Sounds like a great house and I’m also happy to hear your greenhouse is holding steady in such awful temps.

Lol Laura you had to ask . It's been brutally cold here highs of -4 F and low's of -20 F . Another week of this to come and it's going to get even colder on the New Years weekend . I had to add another heater so I have 4 going now $$$$$ but my tree's are well worth it . You should see the ice on the inside door of the GH and the inside metal framing definitely something out of a movie .

Brian

Oh my Brian. I shudder to think of what your electric bill will be this month! Take pics for us. I love to see your jungle and with ice like that must be beautiful!

My green(room) is doing extremely well, more growth, more flowers which i would not prefer , maybe sometimes in February.

Will do Laura I have to go in there and water this weekend .

Brian

Brian, same here! Please take pics of the ice before you go in and then after you go in..Please. It will remind me of the Wizard Of Oz before Dorothy opened her door to color before entering Oz..lol

Laura, mines is doing ok. Thank God for the Solar Cover! I find that whet ever temps it is outside with one space heater it is 10 to 20 degrees above the outside temp. With two it is almost 40 above the outside temp. With 3 space heaters it's almost 60 degrees above the outside temp.

My Stick Alert warned me 5 times since 5p.m while I was out that the temps dropped in there below 50. I was not able to get home until 9 p.m. By the time I got home it was 44 degrees in there telling me it was almost 0 out. I had to put the third space heater on$$$$$ and the temp rose to 60 before ten o'clock thank God.

It's been very frustrating and very expensive this winter to keep it warm in there but worth it. My bill last month was over 260 dollars using over 1600 Kilowatts and that was in November before all this Arctic air moved in. I hate to think what it's going to be next month. Therefore no more eating out or buying cloths until this winter is over.

How much I appreciate when it's in the 30's now since only one space heater is needed from there on.

Humidity is very high in there at all times since I spray everything in there with water for moisture early in the a.m. Almost always at 75 or higher % even when the humidity or dew point is below 0 here.

Thank you for asking us

Mike))

I had to shut mine down last night. I lost a few plants. Lucky they weren't citrus. Those are some though buggers. It sat at 28-29 F all night. I turned the thermometer around so I wouldn't know what it got down to but I saw the next morning.

Matt, did you shut down your greenhouse and if so, why?

yES I did. It was just too cold out for the heater to keep up with. I will move things back in when it warms up in Jan.

Hi Laura, the temps are crazy!! What do you keep your sunroom at?

Matt this fall I get my trees outside but covered down to 23 F and they all did fine except for some new growth tip freezing. I think your trees will make it!

I HATE this freakin' cold with a passion! I have all my Citrus, cycads, and hardier palms (dates, Butias, Washingtonias, Sabals, etc.) in my detached, garage/greenhouse. It would be even worse if we didn't have all this strong, crystal-clear arctic sunshine from sunrise to sunset..., so could be even worse but enough is enough already! We seem stuck in this arctic cold, DRY, airmass though. New Year's Eve could be a all time record at 7 above.

P.S., Please don't tell me you are bottoming out at -45 F and to man up, or conversely, dropping to 59.F and how miserable it is to venture out or question if life will be able to survive in the aftermath (temps are relative and it's all a question of our personal comfort and experience). Bitter cold for me is the TEENS; anything lower is obscene!

Haha yes it is all relative of course... in keeping with the spirit of the coming new year I am practicing mindfulness.... and trying to enjoy being in the moment. The more unpleasant the weather is now will help me remind myself to savour the spring/summer all the more! ;)

Hot toddies anyone????

Mikey I will take pictures. I've never seen ice in there like this before . When I walk in there it looks like one giant freezer . On a positive the temperature has been hanging on around 50 F . Your right Mikey its going to cost big $$$$ now but who knows the temperature might go way above normal in a few weeks and equal things out let' hope . Stay warm my friend.

