Testing the limits: 2015 winners

If you're going to "test the limits" you have to be willing to take a few losses.  That was the point of my previous blog post (see Testing the limits... and finding them: 2014-2015 losers) when I wrote about the plants I lost last winter, which along with 2013-2014 brought my area's two coldest winters in 20 years.  Each of those two winters, on its own, wasn't so unusual; we get winters like that every 10-15 years and we were several years overdue.  What was unusual was getting two such winters back to back.  That makes the survivors all the more special to me.  They don't necessarily look their best this year, but considering the minimal protection I gave them I'm more than happy.

Southeastern Palm Society summer meeting

Southeastern Palm Society members

Members of the Southeastern Palm Society were treated to a meeting last weekend at Plant Delights Nursery and Juniper Level Botanic Gardens in Raleigh, North Carolina.  It had been several years since my last SPS meeting, and I'm always looking for any excuse to visit Plant Delights, so I decided to drive from Washington, DC to Raleigh to attend the meeting.  (I was fortunate to make it in 5 1/2 hours this trip.  I've made the trip in 4 1/2 hours, but once it took almost 8 hours.  The less said about I-95 through northern Virginia, the better.)

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day: July 2014

Lagerstroemia (unknown crape myrtle cultivar)

It's the middle of July in Washington, that hot, steamy time of year that prompted me to dub it the "DC Tropics".  It doesn't help that we've had several days of rain, cranking up the humidity to decidedly tropical levels!  But this is when my garden starts reaching its peak, and the tropical, subtropical, and other heat-loving plants start looking their best.  Below are some of the plants that are blooming today.  For the full set of photos click here.  For more Garden Bloggers Bloom Day posts from all around the blogosphere, visit Carol at May Dreams Gardens.

Freeze-dried palms and other garden delights

Fronds of Trachycarpus wagnerianus after an extended freeze

Things are not looking good in the garden.  After several days of temperatures well below freezing, I was hoping for a bit of a thaw this weekend but after an initially promising forecast on Friday was revised downward, and my thermometer read only 30 degrees at 4:00 pm yesterday, I think that's as good as it's going to get.  The latest forecast for today is 30 degrees, and 39 degrees tomorrow, but I'll believe it when I see it.  Monday will mark a full week of temperatures below freezing.