BP, So sorry to hear about your Butterfly Bush and Lupines. I'm sure you'll see them again in your gardens being the green thumb you are. :O) I'm happy with quite a few things this year. The plants which made me jump the highest were the Blue Himalayan Poppies. Looks like they perennialized and have returned for a 4rth year. Last year was their first year flowering and they were spectacular! Another happy-joy-joy moment was when I saw the Lynchis Lumina Red Shades peeking up. These were winter sown last year. They appeared to struggle in the containers all summer long, but in the fall, I took a chance and planted them. Looked pitiful! Figured they were compost, but the other day I noticed these bright burgundy/wine/red things poking out of the ground and realized that the buggers had made it. Party!!!! I'm anxious to see some second and third year perennials flower for the first time. Amsonia, Baptisia Australis, Meadowsweet and a few new-to-me Digitalis. My biggest disappointment so far has been the deers. The population is exploding on the Prospect Peninsula and there is no hunting allowed due to the proximity to homes. Usually, 40% of the herds die in the winter, but we had such a mild winter with no snow that biologists are saying there was virtually no deaths this winter... They are already coming by every night and devouring what has simply grown during the day. Not good for a gardener. And so, I am starting to discover what is deer resistant and planting LOTS of those!! :O)

Another vote for GOPHERS! Constant vigilance. Have to watch like a hawk for the first mound and trap immediately. They ate all the roots of my poor tomatoes in one day when we were away. Squirrels during fruit season. Citrus leaf miners. Our monthly mow, blow and go guys who sometimes take it upon themselves to prune. Redwood trees that drink way too much water and don't let anything grow within 20 feet of them (but look too majestic to be cut down) Hard clay soil mixed with construction debris from generations of remodeling projects. Neighbors who let their pittosporum hedge get so tall that my yard is all in shade. And then cut it down to 3 feet with no notice on the hottest day of the year so half my yard fries by evening.

This freeze has separated the hardy from the tender of the Southern Hemisphere stuff as well. I'm looking mostly at my container stock that didn't make it into the greenhouse, whose damage to their upper parts is still instructive regardless of the state of the root system. My best Callistemon by far is C. viridiflorus (that's the real C. viridiflorus, not the Youngblood Nursery mislabeled one showing up in Seattle area retail nurseries lately).... easily hardier than others including 'Woodlanders Hardy'. Corokias are all pretty much tender.... none really did that great but C. cotoneaster was the best. Cassinia x Ozothamnus is impressively hardy, as is Brachyglottis monroi, Olearia x haastii and O. paniculata. Pittosporum colensoi is my best NZ Pittosporum. Araucaria angustifolia (100+ of them) has burned leaf tips but growing points are still fine. Astelia... forget it, dead. Eucalyptus are mostly dead but I'm really impressed with a couple forms of E. rubida and E. camphora which I'm surprised to see unharmed. I'll do a full report later but I want to wait just a little bit longer so that my information will be as accurate as possible. The lowest temperature here was 13F, which was reached in both the morning and the evening of the coldest day. I'm planning a better organized eucalyptus test garden to trial some of the best provenances of the hardiest species. With good documentation this time and a more limited, deliberate selection of plants, I hope it will prove to be an instructive test. I'll probably skip E. scoparia; I just don't think it is that hardy although it continues to persist in Olympia. I hope I can get this project underway this year.

Here's what I will toss out. I did some research in Alamogordo and there was a cold snap as you can see in the first picture. The airport is maybe 5 miles from most of Alamogordo. If you go to www.wunderground.com you can view archived weather history on "view calendar forecast" on the local station's page, e.g. type in Alamogordo it allows you to see weather history. I just wanted to point out -13 F was recorded at the Alamogordo airport in early Feb. 2011 and lots of palms made it through that winter. Several days of negative degree nights and not a whole heck of a lot of recovery during the day. Most that died were Washington Robusta (Mexican fan palms) as they were seen dead all over Alamogordo, Las Cruces and El Paso. Mexican fan palms aren't a good choice in this area unless they're a Cali/Mex hybrid because the snaps in New Mexico are just too cold for them. You would be lucky if you got 20 years before they succumb to the cold. I would bet any Washington Robusta in Albuquerque would probably be toast in a few years. A better choice might be the Washington Filfera which is the California fan palm. They have been seen to survive -20 F and pretty sure they would be able to survive anything Albuquerque could throw at it. The Washington Filfera rarely get leaf full leaf burn until it drops below 13 F Very few canary island date palms seemed to have died down in southern NM which was interesting. They are proving to be almost as hardy as the California fan palms. In 1962 there was a -7 snap in El Paso and there are many date palms that are 60+ years old many planted before the snap and are still alive today. However it looks like the few Canary Island dates planted in Alamogordo made it through the winter there in a south facing exposed location in temps as low as -13 which if this is true this might be a new cold hardiness record for these palms which shows how remarkable they are. There's not a lot of information about them in this area because they haven't really caught on in popularity until recently. Most of the newer neighborhoods are stocking the canary island date palms in Las Cruces and they seem to be doing fine. The trick might be that you need to grow them from seed put them in a pot and leave them outside until about 10F then bring them into the garage on nights any colder than that, put them outside in the day when young. After they outgrow the pot in a couple of years plant them outside and your tree will be adapted and used to the cold. I think that's why some of these palms are doing ok even despite the incredibly cold snaps. Even the exposed palms seemed to have made it down in southern NM. Anyways if you check out the image of Alamogordo street view if you look carefully in the top left corner of the street view picture shows a date of 2013 which is after the big 2011 freeze. They look a little ratty as some single digit nights were recorded in 2013 as well. These palms were there before the freeze as well and I'm guessing they're almost 30 years old so they've probably seen some incredibly cold nights over the years. I wouldn't be completely sure a date palm would make it in Albuquerque long term because the snaps in Albuquerque tend to have slightly colder day time recovery, maybe with some mild winter protection like with Christmas lights (non LED type, but the incandescent type) you could have a small one tucked up against your warmest south facing wall with some black gravel rocks beneath it (which absorb heat) and a few large black rocks positioned near the palm to re-radiate heat at night to the tree in the winter you could get one to survive at least until a big freeze maybe 20 years or so. I would imagine it might just survive the cold snaps Albuquerque based on the cold snap data from Alamogordo in a good sheltered location and maybe with a small amount of protection could make it. If a crazy cold winter came up you might need to do some bagging or have a fold out greenhouse to put over it just to be safe. There is a rule of thumb in areas that are on a slope but not too high in elevation but maybe a few hundred feet above the bottom of the valley floor you might see 3-4 degrees in warmer temps on the coldest nights which is going to give you an advantage. In southern New Mexico all the palms in sheltered locations like against a south facing wall seem to get very little leaf burn during the winter despite the very cold nights at times where as the ones out in the open seem to be totally burnt which is telling me that the sheltered location makes all the difference. There are many nights that fall into the single digits every couple of years in Las Cruces and that you're possibly looking at +5-10 F degree micro-climate increase. As far as palms go in Albuquerque I would give it a go and maybe if you are aware of a super unbelievably cold night bust out a small radiator or parabola heater to direct heat at it or get some heat tap to wrap the bud and top of the tree to raise the air a couple of degrees which would likely be just enough to make it through the cold nights or another trick is depending on how your house is built put it near a south facing bathroom exhaust vent. If the vents are on the side of the house then at night just turn on your bathroom vent that blows toward the palm and that would probably help too although not as much as heat tape. This is a good video for showing the freeze damage in palms in Las Cruces which recorded a -5 night. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81fxNatT2lQ