Hobby I was checking out your weather thats ridiculous lol and I thought that my - 26 F was horrid. Love your positive spin on life we should all practice that especially the beverages part .

Matt so sorry to hear about your plants , winter stinks .

Brian

Brian, my electric bill for November was over 260 dollars and if it were not for my father being disabled and getting a discount on my bill, it would of been over 360!!!It scares me that only two space heaters would drive my costs up from an average of 100 to that! Now with three going because of this most unusual weather, whether, who knows? My goodness, I pray it warms up. When it was mild the past few winters, in fact ever since my greenhouse has been up, I have never gone over 250 in the coldest month of winter. This is crazy. I almost feel like shutting the heaters off and closing down the greenhouse, and yet I fight it because I would go crazy without one and my orchids..Ugh. Hugs buddy. I can't wait to see the pics you take. Remember , take them before you go in, then as you enter. Can;'t wait for the shocking experience..Give Sugar a hug for me will you? Much love buddy!

Hobby, I suppose that if it ever went into the 20's, that would seem like a heat wave to you at this point. My heart bleeds for you. Good luck and keep us updated please..

Jurassic, I am with you!! Anything colder than 32 is brutal for me. I can't stand it! I am about ready to look for a home way south, like beyond the unusual deep freezes going on in the deep south even! Look at what poor Bob is going through. It's crazy and sick. How are your plants holding up? how about your electric bill trying to keep things warm in there?

Matt, Ia sorry to hear about your plants too...((Matt, what did you have to close yours down? Was it cost? Would you be able to use two space heaters at the same time? I hate to do it but I have to or I would have to close mines down too(

Laura, how are your temps for the next few days? We thought it was cold this past weekend, they are sayng even colder next week. Like -10! We have NEVER had temps this cold or for so long. It's crazy. The worst thing that could happen is too warm up again then get this again. I'd loose all my dormant plants. I can se it coming. This weather has been like a sea saw, just crazy!

Mike

Laura, the greenhouse is doing ok so far but I need to get out there and seal up the vents, but it is icy out there and I am afraid to go up on the ladder. Before this cold spell the temperature was fluctuating so widely that if I bubble wrapped the vents it would get too warm in there on the hot sunny days so I took it down and am now I'm sorry I did. I am wasting so much heat.

My front porch is another thing. It is not insulated at all and is very drafty but I do not want to bubblewrap it as it is in the front of the house. It is also on the north side so it doesn't get any sunshine to warm it up during the day. I have a lot of nice plants out there that are tolerant of lowish temperatures and low light conditions, but no place left to bring them inside the house (nor the energy to move the large ones) during this cold spell. They are more cold hardy than my other plants, but 45-50 °F is more their range. When the outside temperature dropped to 9°F last night and looked like it would drop further the temperature out there was falling to the low 30s. I opened my front door to the house for a while and got the temperature up to the mid-higher 30s, but I will not be able to keep doing that as my gas and electric bill is already high with the greenhouse and all the lights in the basement. The little heater I have out there is not able to keep up with this cold. I am afraid to add a second one there as I don't want to start tripping my breakers. The temperatures are even forecast to get worse for more than a week and daytime temperatures will remain below freezing, barely making it into the low 20s most days and several below that. I don't know how others in much colder regions can bear the cold and even have to deal with piles of snow. My Zone was recently moved from Zone 6 to 7, but I think they will be moving us back to 6 again as the last few winters have had such cold temperatures for long periods. Hopeful there are no electric outages and the greenhouse gas heaters and their thermostats don't have any problems. The thermostats have given me problems some years and shut down the gas pilots and a couple times even froze before I could correct the problem. Fortunately those Temp Sticks Vladimir found work pretty well, but sometimes they loose the signal at my house during really cold spells. I'm not really sure why that is, but I keep watch over that. I lost the signal for a few days a few weeks ago. I also have a remote monitor in my kitchen that I watch closely. Good luck everyone whose trees and plants are threatened with this unusual or not so unusual cold spell.

