ED Jan 29: Looking into the back garden at house #3 Illinois - mid-1990'sWinter in Illinois meant -15°F/-26°C, shoveling snow, chopping ice and growing a garden full of dormant plants. Eleven winters in Austin have taught me to expect occasional snow, some spectacular ice storms, occasional dips to the 20's and have taught me that many marginal plants will make it through with a little help from a gardener. It's unlearning time when January .. brings the coldest temperatures in decades.
Some of the effects of the 13°F/10.5°C measured in my garden won't show up for months - some of the editing was sudden, but the garden will change and this blog will help me remember what happens.
Although the loss of perennials also means the opportunity to try new ones, I'm grateful that the deep cold barely touched the Green Bones of the garden. So far the evergreen yaupon hollies and Burford hollies, the loquats and sweet olives, live oaks and Southern wax myrtles and 'Little Gem' magnolia, the boxwoods and Mexican oreganos, the camellias and roses and abelias, the Pineapple guavas, Magnolia figo/Banana shrub, Dwarf Myrtles, Buddhist Pine/Podocarpus, Bay laurels, Gregg's salvias, cast iron plants and sturdy evergreen vines of Star Jasmine seem fine. The Carolina Jessamine vine didn't even lose its buds. 
Another cold front is on the way now, poised to banish the balmy 63°/17°C of the last weeks so the 25°F/3.8°C can return. It's time to once again cover tender plants and move others from the patio back inside the garage. But there are fewer plants to worry about this time - any lingering annuals and most of the marginal plants have bailed!
After that hard weekend some plants died immediately. A warm house wall and layers of covering couldn't save the African aloes - their gel-filled leaves felt like water balloons, collapsing when temperatures rose. 
This Aloe vera and skullcap huddled side-by-side under the layers against the wall - that was enough protection to keep the pot of Scutellaria indica 'Dorota Blue' looking fresh and green but the Aloe has collapsed.
Obviously dead was the Zone 9 Mexican flame vine, an iffy choice when it was planted on the new trellis last fall. After 15-seconds of mourning it was replaced by the Ramona clematis blooming in its holding container since ...Many plants died to the ground - there's no sign that the Duranta erecta, the cupheas, the Mexican honeysuckle, the Blue butterfly clerodendron, the tall yellow Brugmansia/Angel Trumpet or the Milkweeds/Asclepias curassavica will have enough strength to resprout from the base. I don't know how far the chill entered the ground - if it went down a few inches even normally hardy salvias and the southern bulbs like canna, calla, amaryllis, rainlilies, agapanthus or the Butterfly Gingers in the open borders may be dead. If the Amarcrinums don't live I won't be one bit philosophical about the loss!
Many plants, especially the Texas plants, have dropped leaves but the stems are flexible so they'll probably survive - defoliating now are the Texas sage/Cenizo, native wisteria and all three Barbados cherries (largest one seen above). Semi-evergreen non-natives like roses and dwarf pomegranates have dropped leaves, too and the native Silver Ponyfoot/Dichondra argentea has died back in large sheets to a few places where the silver grey leaves are alive.
The larger Meyer's Lemon tree also had special covering and and lights. It didn't look too bad at first, then the leaves started curling. Last weekend the lemon leaves turned brown and started falling. I'll cover it again tonight and turn on the lights, hoping that green stems mean the tree can recover.
Covering won't help several dead-looking palm trees or the bicolor iris or the bulbines. Just in case they're not dead I'm crossing my fingers and leaving most of those plants alone for now. The clump of bulbines above were dug out for another reason - they'd taken over a space earmarked for a pomegranate tree.
Some fall-planted cilantro didn't care about the cold but I was surprised to see that smaller bluebonnet and larkspur seedlings were missing after the freeze.
Apparently some seeds were still underground - a few bluebonnets, the larkspur above and more cilantro germinated and popped up after the freeze.
Every border, front and back, has a sprinkling of Verbena bonariensis seedlings eager to fill in blank spots.
Birds eat berries from the Wax-leafed Ligustrum in my neighbors' yards and drop the seeds here. This Asian invader wasn't bothered by a mere 13F so I've pulled hundreds of these seedlings.
The new white camellia 'Morning Glow' lost a few buds, then opened others with brown edges. The rose pink Camellia japonica never opened its buds but hasn't dropped them.
All three Sweet Olive shrubs have pushed off the frozen brown buds and popped a new set of fragrant flowers.
The Loropetalum AKA Chinese Witch Hazel AKA "Razzle Dazzle" is defying whatever weather comes next.
Ranunculus bulbs are pushing up leaves all over the garden. I grow a few every year and they look much more robust with rain and cooler temperatures than in the last couple of years.
