How you all prepairing for the possible frost Mon/Tues?

Guess mother nature has one last trick up her sleeve before we depart from cold weather. 80+ today, and near freezing Mon/Tues. Then right back to near 80 again by late next week. I guess the "fluke" of last year on the 7th wasn't so happen-chance after all.

I think we're going to borrow some agricultural cloth from my brother and cover everything. So long as we don't have a freeze we should be fine. All my tropicals are going to think I plunged them into another season for a few days. Gotta bring all the potted guys in yet again.

i never truely give up on a last frost till the end of april. never fails we get one last one sometime during the month.

I'm holding my breath? :( I'm going to have to cover a few beds & bring a lot of stuff back inside.

I don't recall many April frosts in our neighborhood, before last year, that is. We did have snow in April once...a long time ago. Normal lows in April are low 50s! Where's global warming when we need it?!
No way can I bring everything back in or even cover it all. I'm hoping "they" are wrong about the forecast. :) Denial is all I have at the moment! LOL.
Deb

I'm with you Deb, I can't even remember the last time we've had such last freezes/frosts. I remember we got snow on the first day of Spring once, but that was a while ago. Easter last year was a bad freeze, and even thought lots of folks still believe April 15th is the last frost day, the climate maps have shifted that. That should be reflected on the new map this year. I believe it's April 1 for us here in the midlands now. Just freakish how the weather is shifting so abruptly like this the last two years.

I keep hoping it'll be rainy or breezy the night of the supposed Frost. One local TV weather guy kept scaring me by saying "hard freeze" - but I think he was deliberately trying to keep people watching each night. Ugh.

i'm just putting pots over the 1 plumeria that i have in the ground so far
they're sayin 38 for us

This is the way climate change (global warming) works.Unpredictable weather that is unlike past years.

I don't think that we will actually go down to 32- but just to be on the safe side I'll bring some tropicals back to the GH and cover a few other things.

I didn't plant any of my veggie seedlings.They are nicely growing in their cow pots and I can always bring them in if the temps. go way down.

I live in a brick apt with plenty of driveway and sidewalks so the plants tend to benefit from the residual heat since most of the planting are close to the building. I have one potted iris that has a flowerstalk on it so she's coming in for the night. It's my first arilbred and I really wasn't expecting to see a flower this year, especially not while in a pot recovering from being divided--can't loose that one:)

They're saying 34 for us. Ugh. Even my colocasia Illustris is up. La. Iris all blooming.

I am WILLING the forecast to change. I am visualizing the weather guy saying, "looks like this cold is going to shift a bit north of the Carolinas, so no frost after all".

LOL. Think it'll work?
Deb

I see on weather.com that they are still calling for 42 for us. all the others say 34. This sucks! I have about 800 flats of annuals outside that I will have to cover for 3 nights. I am not even sure if I have enough frost blankets/weedblock for it. I hate when this happens :(

I think we should believe weather.com!
I'm with you, Tigerlily. I get tired just thinking about how much work it will take to protect everything.
Deb

Unfortunately weather.com is not that reliable (especially regarding microclimates). Of course, lately NOAA's been way off too. They bumped us back up to 35 Mon/Tues night here now. I just went over and picked up five 30x15 agricultural blankets (amazing how lightweight they are). My folks said they should keep the temperature under them 3-5 degrees warmer (not bad). We'll also use blankets on the bananas and EE's.

I just keep praying they don't lower it towards a freeze; that'd be horrible.

Best of luck to everyone in preparation for this.

keonikale, I have found them to be reliable-at the last min. In other words, if they lower it down to the 30's when it gets closer to Sun pm, i know its real. We have a local one here who is always says it will be lower than it gets, most of the time. Weather.com will say it will be 43, WRAL will say 36, I will cover and its 44 when I wake up-very irritating.

There are two thicknesses with the frost blankets, I think you have the lighter weight. I buy the heavier weight in rolls of 8' x 150 or 300'-can't remember. but it covers two rows side by side of annuals. If it actually frosts, you want something on top of that frost blanket or the frost will go thru the blanket. I use heavy duty weed block myself, but plastic will work also. You just have to be sure to remove it before the sun gets warm.

