Hello Eric, hope you stay. I am another one of the senior Seniors (at least what it says on my ID), but not old enough to say building snowmen is not for old people. That honor belongs to the younger, more distinguished neighbors.

I am worried about some plants, but not excesively so. However, we'd already had a hard freeze here a couple of weeks ago that hit plants fairly hard so I didn't have much left in the ground, except lantanas, that were likely to shock. The lantanas were protected from the previous hard freeze by adjacent plants that were taller and very dense and which protected them so they still looked great, after I removed all the plants that had fallen over on top of them after that hard freeze hit them. They still had green foliage and were in full bloom until a couple of days ago. Today they look pretty bad. Our soil is heavy in clay content and doesn't drain well, so some years the lantana overwinter fine here and some years they die. I always dig up my Texas lantana, put it in a pot, and overwinter it in the unheated greenhouse, but the rest of the lantanas have to sink or swim on their own. A lot of our trees here still had green leaves as of Monday. Some still have green leaves now. A lot of those would have had nice color, but now I expect the leaves will turn brown and fall off the trees. We were just starting to see some reds in the red oaks and ornamental pears, and lots of yellows in the elms and other trees that turn yellow in fall. I think it would have been a gorgeous and colorful autumn, albeit a late one, if this big, wicked cold spell hadn't hit the trees before the color could fully develop. I still have hollyhocks, Malva zebrina 'sylvestris' and a few other plants that aren't frozen yet, but we're expected to hit the low 20s tonight, so they all may be brown and crispy tomorrow. We just lost the comfrey plants two days ago, but they are pretty cold hardy and will come back from the roots. The native grasses and forbs that still had any green or any flowers whatsoever now are wheat colored. With existing plants in your area, I think if they are several years old, y'all might not see much of a long-lasting type of damage on them, but I never like seeing plants freeze when they weren't already sliding into dormancy. Newer and younger plants always seem to have the most damage from sudden cold spells before dormancy hits. We are in a low-lying microclimate and tend to freeze before anyone around us does, since they're on higher ground, and I rarely lose any zone 7 plants at a time like that, though sometimes we lose some of the current year's growth. With any zone 8 plants that I've tried to sneak into zone 7b and grow, this is exactly the kind of sudden cold spell that kills them after they've grown well here for 2, 3 or 4 years.

Hey peppernovice, it looks like you were right....so educational here on this forum....lets hope we don't get censored and @ Robeb, i released mine in a greenhouse/hoophouse and so this is what is going on now....no less than 12 i have seen today and they even have some friends help on the battle of the aphids---do you see both? i guess i'm feeling pretty lucky today, that second critter is a Syrphid Fly, and loves aphids too time to get some real work done though it sure is nice just sitting in the greenhouse and watching the critters chow down.......it is so rewarding have a GREAT DAY folks, its off to get somwe work done texas bob

Nora, Thanks so much for your response...I feel so fortunate to have so many people respond over the past 24 hours. Your idea of a styrofoam ball with yarn is fantastic. My mom knitted and crochet her entire life...learned while in school in 7th grade and actually did it for a living while raising me and my sisters. Now, I have bags full of yarn and I've tried to encourage her, but she won't (I realize now it's probably that she can't). But, if I get the styrofoam balls, maybe, just maybe I can get her interested in winding the yarn around them. I cannot tell you how much this forum has helped me already...For 4 1/2 months, I've been so frustrated with my mom constantly refusing everything I've tried to get her to do. At times, she seems completely fine, so clear headed that I lose sight of the fact that she's losing her mind and at times have actually argued with her!!! How ridiculous! I'm beginning to realize that it's not that she doesn't WANT to do anything, it's that she CAN"T, or is AFRAID that she can't. I can't even begin to imagine what it must be like for them...what are they thinking, what are they feeling? How frightening it must be for them. These are thoughts that I torture myself with. I so want to cure her and take care of her; all I can do is be there for her and let her know that I love her and will always be here for her. Every day, when I leave the house (I go to my main office for a few hours 3 days a week) she asks me "where are you going?" and every day, I say "I'm going to the office" and she says "be careful and make sure you come home" and I walk up to her, every day, give her a big hug and a kiss and I say "I will always come home, and I will always love you." I guess that is all I can do..let her know she is loved and truly cared for and that I won't let anything awful happen to her. Now that I've rambled on so....I do have a question, if anyone is even still reading this...How do you manage caring for your mom knowing that she doesn't have a clue who you are? It must just tear you apart.One more thing Nora...nine years is a long time...how was she through the majority of those years? Was she aggitated? Did she get along with her caregivers? Did she put up a fight about bathing?...I'm done for now....thanks again...you've been more help than you can ever imagine...my heart goes out to all of you for taking the time to respond to me and caring enough to do so....