several hours.
While there are a lot of black foliage in the garden today, all of the evergreen broadleaf trees and shrubs surely glistened in the sunlight!
Wintertime is upon us and a needed rest for many of the plants and gardeners!
Rb

I passed a subdivision today that forgot to turn off their sprinkler system. The entrance was like a winter wonderland (although the ground had too much water and in places looked like an ice skating area). Ouch.

Razorback, I have recorded 29 freeze hours(at or below) in the last 4 days. I had 37 hours total, in 8 days last November. The month started out really warm and now we're in the deep freeze!

Esh, did you see that article in the paper about the DOT warning people about running sprinklers and creating icy patches on roads. They aren't supposed to be running sprinklers anyway, and now it borders on life threatening.

I had a lot of rose buds and open flowers that are toast. Also a lot of new growth that had come in the past few weeks. But I'm glad because now I can just cut everything down when I'm off next week for Thanksgiving.

20°F here this morning and has been for at least 4 hours.
Any non-evergreen vegetation that was missed Tuesday night, is surely toast now.
Received a shipment of bare-root plants yesterday, well packed in damp moss, that I had planned to plant today.
I will pot them, in my warm, toasty basement(60°) :o) and wait for warmer temperatures before venturing outside.
With this crazy weather, we may have a heat wave in January!