Did I say what a pain in the butt this is yet?? lol

Pain might be an understatement, LOL. I am going to use blankets on top of the frost sheets as well. I think I have enough to also double layer them. I asked about them being thin, but they told me not to worry about it. They've used them more than me, so I'm holding them liable, haha.

There's no way I can cover all of the flowers and azaleas (sp?) that are blooming right now!

I have planted a few tomato plants, hoping that this wouldn't happen. I will cover them with plastic buckets, but I guess I will just let everything else go and hope for the best.

I did bring in my potted plumaria and will check tomorrow to see what else is out there in pots that I might try to save.

I hate it when this happens!

Pat

I share your sentiments, Pat!! I moved all my tropicals out of the GH last week-end, thinking I was home free. This week-end, I'll be moving them all back in. For Two lousy nights of cold...Don't seem right! Or fair! Man, that's a lot of work...some of them have gotten big over the years, and are a pain in the butt to wiggle into the GH.... like a 5' Adenium Obessum, a 10 yr old Meyers lemon, etc., to squeeze through a normal size door. Does make me think about next year though...

When it's over 80F outside, it's easy to assume the cold is past us. I've had my plants outside nearly a month with only one cold spell. In fact, if you ignore these two upcoming nights... it's almost like it never got cold at all. Very strange system that's been pushing through the country. I guess it could be worse. Lots of folks got buried in snow or torrential rains out west from this system. It's already definitely gotten chillier here. I think the second front pushes through Monday (which is why the temps will drop so much).

Seems the news is getting slightly better for Monday, maybe the same/worse for Tuesday night.

Tonight and Monday are now forecast to be warmer and breezier than before. So that should nip any frost chances in the bud (no pun intended). Tuesday night or Wednesday morning looks to be the time to be really concerned with, low here of 33 is forecast. They said that might improve though, apparently the last models show warming Tuesday during the day.

A 5' Adenium?????? Wow, that sounds awesome; I had no idea they got that big.

Neither did I, ardesia!!!

take a picture of it! i wanna see what it looks like!!

Hi All,

We live in NE Stokes county and it gets a bit colder here than the Triad so I am prepping for 32 Tuesday night. Tonight should be ok, though I put a small electric heater in my GH. Hadn't put any thing fragile out yet. Hostas are up already though so hope they dont turn black.

Hope you all keep all your babies safe, they are so much work but so worth it.

Susan

Well this is not good... but not much I can do about it. The different forecasts are converging... WRAL says 33F, NWC and weather.com say 35F. Not a hard freeze, but with the predicted calm winds we could still get some frost. Not the worst-case scenario we had last year, but still a bummer. Guess I will be moving the container plants one more time Tuesday and covering the others as best as I can.

Hi Tom! I have been watching them get closer myself. I have covered the past two nights. The first night, we got some fairly heavy frost on the weedblock, so I am glad that we covered. I don;t know which is worse-having to cover or covering and then waking up and no frost! lol

I haven't brought any tropicals out yet-its too soon. We always get some kind of frost at this time in April-every year that I can remember (maybe one or two exceptions). I usually put away the blankets for good after the 23rd. I don't bring out the tropicals (I have enough to deal with with the annuals!) until when I see a 10 day forecast that doesn't have any nighttime temps under 48-50.

We are definitely getting a good frost tonight. I just hope no freezing. I will be happy with that!
I hope everyones plants are ok after tonight. Me, myself and I-I am just so glad that warm weather is almost here! I hate winter!!! lol Just think-barefoot and shorts and sleeveless shirts, warm sun, open windows in the house....

I have planted nothing except the plants that had been in pots outside. The rest of my flats are in the kitchen under the grow-lights or in the garage in various places with a small heater on. The trouble that I'm having currently is that I'm missing some on the watering so there are some that are dying and I was not prepared for this right before they are about to be planted.

