Zanthan Gardens
Weblog of a Central Austin Garden

Dateline: 2021

Our 52nd week of lockdown.

Almost a month since the freakish 2021 Great Winter Storm and spring is finally springing back. The redbuds had just begun blooming at this time last month. Then the ice storm. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. And, then this week, an explosion of fuchsia. Ditto, the two little Prunus mexicana trees that were crushed when a cedar elm limb fell on them a several years ago.

However, other trees are suffering. The largest Prunus mexicana tree, the one that always flowers first was was just starting to flower when the storm hit. Apparently all the flower buds froze and it’s beginning to leaf out without flowering. The buds on the Texas mountain laurels all froze. The loquat, which looked like it was fine, is dropping all its leaves. The buds on the fig tree are brown. The lemon tree looks frozen, even the largest limbs. The leaves on the olive tree freeze-dried but the tree looks alive although maybe it’s leaf and flower buds are also frozen.

Perennials are doing fine. Coming back from their roots: blue mistflower, plumbago, asparagus fern, and pigeonberry.  Bulbs like crinum and amaryllis are putting up new growth.

Wildflowers are all doing fine. The baby blue eyes are starting to pop open all over the yard. The bluebonnets are a bit behind. And it looks like it will be a really good year for larkspur and pink evening primrose.

The prairie verbena, which was flowering before the freeze, began reflowering again today (3/12). The cedar elms are beginning to leaf out. So is the Texas persimmon (which had lost all it’s leaves although it’s usually evergreen.)

 Dateline: 2011
Cool nights but pleasant days in the 70s. Occasional showers. Windy every day except Sunday (3/6), the day of the Zilker Kite Festival. The cedar elms are threatening to leaf out.

The bluebonnets are opening. This is a poor year for bluebonnets and only the ones I hand sowed (pink and white) and the two giant oversummering ones are doing well. The Mexican plums faded almost as they opened. However, the breadseed poppies are sprouting strongly. I thin and transplant some ‘Lauren’s Grape’.

The ‘Ice Follies’ daffodils are fading but the ‘Trevithians’ are flowering well this year. They have the most lovely scent, although I have to put my nose right in them to smell it. No sign of the ‘Hawera’ which used to open so consistently this week.

About a dozen tomatoes sprouted but have yet to get their first leaves. I’m behind on tomatoes this year!

First Flower: Commelinantia anomala (3/5); Leucojum aestivum ‘Gravetye Giant’ (3/6); Engelmann daisy (3/6); Nemophila insignis (3/9); Oxalis crassipes (3/9); Oxalis triangularis (3/9).
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When Gary Ibsen at TomatoFest tweeted a sale last fall, I thought I’d get a jump on my spring tomatoes by having the seeds in hand when they were ready to sow. I received them in November but still didn’t manage to start planting them until February 20, 2011.

My fall 2010 tomato crop was almost a total bust as we got a freeze the week before they ripened. We made green tomato chutney for the first time using Jenny’s recipe. It was great!

Tomato Season

2011-02-20. I started planting seeds after we had a week of humid weather with highs in the 70s and lows in the 50s. In the two weeks preceding, we had some of the coldest nights and longest-lasting cold for the winter. Night after night with the temperatures in the low 20s.

Tomato Varieties

Blondkopfchen

TomatoFest Description: An heirloom tomato from eastern Germany. Big, leafy, indeterminate, regular-leaf tomato plants yield a phenomenal amount of 1/2″, grape-sized, brilliant yellow/gold, cherry tomatoes in clusters of 20-30. The vines are large and sprawling, so give them plenty of space.The name of this adorable heirloom cherry tomato means “little blonde girl”. Deliciously sweet with a slight citrusy tart finish.

I seem to remember that the number of tomatoes on Blondkopfchen was fantastic when I grew them in Fall 2010. Beautiful trusses of tomatoes. Do I have photos?

Gold Rush Currant

TomatoFest Description: This strain was a selection by a Dutch seedsman. Our TomatoFest organic tomato seeds produce large, indeterminate, regular-leaf tomato plants with wispy foliage that yield excellent, heavy sets of ¼-inch tomatoes borne in trusses of 10-12. Excellent sweet tomato flavor. A perfect snacking tomato or to adorn salads and culinary creations.

Fall 2010. Teeny tiny tomatoes but lots of them. These plants could not be stopped. I pinched them back and pinched them back and they survived the first light freezes and kept producing flowers.

