Freeze of '09---Part I

Well---hopefully, by the time you read this, our weather is supposed to begin to warm up!!!! Yeah-Diddly!!!! Hopefully, when all is said and done, our Spring Freeze hasn't been nearly as bad as the one in '07 (that I blogged about a few days ago). The temperatures haven't been nearly as low, and not as low for as long a period of time. AND we had snow ---and not FROST (which is much worse). We were planning for the worst and preparing the best way we could.

SO--during the day on Monday (with snow already beginning to blow around, and with temps in the mid-30's), we brought all of the potted plants and hanging baskets into the garage --and some into the house. George has 46 rose bushes (32 in the ground and 14 in big pots that we put along our driveway). I have 9 hanging baskets plus about 10 more potted plants. SO---you can imagine how much work we had ahead of us.. (You wanna come today and help us put them ALL back out????? HA)

After that, I took some small pots and covered all of my little Hostas --which are just beginning to grow... I'm sure the cold temperatures would have killed them since they were just popping up. After that, George covered all 32 roses....

We had flurries all day Monday---and woke up yesterday with about half an inch of wet snow on the ground. Snow really doesn't hurt flowers, but this heavy snow did bend some of them down. The flurries and temperatures in the 30's stayed with us all day yesterday--until late afternoon, when the skies finally cleared.

We're not out of the woods yet --- but TODAY should begin to look like Spring again. (We hope!) I have several pictures to share ---but want to put them in TWO different posts. Above is a picture of the plants that I keep on the deck and out back. I found a spot for them in the dining room area of our Great Room. Below are more.







These are some of my plants and hanging baskets. I put them on one side of the garage. NOTE the firewood stacked up in the garage---all DRY and ready to burn. We have had a fire in the fireplace for TWO straight days.





On the other side of the garage are all 14 of the Roses planted in pots. See how nicely some of them are growing. We hope to have roses blooming in May!!!! Yeah Rah!









There are 22 Roses planted in this bed--on the right side of the driveway looking toward the street. These are growing nicely also--so I hope that the freeze did no damage to these vulnerable bushes.







Looking at the same flowerbed ---all covered up!!!!!



The same Rose bed after the snow; Taken on Tuesday morning!







We took this picture of the lamppost flowerbed ---on Monday afternoon.







The same flowerbed early Tuesday morning; That ole' wet snow really bent the Daff's down... (BUT--the good news was that they popped back up after the snow melted--thank goodness.)







This is the beginning of our beautiful Clematis.... Hope it makes it through the freeze. It will climb up those wires --and parts of that 'gorgeous' telephone poll in our FRONT yard. Grrrrr.... I keep seeing pictures of Darla's Clematis blooming ---and can't wait until ours does too!!!







My sweet little Hosta plants are all covered up under some pots... I think I covered about 15 different plants. Hopefully, sometime this summer, I'll be able to show you some beautiful Hostas.







I took this picture on Monday afternoon of our side flowerbed. You can see our wrap-around deck in the background---with our swing (or SWANG as I love to call it)!! In the bottom left corner of the picture, you can see another 'covered' Hosta.







Finally, here is a picture of one of our three Holly bushes. We almost lost these bushes in 2007 during the freeze. They just dropped their leaves. I had to cut them back ---and they've begun to grow again. Hope this freeze won't hurt them again.


I have some before and after pictures to show tomorrow ---so tune in again for Part II.
Hugs,