Cory

The weather man was talking about this in the beginning of December, but I guess it came little later in the month:

First off, Matt, I’m so sorry that you had to shut yours down and lost a few trees. That is tough. I am glad that in spite of the cold you guys’ greenhouses are holding up. Cory - be careful!! Mike - hang in there! I love my orchids too. Jurásico, I am with you...I grew up in Cuba and Miami...this weather is rough for me! Hobby - I was just making a mental calculation of how much longer I have to go before they can go back out. I guess that is not living in the moment...lol! I try to do that too. Today I did my “fun” cooking...made yogurt with my girls, and then experimented making marmalade with nagami kumquats and sunquats. I made two batches so we can try the different flavors. I will post about that tomorrow. My family I think was split on which they liked best. Sunshine...let’s hope that graphic improves with a warm front! Temps around here are nowhere near what many of you are seeing, but still cold for us. I think in a couple of days we will see a low of 13, which is very low for us, though not unheard of. I worry about my figs and the pomegranate I have planted in the ground. If the figs die back, they will grow back, but the pomegranate is another story. We shall see. Stay warm you guys and keep those greenhouses tight!

Cory, I don't trust the Temp Stick because it loses its WiFi connection once in too often. I understand that is due to interference from sources such as neighbor's wifi and other sources so I got this FreezeAlarm: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000071NYC/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It does not rely on wifi and makes a phone call to any of a number of phones when temps go above or below setpoints set by the user. The other advantage to this system is that I can sleep through a text message sent by the Temp Stick but not through a phone call sent to my house phone or cell phone by the FreezeAlarm. Also, every time the Temp Stick loses wifi connectivity, I have to replace the lithium battery (which gets expensive) and have to reset it which is a nuisance.

Vladimir, I used that Freeze Alarm for years and liked it very much until Verizon shut off my phone landline and would not give me back my phone line I had for over 50 years. They raised my internet service 3 times what I had been paying so I decided to terminate my internet service but didn't realize that also meant they would shut down my landline phone too which powered my Freeze alarm. I don't have a TV and only use the internet lightly for email and to read the citrus forums, so I could not justify such a high cost for internet service. They shut everything off within minutes of my call instead of waiting until the end of my billing month and would not reinstate my phone number and land line even though I called within minutes when I realized what happened. They say they gave it to someone else immediately, which sounded strange to me. I had quite a time as my printer and other devices would not operate either and I am not that computer savvy to hook up everything again. I do miss my Freeze alarm and wish they came out with a system that works off of WiFi or a cellphone. Thanks for the information though. Maybe it will help someone else too.

Cory

Thankfully they were duplicated plants :)

This is the last picture from christmas 4pm

It's still been 48-50F daytime highs for the past 2 days

My 350 watt heater has kept my outdoor New Zealand lemonade tree alive. Picture taken through 4 layers of ex- sliding glass doors.

Cory, wow, what a story, the big corporations are greedy and could care less about consumers, I am thinking about terminating my services with my internet provider also, it is time for me to not vote for greed with my hard earned money, time to cut them off! Canada has one of the most expensive Internet services in the world. Sorry guys, it was off-topic :)

I switched to comwave and so far I'm satisfied. You should look into it. It's time to fight back against big phone and cable companies lol.

Next lows starting tonight/morning 5F, 2F, -2F, 6F, 4F, 3F, and 0F.

Cory I wished I lived close to you to give you a hand with all that lifting. I feel so bad for you and unfortunately it's just going to get colder and colder. It's to bad you don't have a propane heater or kerosene heater that you could place on your porch for a couple of hours just to get the temperature up a bit . We are all going to be paying through the nose with everything in 2018 as sunshine mentioned greed and all the excuses they make for taking more of our hard earned money hilarious . Take care of yourself Cory.

Steve I really hope that your outdoor tree makes it through this cold wave . The length of this cold wave weeks and weeks is incredible never seen anything like that even up here before .

