The sun box method was the most successful, followed by the carpet method with lights (and the tree wrapping on the Japanese Maples about the same). The straw by itself was the least successful, but was enough to make it through the night. It is supposed to dip down to 35°F tonight and I got home from work so late I just put straw on the tomatoes as some insurance.

Good luck -- hope everything survives.

I admit I was pretty worried over the weekend. I put the figs trees back inside, and my mother covered some of her hosta and her giant calamondin orange, but everything seems to have come thru okay.

My big worry was the lilacs. 4-5 years ago I planted a Beauty of Moscow at work. It has never bloomed, but last spring it finally showed a tremendous amount of buds. All of the flowers were ruined by the late cold snap, and we only got a few blooms on the other lilac bushes.

This year they are all loaded with buds, and we're keeping our fingers crossed!

Looks like the methods to my madness worked. The tomatoes look decent, but not as perky as they originally were. I hope their growth won't be stunted real bad. They may just be a little shocked, but they are used to thriving in a 60-degree basement.

The Japanese Maples opened their leaves a little more yesterday with the warm weather, so it's looking like they were protected adequately.

I have a fairly new lilac given to me almost a couple years ago. I didn't get any flowers yet, but it had black 'turds' hanging on it in early spring due to the '07 hard freeze. After hearing about yours I am anxious to look at mine and see if there are any buds. I didn't think to cover it up.

We didn't cover any of the lilacs here at work, in Central Ohio, and they seemed to have done pretty well. The peaches are blooming now, and I think all three types of lilacs will be in full bloom next week.

Sounds like you did pretty well! (My tomatoes never look really happy until it's in the 50's at night.)