i dont need any plant.. that cant handle a real winter ...

every loss of a foo foo piece of garbage... is an opportunity for a new one ... think about that for a minute.. lol ...

and there are a few.. that have been struggling along that i have been hoping they would die.. and i suppose.. those will survive again ... lol ....

ken

ps: dont forget.. 20+ degrees under snow cover.. if you have it ... i am expecting a few things to die down to such ..... i will think of it as rejuvenation pruning.. lol ... might lose some spring flowering shrub flowers this spring ... though i doubt the plants will die ...

I've definitely got winter kill. We aren't getting the full brunt of the "PV" but we don't have any protective snow either so it sort of evens things out. I understand that snow cannot get any colder than 32 degrees. I know what you mean by upchuck. I always feel that way in summer when we are under the HD for weeks. (heat-dome) I get real sick of hearing that term every single day.

I like Ken's approach. Survival of the fittest. If it needs constant hand holding and molly coddling, it doesn't get to grow here and I can always use a newly opened planting space to try something less sissy. Demanding spoilt brat plants get on my nerves anyway especially the ones that wilt at the first sign of distress on a regular basis because they remind me too much of people I know who get their feathers ruffled at the slightest imagined offense.

I'm wholly behind the 'thrive on neglect' school of thought when it comes to perennials, snow cover or not. I designed & planted my beds with an assortment of plants that should be hardy enough to survive whatever weather Ma Nature dishes out, spring, summer, fall or winter. I learned early on that some things have a short lifespan and don't bother with those any longer. Only those plants that are reliable season after season, decade after decade are worth the effort to plant them in my garden.

I'm most impressed with things I grew from seed via winter sowing. They've performed better and have been much more reliable than any nursery-grown specimens I've planted other than Stachys 'Helen Von Stein.' Thus far Penstemon, perennial snapdragon, Siberian iris, blanket flower, Stokes aster, turtlehead, balloon flower, St. Johns wort, butterfly bush, Maltese cross, dianthus, columbine & Shasta daisy are just a few that have returned reliably for a number of years despite some extreme weather events.

Sitting in my recliner the sofa, wrapped up in my shawl & afghan a blanket, adult beverage + interesting reading material in hand......bliss.

Kevin, would that be 'Polar Vortex' that you're talking about? Oops..sorry about that...but yes, I do share the sentiment (if not the toilet).
I like to play the zone extension game...I know many of us do. And so far, I can't think of a zone extended plant (that I expected to survive) that has bit it. Even a couple years ago when my Oklahoma home (normally 7a) went to -27F for a few hours. My sabal minor was buried in 3 foot of snow and fine...same with the needle palm.
My lantana and lycoris were fine...
It was the burford hollies that puked big time and mostly died back to the ground. Who would have guessed.

Well, I hate the PV terrm as well, but don't these forecasters always glom onto a new word or phrase with every storm of the century or "weather event" that comes along every month? At the moment I'm more taken with the idea of hanging out on my sofa with blankets and seed catalogs, lol! I'm on my way out into the PV to go to work and don't want to think about how cold it is out there! I've got a pile of seed catalogs waiting to be perused and I'm hoping to get to them soon!

No snow cover here either, (it all melted/washed away on the 50 degree day we had sandwiched between the two 8-degree days!) but I don't think we have the cold as bad as the midwest does either. Feeling pretty tropical today with projected high temp at 23 degrees. Bring on the suntan lotion!

;)
Dee

This post was edited by diggerdee on Wed, Jan 8, 14 at 10:14

I don't do a lot of 'zone pushing' so I expect most things to survive although, since we don't have very deep snowcover, there may be a lot of dieback on some things. I will be annoyed - but not surprised! - if the wisteria flowerbuds are killed. I expect the two 'trees' will survive but the flowers may not. But they may have a better chance of survival given that they are still deep in dormancy. If this cold happens again closer to spring - or after the January thaw forecast to begin in the next few days - the damage would be more extensive I think. January is my least favorite time of year!

I know, I know there's not a darned thing I can do about it and as to the garden, what happens happens. As already said, there is that nice layer of snow. To be on the safe side, I think I will be starting a lot of annuals from seed this year just in case some major holes appear that I can't afford to fill because of the upcoming heating bills. Seriously - that does concern me. There have even been a few news stories as to the affect this might have on the economy.

I think what I hated the most about the PV was all the news hype a good week before it arrived. We were having a very cold December before it happened and when the weather people started saying: "It's going to be even worse next week!", that just kind of deflated me.

Oh well, it came, it's going away - almost 1 F right now. That's a good sign. Into the 30's by the weekend with the possibility of some rain. Oh goodie! Rain in January! Guess what follows that?

Kevin

I have pushed the zone on a lot of zone 8 Texas natives. If we are lucky, we can get a few mild winters to give them time to get well established so that when something like a PV hits, there is a good root system and the worst would be they are killed back to the ground. There are so many fabulous natives coming out of Texas I will often plant a zone 8 plant and cross my fingers. Most of the time its a success.

