I put my pansies outside this weekend and left them there. We have snow today.... I think much of this depends on the type of plant. Pansies like colder weather. (Maybe not this cold but....) Here's soemthing I found on the Web: "Pansies, snapdragons, pinks and dusty miller are examples of spring bedding plants that tolerate cold. Most new transplants, however, don't tolerate frost. Young petunias will tolerate some frost. But impatiens and tomatoes won't tolerate any. In fact, they won't even tolerate cool weather." You may wish to investigate each plant to see how much it can take. Good luck - I, too, cannot wait to get these plants outside!

Do i have a super hardy fig ? Well today i uncover 3 of my figs to see if they where still alive,the figs where planted near the house facing south,to my surprice one of these figs is still alive,looks really good ,the other 2 are dead,the figs where cover only with some plastic,in the past i tried the same with hardy chicago an brown turkey,but they did not survive upstate ny temperatures,the fig that survived came from italy ,is the must ribbed fig i have seen,very different looking from the figs i know,ciao

Even if the branches do die back there is a good chance it will grow back from the roots. I had 5 trees die back to the ground, and all have little shoots or at least leaves or buds poking out of the ground or at the base by now. My vdb died back quite a bit also. Only one branch is begining to leaf out, but there is new growth at the base of the tree. Yes...even in zone 8.

I broke down last night and lugged a bunch of stuff in. It's sitting in a corner, bugs, dirt and all until I get around to cleaning and repotting.... Sunday should be nice for this, I hope I have enough pots! I noticed this morning that I missed a few asparagus ferns. Don't ask me why I'm taking them in, they were $1.99 or something this spring and if you look at my time and effort in overwintering, it's definately not worth it. Obviously gardening is not about the money..... at least I don't take cuttings of impatients when frost threatens! There was a time when I'd have a whole windowsill of them! hmmmmm. Now that I'm thinking about it I remembered a four foot rubber tree potted out front..... I don't know. I may have to play this carefully. With the five foot elephant ear in the kitchen (temporarily of course) and the banana that still has to come in, I think I'm skating on thin ice plant wise. The rubber tree may be the last straw. Plus the local nursery has it's 75% off-last weekend clearance tomorrow. If I end up in the dog house tommorrow I won't be able to sneak off, let alone come back with a car full of shrubs and trees I have no room for! It might be worth a frozen rubber tree. Maybe I can hide the R-tree in the garage for a week or two and sneak it in later. She would never be the wiser. hehehe (my sneaky laugh)