No Freezing at Garden Opperman

Despite reports of frozen vegetation everywhere around me, and of temperatures that hovered around 20 degrees for too long, nothing in my yard was nipped last Friday. Strangely, gardeners I know who were just a couple miles south of me had frozen veggies, mainly tomatoes, peppers and other more sensitive things. I was in Houston for the holiday, and couldn’t have done anything about my plants, so when things froze there, I figured my yard was a goner. I was worried about the 50-plus onions I’d planted, specifically. But no harm came.

Not that freezing is such a bad thing. I actually look forward to it every year. It’s a chance to reset, and to remove the plants that just don’t work. I like to think that if I can plant a specific plant, and that it will survive the psychotic winters of the Texas Hill Country, then it was meant to be in my yard.

Another reason I look forward to a good, hard freeze is the art wrought by the frostweed (verbesina virginica). Magical.