What is more difficult in pushing is xeric plants from further west. Pushing xeric conditions is much more of a gamble. I have found a couple of native sages that will grow here, Sand Sage and Fringed Sage. I've lost some xeric plants but have been able to grow many others. Its trial and error. Our problem is inconsistency. One summer we are dry and desert like and the next we are humid and wetter, more like the South.

The plants I don't waste money on are plants needing moisture or cool conditions. If that is on the tag or packet, I move on. Many plants for zone 7 will not do well here so I steer clear of tags that have a very low cold tolerance number with zone 7 as the upper limit on the other end. Summer is by far the greater challenge in survival here.

I don't mind short lived perennials. I usually get enough volunteers to keep them naturalized. I think of them in the same way as biennials. I don't mess with short lived hybrids though for that very reason, no seeds and often they aren't good pollinators. Some hybrids are welcome here but others definitely not. It depends on the "improvement".

Thank you for the PV decryption, dbarron. I, for one, did not know. And google wasn't much help.

Of course, where I live it is 65 degrees and shorts weather today....

I am in zone 4 MN and we have about 26" of snow cover. The coldest temp so far has been -28F with an average of about -14 for the last five days or so.

Though not worried a bit about the perennials--actually I suffer more losses in mild winters--I am worried about borderline hardy trees due to the length of the cold snap, as well as the flower buds on rhodies and magnolias and other woody plants.

Poop on the plants, I'm worried about my house. Heavy rains predicted this weekend -- underground sump discharge lines are frozen I assume and buried in over a foot of snow = FLOODED CRAWL SPACE if they don't thaw out by the time the rains hit. Plus, I have a sunken patio attached to a walk-out lower level living space = FLOODED FAMILY ROOM if the melting snow/rain can't exit that (presumably frozen and snow-buried) drain. Oh man...

mxk - That's terrible! I hope it works out for you. Water damage is so, so expensive.

I was so paranoid about pipes freezing (had it happen once), I kept the water shut off for most of the time since Saturday. Not fun, but it seems to be over now.

Kevin

mxk, we had our roof freeze in December stopping up the drain holes. Water came pouring in and filled up kitchen sized trash cans twice and we had to climb up two stories in the wind and freezing cold to clear them out. I hear you on the water damage. Your pipes sound even worse. The rest of the world was singing "White Christmas" happily all cozied in it seemed like. I get to do a lot of mud and taping coming up.

I can definitely relate. We had that bad 30 minute knee deep hail storm a couple years back then here came the heavy rain a week later. We got so much water coming in so many areas of the house it was beyond ridiculous, like hell on earth and we ran out of buckets, all this at 3:00 am. I was mopping non stop trying to protect the floors fearing for the house, I thought we'd died and gone to hell. We filed a claim, hopefully you can do that too.

I don't have any damage yet, nothing burst at home (but pipe did burst at work in the back hall, fortunately not in my office). I should be able to leave work at a reasonable hour tomorrow (?), I'm thinking a good idea would be to shovel the patio -- not easy work since it's below grade (but definitely a good workout!), but if I could manage to get that cleared then all that melting snow wouldn't melt into the family room, and it would clear the drain to allow that to thaw. DH shoveled a bit of it by the door, but it's best to get it all out of there.

Nothing I can do about the sump line. Nothing of value in the crawl - that's flooded before, a PITA but not damaging (floor is dirt covered with plastic sheeting, the water just gets absorbed), can do the bucket line with DH if have to.

Greatplains - that sounds awful! Are you going to have to have the roof replaced?

mxk, I hope you can get through it without major damage.

No on needing a new roof, we got a new one + decking after the hail storm. I'm used to fixing sheetrock and thats what is needed. I've done so much I should be considered a pro by now and could do it for a living. What we have is a flat roof house in Oklahoma. This says it all. There is a parapet around the edge, you know, like a nice little bowl on the roof with sides about 2 ft deep. In the parapet (on the north side no less) are 4 drain holes about 5" in diameter. We are the only people on the block who have to shovel our roof in a heavy snow and rake it in fall, thats part of our gripe about trees in the neighbors yards since their leaves end up stuck on our roof, especially that blasted pin oak that drops leaves all winter.

wow, mxk, I hope you come through the impending rains okay - and dry!

Great Plains, sounds like a nightmare. Hope you have success with your claim.

Dee

diggerdee, It is a nightmare.

This post was edited by GreatPlains1 on Fri, Jan 10, 14 at 17:39

Well, looks like I dodged a bullet. It did rain, but not the heavy rains that were predicted. So, the snow is slowly melting and the drains are seemingly handling well - no flooding. Whew!

So while everyone in my neck of the woods is searching high and low for sold out ice salt I am stocking up on potting soil! (It was $2 off per bag at HD this weekend).