Elaine, do you have any clothespins handy? Binder clips? Or anything of that nature to keep your covers down?

Yep, used up a whole box of bulldog clips, Cheryl. Sure wish I had stocked up on some more, but I can get them tomorrow.

good news is we didn't get AS cold as they predicted here. It's 32 right now, so hopefully won't drop too much more. Greenhouse # 1 hit 45º, Greenhouse #2 stayed a toasty 58º, more tender plants are in there. Gonna hate seeing the electric bill ....
Elaine we keep the bull dog clips also, and especially if there is a lot of wind like we are getting with this it is a must. The wind does help keep frost from settling tho !

Our high today is supposed to be 45º , I'll only be outside enough to feed the horses, check the plants !!

Of course this is the week we are away on vacation. I covered as best I could Sat AM before we left. I know I'll lose the buds on the hibiscus and the tips will be nipped, but think it stayed warm enough that the base/roots of the plants will be fine. Heat retained in the brick house will also help. I covered the lettuce bed & upended old trash cans over the more tender plants.

Whew! Round 1 and still standing! I was up at 4am and GH #1 was 46 and GH #2 still holding strong at 50! Like MJ said, probably going to have an epic electric bill for January.

Ready for Round 2!

Everyone else do ok?

No frozen pipes that I know of. Both of my GH's stayed above 50F and everything there looks fine. One more morning in the mid to upper teens and then the following morning is supposed to (only) get down to 27F, and then a week of above freezing lows.

Nearly 11 am, and the temp has risen to a 'balmy' 28F…I think it's going to struggle to reach the predicted high today of 41F. And wouldn't you know it…They just dropped the prediction to 39F. Think it's still going to struggle to see that!

It's 22° here at quarter past 11am! The high predicted here is 31° and I don't think we'll make it to that. Both GH's are in the 60's. At least the wind has calmed down!

Very sunny here, but still too raw to be outside for any length of time. Brr.

No cold trauma that I've seen - but time will tell. Even the clero's didn't drop any leaves as yet. I lost a few small branches of the brugs from the frost covers thrashing in the wind. Not bad at all.

Tonight may be worse for us here - if the wind dies and the sky stays clear that may let the cold air settle. Arg,.

At 1:40 in the afternoon here and it's still only 42º outside! We were predicted to drop to 27º last night but thankfully it never got quite that cold! I moved my orchids inside but all other container plants are on the decks and screened porch, covered with blankets. I took all the hanging baskets out of the trees and from along the eaves on the side of the house and sat them down beside some shrubbery (out of the wind) and covered them with blankets and old comforters as well. Geesh, this is too early for such cold weather; I sure hope it's not a sign of things to come.

It's 22 here, mid-afternoon. I think that's a record low-high, darn near the record low-low. This house isn't built for this, under foot is carpet, plywood, then outside. It's about 40 degrees on the floor.

I'm thinking it's going to get colder here tonight than predicted. Clear skies, windy...argghhh, off to feed the horses and check their blankets, then turn up the heat in the greenhouse, sun helped alot today so I could at least turn them off for a bit, but want to get them "preheating" for tonight...
Stay warm everyone !!
Tomorrows a turning point for the better here...YEAH !!!!

We have some cloud cover that saved our bums last night "only" getting down to 21º instead of the teens like it could have been. The clouds should help keep us above freezing tonight, I hope? I opened the garage so that the plants could get some sunshine today. It was 52º inside. Within moments the sun warmed it up to 62º. I worked outside on the malfunctioning electronic gate and the hanging mailbox door for just over an hour. Then the sun began to set and I got cold. Fortunately, my work was done.. I looked at the temp in the garage and it had dropped to 52º again. So as of now the garage door is closed and the heater is blowing again in the garage. This reminds me of how much I dislike winter. Is it too early to hope for an early spring??

I'm ready for round 2 .. checked both heating systems in the greenhouse to make sure they are working. One more night! It's actually suppose to be in the 70's this weekend! and the weather guy seemed to hint that the last two days may not be an isolated occurrence. Hope I misunderstood him!

drdawg said:For those of you in the path of this brutal arctic blast of cold air, keep in mind that IF you are storing your tropical plants in an unheated garage or attic, you may lose most if not all of your plants. Three years ago, I lost dozens of plumeria stored in the garage and attic (placed on top of heating ducts!) when we had similar temperatures over a two-day period. Your garage and attic will get down to about the same temperature as that outside.

Have you considered that you may have cooked your plants on the heating ducts?

It get a lot cooler here than there, and I feel pretty confident that would happen to my plants if I tryied it!

Nope. Those ducts are well insulated, in fact too well insulated. There was not enough warmth to prevent their freezing. Just another failed idea of mine.

Well the cold zapped my last hanging basket that was still looking nice even though I put it in the shed. The patches of ferns (Boston?) that survived over last winter may not still be with us, except a few against a wall. I wonder if they can grow back from dropped spores or if the spores are also so tender? Luckily, the 1,000 or so Lycoris bulbs I'd just excavated survived in the shed, still trying to get them all planted. Mini garden suffered some losses (expected) but many plants still look alive, so that's incredibly awesome. Anything 'marginal' here about being deciduous lost its' foliage, unlike many winters when many same entities remain evergreen. The good news is that a lot of marginally hardy weeds that had survived last winter should now be killed. Reduced insect populations, at least at first this spring.

A lot of my plants are in a room that we closed off for the 2 really cold nights, got down to 47 in there the 2nd night. If that upset any of the plants, it's not yet apparent.

I'm think it's mentally easier to outdoor-garden up north, where winter is coming for sure, and your zone never 'fluctuates.' Sure you might have an unusually warm spell a few times, but stuff that's supposed to die does so reliably. No wasted hope. I never spent a second of time doing any hullabaloo to prepare for winter in OH except to rake leaves onto beds, bring house plants back inside, and excavate tender bulbs for dormant storage in basement. Then you stay inside for at least 4 months, not pulling a single weed, mowing, deadheading, raking, enlarging beds, pruning, moving plants around. (Except mowing, all stuff that's happened here so far this year, though the deadheading was for a Hydrangea that was in full bloom when it got zapped.) But I never was a fan of having nothing to do, I love it here, even though there's weeds to be pulled in January.

Yup, pouring rain here right now and they we'll be down to freezing tomorrow night. Hoping the sun comes out tomorrow to dry things off a bit first.

Plumbago indica ( Red Plumbago) blooming happily along here....it's get's a blankie

Rain here too with hard freeze tonight!

@purpleinopp - I'm with you on the Northern thing. Orig fm West PA & then in MD for many years. Everything died back at 1st frost & in Spring it started coming back. This up & down temps & covering & uncovering is a lot of busy work.
After the BIG freeze last week, I have a lot less to worry about this week!!!!!