“Dodging the Weather Bullet”, a copyrighted post, was written for my WordPress blog called Always Growing by Jan in Covington, Louisiana
It looks like we dodged a bullet last night when it comes to the weather. After weeks of very mild weather, winter came roaring back. Temperatures were forecasted to dip to 26 for 12+ hours, but thankfully a layer of high thin clouds moved over us, so it was only 29 degrees for our low and freezing temps for about 5 hours. Not enough cold weather to do any harm to tender new growth that has started showing up.
All of the daylilies have started showing new growth, and as I was protecting other tender tropical plants, I was keeping my fingers crossed hoping this new growth wouldn’t be harmed by the freeze. After it warmed up, I went to check on things, and all the daylilies were fine – the newly emerging ones as well as the evergreen ones that have new growth.
I had just been speculating that I would not have to purchase any wax begonia this spring because last year’s was still hanging on. I thought that I had spoken too soon, but, no, all seems to have come through fine. All the new leaves are fine, so it look as if I just may be able to spend money on other plants instead of on new begonias.
Other plants that have started putting out new foliage and made it through just fine are holly ferns, cry baby tree, salvias, and even my returning coleus plant. Thank goodness for the microclimates in my garden that help so many plants make it through cold weather.
When we started having warmer weather in early January, in the back of my mind was always the scenario of a hard freeze coming after tender new growth or flowers showed up. This has happened in the past, and it is so frustrating that tender plants that made it all through the winter succumb at the last minute. Last night I was pretty worried about all this new growth, but today it looks like everything will be fine. Big sigh of relief.
Always Growing 
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