Hello Mikey just finished watering and it wasn't that bad in there I was shocked most of the ice had melted . The sun was out so the temperature rose to 67 F very comfy. Hope that your GH stayed warm last night . Here are a couple of pics.

Brian

Oh my, Brian, that is one thick layer of ice right there! The trees must be terrified by the look of it :))

At least ice acts as a insulator

Wow Brian! Incredible to have so much ice in there like that! Looks like your plants are toasty warm though. Great!

Sunshine , Ike and Laura even though it looks like a frozen meat locker in there lol the tree's look very happy and content . One more full week of this intense cold then a lot milder Yippee.

Brian

My wife read in our news paper that a developer is going to integrate a citrus green house in the design of his building.

That would be very practical for all of us here . Sounds like a great idea Steve .

Brian

Great set up Jinny! Looks like a nice spot to putter around and escape the winter for a while.

Thanks Hobby! This is the first winter down in the gh for the citrus. We still have a few tweaks and adjustments to make as we go along. Still pretty rustic..Just wanted to get it finished enough before the weather turned cold..More to do in the spring. :)

PS: Matt and Cory, so sorry for what you each went through. That sucks! :(

That’s a great setup Jinny. I’m glad you caught those cold ones in time and that they did not suffer. You have a lot of space there. Great to move around. I can barely get around in my sunroom. I literally have to crawl to water some trees....lol!

Love your setup Jinnylea looks so cozy in there !!!!where is the ice lol ? Jinnylea my greenhouse was in the very low forties for a couple of day's with no damage to my trees although I wouldn't want it to stay at that temperature for two weeks solid so I added the 4th heater. Jinnylea these temperature's are great for finding where the cold air is entering just follow the steam escaping on the outside of the GH . Happy New Year's to you and your family.

Brian

Thanks, Laura! Hey, I can emphasize with you on the tight spaces in the sunroom. Mine was like that last year although I do believe you have more plants in yours this year.. lol Good thing you are limber! You get a good yoga workout that is for sure!! :)

Thank you, Brian! Hey we had ice and snow on the outside of the pool cover! Lol. Brian, holly cow, that is a lot of ice on your door! My door sticks a bit when it gets below 0 but nothing like yours! Ouch! Four heaters should keep everything cozy in your gh. Do you run all of them at the same time when it gets below 0?

that space looks wonderful, and so tidy/organized. Mine are just stuffed wherever I can find space.

Hi Jinnylea funny with all the ice it's not that hard to get in . I was having lot's of problems with the bottom of the door sticking to the cement , fixed that with salt . Jinnylea when the temperature is subzero I run all 4 . Last year I got away with only running two most of the winter . I hope we can get back to having normal winter. I hope that it's not a huge problem getting the snow and ice of your pool cover. 12 more weeks Jinnylea!!!

Brian

Wow jinnylea - glad to finally see a pic of all your hard work! I know you had been talking about your underground gh and trying to get it completed and functional before the temps dropped. Pat yourself on the back 'cause you did it! And you do know the enablers here will make sure you fill it up next year. lol

Still alive grafted NZL in ground outside behind glass.

Thanks guys! Hibiscus and Jenny, I had just rearranged the benches and trees to make the space look more open. It was a relief just to get the gh enclosed in time before the big chill and we were so tired that we just put the benches in for the citrus, hung lights above them and that was enough at the time. Christmas is over and now that I have more of a feel for the space, room, light and heat wise, I can shift things around.. I did not want to put all of the citrus trees down in the gh at once until I knew the temperature was stable and I had enough hookups for lights , so I still have a few trees upstairs in my sunroom. The trees will get bigger and need repotting into larger pots eventually and I still have close to 20 small citrus tree liners of various varieties and also seedlings. As they grow they will take up more space so I need to be careful of all the enabling that goes on around here.. lol.. I really only want 2 or three more trees and hopefully I can remain strong and resist the urge to aquire more and more.. lol..

