preparing for the freeze

I spent Saturday and Sunday bringing plants in. This year I did it a little different, brought in the small etagere for the smaller pots of succulents and set it up by the corner windows in the in-house studio room and set up the table in the back bedroom as usual for the larger tenders in pots on Saturday. Sunday I pulled up the plumerias, those in the ground (4) and those whose pots I sunk (also 4) and hauled in the last 2 plumerias, the night blooming cereus, and the nun's orchid. The yellow angel trumpet which is blooming, the begonia, the bird of paradise also sending out two bloom stalks, and the clerodendrum got brought in Monday. I want to repot the cereus in a bigger pot which it needs which required repotting the red bud tree in the biggest pot I have so that I can use its old pot for the cereus but I used all my potting soil getting the tree moved so that will have to wait til spring now. We got about 6” of rain Friday thru Saturday, which we needed badly, so it was a sloppy mess out there on Sunday.

The pot laying down is the big bridal bouquet plumeria that bloomed with clusters of white flowers all summer. Year before last it didn't quite reach the ceiling, last year the tops were bent over, but this year there was no way for it to fit standing up.

I opted not to cover anything outside as it was just one night and was only supposed to dip down to somewhere between 30˚ and 33˚ so I figured stuff would be OK. Wrong! At 7 AM it was still 32˚, there was frost covered everything, and the birdbaths had a layer of ice. The banana trees are burned so all their leaves will be brown by the end of the week. So is the big pink angel trumpet which I plan to move in the spring and would have to cut back drastically anyway, also the yellow angel trumpet in the ground and the porterweed, the hibiscus also due to be moved in the spring, the orange cosmos, the confederate roses so I'm glad they were through blooming. All these things with maybe the exception of the porterweed will come back in the spring and while all the foliage is burned, I don't think the trunks and branches are this time around. I haven't been across the street to the shop yard to check the approximately 45 year old ponytail palm but I think it's probably OK protected by the bunker from the north wind (yes, it's fine). So while it is cold outside, inside is looking rather tropical. Especially since the yellow trumpet flower in the pot is blooming which is why I brought it inside the house instead of putting it in the garage. It has at least six more buds and last night this flower filled the room with it's sweet lemony scent.

The flower is huge as you can see here.

One of the things I did was cut down the clump of ripening bananas on one of the banana trees, the other clump is still green, and after it sat on the counter for a few days, they had all turned yellow. These are not like the bananas you buy in the store, more like plantains which have to be cooked to bring out their sweetness and the taste is different as well. Sunday night I finally sauteed three of them in butter which we had for dessert with ice cream because when the planet gives you free food you should eat it.