The garden in January
January 7. We are two-and-a-half weeks into winter and my garden still has not seen a killing frost. Some gardens in the area have already been bitten back by cold weather, but mine has hardly been touched. Only the tops of some of the tender perennial shrubs, like Hamelia , show damage. On several occasions, including again this week, the weatherman has predicted that we would get temperatures in the 20s F. during the night, but so far the lowest temperature registered by my Min/Max thermometer (which records the highest and lowest temperatures of the day) has been 34 degrees F. Now they are telling us that - for sure this time! - we'll have temperatures in the 20s over the next few nights. We'll see. The mild weather has produced some interesting effects in the garden. It's not often - well, never, really - that I've had prairie coneflowers blooming in January. Nor have I ever seen volunteer cosmos blooming on January 7 before. The Copper Canyon daisies, a very tende...