We have had another string of multiple days well below freezing after dark, but today we finally reached back into the 50s (the mid-70s of last Friday seem so long ago) and I went out to removed the frost cloth and pots covering some of the more sensitive plants. I decided to do an update while I was out in the garden:
Aloe vera
It continues to die. The central pieces that were alive after the first freeze are gone now, with only a few suckers off to the sides still plump. The rest feel like unfrozen Fla-vor-ice popsicle sleeves. I’ll leave it to see what happens …
Bulbine frutescens
The orange bulbine withstood the first test, but it is now a mangled mess of mush (ohh, tongue twisters!). I wonder if the roots will pull this one through the winter?
Mammillaria nejapensis
On Christmas day, it looked like this. No wonder it is so damaged. This is one that I’m testing a fair amount below its natural range, so we will see how it fairs.
Mammillaria hahniana
The M. hahniana is fairing much better than its neighbor with only minimal damage to a few tubercles. The flowers that recently emerged show little to no progress.
Opuntia microdasys montrose
The crazy bunny looks, well, crazy: pieces are broken, rotted, or dangling, but it has been in the garden three winters and knows how to bounce back in the spring.
Opuntia basilaris ‘Baby Rita’
More pieces have fallen off the Baby Rita, but the pads still look quite fleshy. I saw this one at the Dallas Arboretum, so I assumed they keep it out year round. It was getting too big for its location anyway!
Coryphantha vivipara
These beehive cacti, as they would say in their native West Texas, have “hunkered down” for the winter. I can’t wait until they are blooming again.
Ferocactus latispinus
The Devil’s tongue barrel has actually greatly improved in appearance since this summer - finally growing out of some earlier scarring. It is nearly as deep a green as when I bought it in 2011.
Opuntia ‘Mesa Melon’
This cold hardy prickly pear is looking pretty wimpy right now in its first winter outdoors. Hopefully a cold winter will encourage quicker growth in the spring.
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Danger Garden’s post has me thinking about the advantages of living through winter in the garden, so I’ll close this one with a quote from American painter Andrew Wyeth:
I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape - the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn’t show.
