Jim, Thanks so much for the reply and the photos. Wow, yours is huge! Does yours stay in the ground year-round? Or do you dig it up and take it in for the winter? In the bottom photo, was it being freshly planted for Spring, or were you just adding goodies/amendments? Also, what is that wrapped around the trunk in the top photo? Boy, I can't wait for mine to get that big. Here's how it looks today. It's about 2 1/2 feet tall: Carol

Gee, someone gave me a beauitiful Hexastylis for Christmas, and I haven't planted it yet. Should I hold off until we have a few warmer days? Usually I plant all year unless the ground is frozen, but I am not sure where this plant has been previously. Any advice out there?

David, Fair enough. Yes, Ive seen the dustbowl, and know about "The Year Without a Summer", and I also know that the last time the earth was as warm as projected in 100 years, the forest prairie line was not near OKC down to Dallas, but much further west near Lubbock Texas. It is also thought that the over all winters were milder. Which actually gives me a big of hope so to speak. Though,hard data is lacking during that time. And FTR, I do think the current issues are partly caused by the natural cycles of NA climate. Specifically negative PDO, La Nina during a negative PDO, and unusually warm Atlantic (actually warmer than would be indicated by past climate) Have been saying that from the start. BUT hardly all of it. There was no May snow in Arkansas during the 30's. Nor did the Arctic ice melt as it is now. What's more, many of those records are now being broken. Lastly, those extremes tended to be one sided i.e. drought and heat, not lurching back and forth from one en to the other with basically no transition. I appreciate, you coming back to clarify, but I do disagree that we can't know for sure. inge, Do nothing is exactly what it sounds as though you are saying. It's thought that the Chinese lose more than 10% of their annual crop production due to reduction in sunlight intensity sunlight alone due to pollution, and that was in the 90's. Pollution has gotten far worse since then, so the number is certainly higher now. Where is there not pollution? Where do people not live and travel to and from? Some claim the atmosphere is too big to affect. If that were true why does it only weight on 14.7 pounds are sealevel? That is all the mass of the entire atmosphere above you at the very bottom of that atmosphere. Hardly an insurmountable amount The biological/climate system is only a thin skin around the earth, exactly where we live. To think that 7,000,000,000 people can't have an effect on climate contained in 14.7 pound columns of mass above them is simply ridiculous . Arktrees

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Forecasts for my area (northern Marin just south of the Sonoma county line) show lows around 28-29 degrees. That is nothing compared to December of 2013 when we had a week of night time temperatures below 27 degrees with an absolute low of 20 flat. In that respect, this looks more like a 3-5 year freeze, not a 10 year freeze. Even with those extreme temperatures all of my in-ground oranges and mandarins with at least 2 years in the ground all did fine with only mild damage. The younger trees, lemons and pummelo hybrids took some major damage with about half surviving. It should be interesting, but I'm not sweating it too much. -Brett