It is snowing today, otherwise the frosts have not been significant and long enough to make plants dormant or kill them. I think I will dig up the dahlias asap when the snow clears. :-0

We must be in totally different areas of MetroWest since we hadn't had even the hint of a frost until we got the snow Thursday night. My plants got nipped a bit during Thursdays snow, but I'm expecting anything that survived to be killed off tonight.

It has been an incredibly long, warm fall. Plants that are usually dying back or completely over by now are still going strong. I pulled out blooming annuals the day after the first snow.

But we had an inch of snow the other night and now it is snowing to beat the band here north of Boston. This has never happened in my 34 years here--can't begin to guess what effect it will have on perennials, shrubs, trees.

I don't think you have had a couple of hard freezes yet. I just checked the temperatures at Bedford and Fitchburg, and yesterday was actually the first occurrence of a temperature below 32 degrees this fall. So, it has been very warm this October, without sharp frosts at night. At my location on the south coast, I have still not had any frosts. All of my tender summer annuals, like impatients and begonias, are still blooming profusely. And many of my trees and shrubs are still green, or are just starting to change. My Crape Myrtle usually puts on spectacular fall colors by now, but it is still dark leafy green...no signs of a change.

So...clearly I don't know the difference between a frost and a freeze. My birdbath has been frozen over a couple of times -- and we had snow on the ground the day before yesterday. Isn't that cold enough to knock plants back? Apparently not....
Confused,
ML

In my experience die-back or die-off for winter is a very long process. There is no such thing as having a big frost and then cleaning up the yard for winter. I go out over weekend after weekend and take out whatever has died back. The first to go would be the more temperature sensitive annuals. Then slowly as it get colder various perennials and hardier annuals fade out. Some perennials take a long time to lose their top growth. I got a thin layer of snow Sat. night and figured it finished off most of the annuals, but was surprised to see how good they still looked on Sun. However, as I hurried out the door this morning, the very cold temperatures of last night appear to have done in the annuals that I could see.

Even for the annuals, I think it is a complex story of how cold and for how long, and even more so for the perennials.

It also may be an issue of soil temperature compared to air temperature. My copper birdbath, which is a pedestal type with the water above the ground, will freeze over long before the birdbaths sitting on the ground. I assume this is because the soil temperature is still above freezing while the air is below freezing for a short time. The birdbaths on the ground would be warmed by the soil.

The soil should take longer to cool off and since the roots of the plants are embedded in the soil they would be resistant to a short freeze in the air temperature.

Claire

I bet when the snow clears many of the plants will be dead now.