Inside the house a Smith & Hawken Amaryllis blooms on the windowsill. This doesn't look one bit like the picture of 'Apple Blossom' on the label but it's a winner.This post, "Lose Some, Win Some ", was written for my blogspot blog called The Transplantable Rose by Annie in Austin.
Then, I got a couple of carob peanut cookies too! They are also so amazingly good - grandpeep wanted one, but the directions tell humans that my cookies are not to be consumed by them! Good! All the more for me! I am so grateful that Top Dog Bakery exists to make such great treats with such delicious and heathy ingredients - Wowzer are these cookies fabulocious!
Oooooh Wesley, my ears are simply burning and I know just where you can cool your jets!
xo Sammie
Last March, I posted about meeting Felder Rushing, and mentioned that my copy of the book was written-in, and stuffed with notes. The extra pages at the back of the book were blank when I bought the book, but were soon covered in lists of plants and people. I noted daylilies named ‘Timeless’ and ‘Charm Bracelet’ as coming from Bernice, that Sweet Autumn Clematis was given to me by Ruth, whose plant came from Sophie. The Malva moschata was from Dorothy, Iris from Lorraine, Peonies from Patty, Sweet woodruff from Sherry, orange lilies from Laverne and that the Jack in the Pulpit was passed along to me by my mother. Most of the passalong plants in our Illinois garden stayed there when we moved to Texas in 1999.
Look into the photo above and you’ll see some tall while phlox, cavorting with a white Echinacea and some Perovskia last July. The family legend says that my great-grandmother grew the phlox in Michigan in the early 1900’s. By 1924 she'd given a division to her daughter, my Grandma Anna, who took them to Chicago. Grandma passed them along to my parents in the 1950’s. Decades later, I took some of the white phlox with me to a rental townhouse, then to our first house. Another four years passed, I redivided the burgeoning clump and took some to our second house, then repeated the process and planted them in the square garden at the third house, seen below.
The journey of another plant began on April 13, 1992, when a garden club speaker in Illinois gave me wands of corkscrew willow - extra greenery from an arrangement. I managed to root one of the slender twisted branches and grew it in a whiskey barrel. The wand eventually expanded into an attractive tree, from which I rooted more cuttings, one for my son M. and a couple for my friend Barbara. We left the original tree in the whiskey barrel in Illinois, but after a while I missed it, and wanted one here. Both M. & Barbara gave me wands from their now larger trees, with no luck at first, but this piece from Barbara finally made roots in ... The young willow now grows in a big pot, placed so any drip of condensation from the roof will land in the container. Also in the container are some passalong agapanthus plants from Pam/Digging. I started writing this while waiting for a couple of passalong daylilies to bloom, but as I waited, the draft grew longer and longer, and now the daylilies need a whole post! Since I want to tell the stories of the passalong plants in our garden and the people who shared them with us – let’s call this Passalongs/Part One.
The building back there is known as the Marin County Civic Center and is actually furry famous. It was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and was his last commission and 770th! Unfortunately, however, the famed architect never saw the finished product, for he died at 92 in 1959, one year before it opened. It is a national and state-designated historical landmark and awesome to look at from both the outside and also the interior. If you'd like to see more about this place, you can visit http://www.co.marin.ca.us/depts/CU/main/flw/cctourarch.cfm. The focus of my post is not about the building per se, but about the lagoon across the street from it. I live about a mile away from here and when time is short, I usually get a couple of laps around the lake.
And there ARE a lot of great smells here at least. Here - investigating one of tons of gopher holes.
Oh boy - one of my faves - there's lots of goose and duck poo that I just can't get enough of.
Just can't help covering myself in those aromas.
And HERE is the furry place where, the day before this was taken, Mom and I and Sierra Rose and her Ma all stopped in amazement in the pouring rain as an otter appeared and seemed to beckon to us to follow it. It hung out near us, but Mom didn't have a camera. We've been back to this pond all week trying to catch sight of the elusive creature.
Here's what he/she looked like. (Thanks SeaPics!) Still hoping we can get a photo one of these days!
We don't know what this is (cormorant?), but he was applying deodorant or airing out his feathers, or something like that!
Lots of feathered creatures floating around.
No matter where I looked or directed my snooter, there was something in the air or on the ground. Here - checking out one of those tree rats!
So happy to see these pals show up again to help us catch sight of those otters!
Another of the gazillion gopher holes.
Then we have to go expend some energy, cause we're both still pretty hyper.
Okay... now we're ready to call it a day.
Except for one last thing. A thorough cool down mud bath - one of my fave spa treatments!