Brian, only 12 more weeks of winter? Lol.. I am looking forward to ordering and starting my garden seeds. I have been getting lots of garden catalogs in the mail and have not had the time to look at them. I planted a lot of daffodil bulbs in the fall and have 2 new grandbabies arriving in 2018. Have a lot to look forward too. :)

Looking good, Steve!

Jinnylea lol the enabling runs rampant here that's for sure . Your Greenhouse is so beautiful and roomy have you found the time to sit with a coffee and relax in there ? Your going to love that space for starting your spring flowers and vegetables which is not that far down the road. Great timing on the completion of your GH you guy's couldn't have timed it any better!!!! A big congratulation on the 2 new grand babies sounds like a very exciting new year headed your way .

Steve looking good. Great job keeping the temperature above freezing, do you have a small heater in there ?

Brian

Just for you, Brian! :) It is chilly out, but sunny and beautiful! I carved out a few moments for myself. ♡ First time that I actually sat in the gh, 71F, relaxed and enjoyed the surroundings :)

Happy New Year to all of you! ♡

Beautiful Jinnylea now that's a picture I am sure that you enjoyed every moment . Imagine 71 wonderful degrees in the middle of winter that's warmer than the poor folks have it in Florida right now . I love sitting in my Greenhouse having a coffee and just soaking up the aroma and beauty of the my tree's so therapeutic. We just finished a feast of Chinese food was so good . Jinnylea I wish you and your family a great 2018 . Happy New Year's Jinnylea!!!!

Brian

going down to -5 F tonight. completely sealed in the bottom 34 inches of my 68 inch enclosure. Will be covering the top when the sun hits the hillside. There will be 3 side of R-4 exposers of 6 square feet each all other surfaces will be at least R15 to R40. A 75 watt halogen bulb keeps the enclosure warm. The tree is not visible through the bubble wrap so I can not tell if it is Ok.

New Zealand lemonade shelter below

Jinny, Brian, Steve and everyone else, Happy New Year! Was sick, ugh

I wanted to say everyone is doing ok and it makes me happy. Brian I broke a hinge on the door of my greenhouse trying to break 'ice' away. So aggravating this stupid cold and even worse at the end of this week I am hearing! I would love to see what everyone's electric bill will be.

Brian, I love the entrance from terrible ice to beautiful inside. I think of you often when it gets this cold because I know it must be colder where you are.

good luck to everyone and those that should be able to keep their trees planted in the ground without fear of hard freezes, like John. My goodness, that is just horrible. I hear it's even very cold all the way down to Mexico, a tropical area..Not right.

So much for the 'greenhouse effect'. But climate change is another story.

Good luck to all my friends here, please let us know how you pull through this coming weekend..They are saying a HUGE snow storm here on the East coast, then temps in the single digits with strong winds windchills 25 below by Saturday night!

OMG Mikey that stinks break out the crazy glue. I can't imagine the panic you went through I hope that it is all fixed . Mikey buddy I will tell you what I did on the weekend I placed one of the heaters near the entrance and no more ice problems on the inside of my GH doors you might want to try . Mikey I heard that there is a blizzard headed your way with maybe hurricane force winds stay safe buddy . Big cold this weekend -22 F without the wind I guess that is what is going to fuel this monster storm .

Take care Mikey

Brian

Brian buddy, thank you! I needed that. It's been a bad day here all around and I needed a pick me upper. I will try that. I will see if I can get that piece soon. Believe it or not, I was finally able to shut off my third space heater thank God!! They say it costs 25 vents an hours to run one space heater an hour, imagine three? Translate that into cash I've spent by months end. I am afraid to think of it. I am getting the feeling my electric bill is going to be over 300 dollars next month! No going out to eat fro me or new cloths. No E-bay either.

Take good care buddy and hugs. I am exhausted and going to bed. Give Sugar a hug for em too))