With seven straight days experiencing lows solidly in the low 20s (-5 to -6 C), this past week marked the coldest weather we've seen in two years. The good news is I don't think anything important died. Of course it is important to remember plants are precariously capable of playing dead when they are alive as well as playing alive when they are really dead.
This Tasmanian tree fern (
Dicksonia antarctica) looks like it will survive just fine even though the newer fronds were killed by the frost. The all-important superterranean rhizomatous trunk was well-protected.
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| Dicksonia antarctica |
This
Abutilon 'Tiger Eye' has a small amount leaf burn but is looking incredible given the fact that it's January.
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| Abutilon 'Tiger Eye' |
I wish I would have taken a picture of this
Arum italicum when it was 21 degrees outside. The leaves were shriveled and lying so flat they looked as if they were painted on the ground. I was sure I wouldn't be seeing this plant again until the spring. But now that the frost has passed, the leaves have sprung back to life!
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| Arum italicum 'White Winter' |
How many
Echium fastuosums are in this picture? There are - or at least were - two. One is alive, the other is probably dead. I put a canvas blanket over the echium on the right (not for the echium's sake, but for the sake of the agaves & palms next to it). It's probably for the best - the dead one was going to take over the pathway anyway.
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| Echium fastuosum |
Of the three species of hardy scheffleras that went through this week of frost (
S. Taiwaniana,
S. delavayi &
S. brevipedunculata), none of them suffered even the slightest bit of damage.
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| Schefflera brevipedunculata |
This pink jasmine vine (Jasminum polyanthum) shows absolutely no damage. It was protected by an overhang but was also in a pot so I think those cancel each other out.
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| Jasminum polyanthum |
Can't winter in Seattle be beautiful, in an ugly sort of way?
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| Tetrapanax papyrifer |