Karin ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

tigerlilly,

I like the sound of barefeet, shorts, sun and open windows!

I put a lot of my potted plants outside last week so that they could get a little rain. After wintering over in my basement, they looked pretty bad. Now I guess I will put them back in for at least another day. I know they won't like it, but it's for their own good!

I planted a few tomato plants that I grew from seed when the moon was right, even though I knew we had a chance of cold weather coming back. All I can do it cover them up and hope we dont get a hard freeze.

Good luck, everyone!

Pat

They are calling for frost tonight at 34F here and again Thursday morning with "patchy" areas, low of around 37. Nothing last night, but we did get a bit of rain and the breeze no doubt would have kept the frost at bay anyway.

Is it dangerous to set pots over plants like Cannas? That won't burn them will it? I was thinking of covering them tonight since I don't have enough of the frost blanket to cover everything like that. I was also thinking of covering some of my very sensitive tropicals with large pots under the frost blankets as well.

My cannas don't seem to mind cold temps as long as they've been growing in the ground. My 'Tropicanna' doesn't look a bit fazed by last night's lows, but we'll have to see what happens after tonight's. I've been meaning to dig up the 'Tropicanna' anyway so maybe I better get moving~ The annuals I've grown from seed are all hardy so cold isn't a factor.

why are you digging up tropicanna?

We got thru last night just fine, but have a Freeze Warning tonight. So all my plants & seedlings that needed to come in are in, and I've covered everything else already - just finished. Especially my Canna bed! Poor babies have already been frosted back/black twice - I'm not letting it happen again; some of them are almost a foot tall. I put rebar in the ends & middle of the bed & draped sheets, hooked with clothespins, over them. lol Hope it works.

Sounds like we all have beautiful arrangements in our yards tonight. Here's a few "decorations" on our end. LOL

I don't know about the rest of you, but we've had gusty winds tonight. That has NOT helped at all. Naturally the winds will die off at dusk.

And one for good luck. Fingers crossed.

I brought everything in that was in pots and covered a few things. A lady I work for gave me some great plants from her garden today and I put them in my GH rather than plant them and get cold tonight.

Hope you all have happy plants tomorrow.

Susan in NC

Today they've been saying 37 for us with 20-30mph winds.

So, I brought in anything in a pot, tossed some extra mulch up against the things I thought it would help, covered 2 plants with laundry. That was it.

Came in, and the forecast had changed to say the winds would diminish and there was a chance of patchy frost.

The heck with it! Taking my chances. Fingers crossed for everyone!!
Deb

WRAL says 33, weather.com and NWS both say 32. Not going to be pretty if it actually gets that cold - hopefully here in the suburbs we will be a couple of degrees warmer than at the RDU airport. I covered up as best as I could and put flowerpots over the hedychiums. Crinums will have to fend for themselves.

It's supposed to be 31 here tonight. We've actually already had frost the past two nights....I hadn't kicked much out of the GH yet, so not really a big deal, I lost some foliage on some white butterfly gingers out of those, nothing major. basically all seeds were winter sown, they're tough. quite a few crinums, aggies, and some hostas that were in the gardens established and coming up got hit already.

All I did was move the mulch back on the tops of the plants where I had started to move it off.....beyond that, it's nature...the major winter is behind us and if the plants were healthy enough to make it to here...

Hope you all came out OK last night. It got a good bit colder for us than the forecast, I saw 31.3 on my thermometer this morning around 4:30am, and I suspect it got a bit colder.

But we rushed out to put a last layer of blankets on, I think that did the trick. Everything seems to be OK. I just hope they don't call for more frost tonight.

All good here! I'm leaving the sheets & stuff all out, tho, in case I need them again tonight.

Well, bummer! I lost six tomato plants and a couple of cucumber and squash plants. I was hoping that covering them would protect them, but it supposedly got down to 28 in Lexington last night. I live between Winston-Salem and Lexington. I don't think it got below freezing in Winston. I guess I was just a little bit closer to the lower temps. They say there may be a chance for scattered frost again tonight.

Pat