Preliminary winter damage report (January 2016)
In previous years I went overboard when it came to covering plants on nights with temperatures below freezing (see here: 2011 | 2012 | 2013 ). This winter I decided to relax and cover only one plant: my Agave attenuata ‘Boutin Blue’, which starts to shiver when temperatures fall into the 30s. While we hit 32°F six times in December , we only dropped below it once: on December 27. That was the day I headed out on my trip to Southern California and Arizona . I left our house at 6 a.m. and the thermometer in our backyard read 29°F, which meant it was a degree or so colder in the front yard. Indeed, the official low for Davis was 28°F—a balmy night in many parts of the country, but a c-c-c-c-cold one here. For some reason, 28°F seems to be a magical number for many succulents. They’re fine at 30°F but start to show damage at 28°F and go into a serious tailspin at 25°F or below. The photos I’ll show you below bear out this observation. To put things in a perspective, while my not-bothe...