Thursday, November 25, 2010

A Thanksgiving First Freeze?

Will it freeze for the first time in Austin tonight? It might. There is a cold north wind blowing right now. It was warm and humid this morning, but it is cold and windy outside this afternoon!

If it freezes, it is gonna ruin the redbud's early blooming plan. Silly tree is confused!:



An indictator in my garden that it will likely freeze in the next couple of days, the aloe vera is blooming:



Every year the aloe sends up bloom stalks just to have them freeze just before they bloom:



Looks like it is gonna happen again. My other frost tender plants need not fret this year, because I got them a toasty little home. A pop-up greenhouse:



I put a heat lamp in there to keep it above freezing and I cracked one of the windows to let some of the humidity out. I'm not losing my potted palm this year!

Another plus, is that the greenhouse helps to shelter the new flowering senna that is planted in the corner to the right of it (Ignore the sandbox. I moved it since the greenhouse is occupying its usual spot right now):



I lost my big beautiful senna last year during the hard winter we had:



It was a bit heartbreaking, but I take it in stride. It's all part of gardening; sometimes things die. Here are its remains:



The corner of the garden looks empty without it, but they grow fairly quickly, so hopefully next year I will have a beautiful senna to fill the corner once again.

1 comment:

Rock rose said...

How did the plants in your lovely little greenhouse get on during that freeze? We had to remove a senna or two this year but there are seedlings galore growing all over the garden. Let me know if you want any. I didn't cover my sagos but I figure if they survived last winter then they should be OK to go it alone. They didn't look pretty but they look as good as ever now. Or did. I forgot to take a look at them!