Hi Susan,

Well, we had a pretty good freeze last night and it is only 27 out there right now....I buried my Arisaema that are coming up out back with leaves so hopefully they will be OK, but I'm sure I lost tons of buds on other things because of this. I just hope I do not lose the plants themselves, but if they are up this early then they should be able to handle it......supposed to be right near freezing each of the next 2-3 nights as well.....I hope your plants make it OK :o) Dan

When they say "late season frost" they really mean it don't they? We are getting the front that has already passed over you right now. It poured rain about 2 hours ago as the cooler drier air met up with the hot humid air we have in place. More rain forecast for this morning (but we really NEED it!). Tonight, a delicious 54 degrees for the low (instead of 65!) That makes a huge difference when I am running 6-8 miles in the morning. Our highs will drop from 90 to about 82-83 for a few days but then its over.

If your plants are a good size, they should be okay in 40's for 1-2 nights. But if there's something you really like (like the new luteas) I would suck it up and either haul them back in, or cover them up, **just in case** your weather guys miss it and its colder than they think. It would be a shame this late in the game to have a disaster.

Thanks, Bihai! I just stuck them up under the trees inside of a bunch of leaf mulch and they appear to be fine this morning. It didn't get quite as cold as they thought. It was 42 this morning, but it warms up so fast, that you can barely say it was that cold for very long.

I'm glad you got some rain. Hard to believe that you haven't had enough moisture in your neck of the woods. I thought it did nothing BUT rain in Florida.

Susan

Our "monsoon season" doesn't really crank up til June, sometimes late May. Depends if its a "La Nina" or an "El Nino" year. Right now, we are under a burn ban and wildfire danger alert if you can believe that! Wild hogs running through the yards causing mayhem, you name it its going on here. Everything's popping up right on schedule though. We have had a lot of 90+ degree highs in this April.

It's an El Nino year for us no doubt! So, it wouldn't surprise me if yours is also. I'm accustomed to the burn ban situation, believe me. It's been going on in Oklahoma for months. Last night and today, we've had a bit of rain - maybe an inch or more. That's a lot for us! But, it's great for the plants, too.

Wild hogs! And I was complaining about 'possums!

Susan

We're being warned about flash flooding, and I think the tornado watch is over. Last I heard the main drag south of us was closed over to the main drag to our west due to flooding, and Festival Internationale des Louisiane had to close for the downpours and thunderstorms. Should be super-nice tomorrow, and probably the excess water will all have drained away. We needed it, but it did come down awfully hard for several hours--looked like a lake out my back door. We probably came close to catching up on our major deficit with this one and the more spaced out rain about a week ago. Read there were tornadoes in your area, Susan. Hope all is well!

Yeah - but they were quite a few miles west of where I live. Also, they were small ones - nothing big. The weird thing about these particular tornadoes is that they were rotating in a counterclockwise direction rather than the normal clockwise direction. This is an extremely rare occurrence. Only in Oklahoma! OKC, where I live is kind of in a depression, and most of the tornadoes tend to either drift to the south and east around the city, or head north and east, leaving the city well enough alone. THe worst as you probably know was in early May 2001, when it struck just south and east of the City, destroying 25,000 homes (that was just in the city, not counting the rest of Oklahoma), was an F-5, a mile wide (very large, very strong sustained winds over 200MPH). Several small towns were totally destroyed. It was a disaster. Not near what N.O. suffered though.

Hope you guys have a much better year than last year.

Susan