Mandarin Cross, OP

TomatoFest Description: Wonderful plant from Japan producing 6-10 oz., orange, round fruit with sweet (low-acid) flavors. I de-hybridized this variety over 7 years of my growing it out. A winner!!

Texas Wild

TomatoFest Description: All I really know is that the original seed of this tomato was collected from a patch of apparently “wild” tomatoes in southern Our Tomatofest organic tomato seeds produce huge, sprawling, indeterminate, regular-leaf tomato plants that copiously yield hundreds of 1/2 to 3/4-inch, red, cherry tomatoes with a delicious, sweet-tartness to them. A really decent snacking tomato for all you Texans and wanna be Texans.

Wapsipinicon Peach

TomatoFest Description: From Dennis Schlicht. Named after the Wapsipinicon River in Northeast Iowa. Similar to Peche Jaune. Our TomatoFest organic tomato seeds produce indeterminate, regular-leaf wispy, tomato plants that yield a tremendous amount (thousands) of 1 1/2 to 2-inch, delicate, fuzzy-like-a-peach, pale-yellow (with a tinges of pink), juicy, tomatoes with wonderful, slightly-spicy, very fruity-sweet flavors. Harvest is good all the way to frost. A novelty tomato that is sooo sweet, it begs for eating right off the vine. A Gary Ibsen ‘personal favorite.’ They won’t be able to keep from smiling after tasting this!

Carol at May Dreams Gardens invites us to tell her what’s blooming in our gardens on the 15th of each month.

Feb 15, 2011

Valentine’s Day always marks the beginning of spring in Austin for me. The shocking pink of the redbuds seems appropriate to the holiday. Although it is in the 70s today, the previous two weeks Austin has experienced what is shockingly cold weather for us; two separate fronts brought night after night of temperatures in the low 20s. Very little has survived in my garden and cold damage reveals itself daily. So there are no redbuds for Valentine’s Day, no Mexican plums, no roses, or irises. Some early greens (henbit and chickweed) have survived as always but even they seem subdued.

Practically the only flowers in my garden are three ‘Ice Follies” daffodils. They started to shoot up before the freezes, froze solid in the bud, and opened on dwarfed stems.

The only other new flower in my garden this month is the winter honeysuckle. I didn’t notice when it started to flower in the rush of activity that accompanied my having the house painted. Then the first big freeze was upon us and as I was running around with a flashlight covering plants, I saw that it had burst into bloom. I was disappointed that it was going to freeze before I even got a chance to sniff at it. The freezes didn’t seem to bother it much.

2011-02-15. Lonicera fragrantissima (winter honeysuckle).

Between GBBDs

An early oversummering bluebonnet was flowering before the freeze. It’s not the earliest I’ve ever had bluebonnets flower but it was out of season. The flower froze but the plant is fine, as are all the bluebonnet plants whether large or just sprouting. Some false dayflowers had also opened in response to much needed rainfall in January before the freezes.

Feb 15, 2011

Complete List for February

The list of all plants flowering today, February 15th 2011, at Zanthan Gardens. The most meager February list ever! Compare February 2009 or February 2008.

• henbit
• Narcissus ‘Ice Follies’
• Lonicera fragrantissima
• rosemary

fallow 1 |ˈfalō|
adjective
(of farmland) plowed and harrowed but left unsown for a period in order to restore its fertility as part of a crop rotation or to avoid surplus production; incentives for farmers to let the land lie fallow in order to reduce grain surpluses.
• figurative inactive : long fallow periods when nothing seems to happen.
• (of a sow) not pregnant.

I’m delighted with the definition of fallow. I’ve intended to let my garden and garden writing go fallow for some time. I have not abandoned them, nor are they left entirely untended. During this period of resting, I’m also making preparations for renewal. I’m emotionally plowing and harrowing.

My taking a year off from gardening did not begin today with the chronological year but last fall, with the beginning of Austin’s gardening year. For many reasons, I feel the need to let go of the garden and stand back and observe it. When I first began this garden in 1995, I had already spent 1994 observing it through all its seasons. Over the years I’ve spent so much time with my nose in the dirt, focusing on this task or the other, that I have let lapse my old habits of careful observation. For me, observation precedes inspiration.

A reader left a comment on my review of another Monty Don book, The Sensuous Garden that the two of us obviously have personality differences and that I should just leave it at that. What? Not me! I really don’t see any point in reading only people I agree with because I learn so much more from people I don’t agree with. If someone shows me a demonstrably better approach, I’m always open to changing my mind. Besides, I don’t think our differences are irreconcilable. Monty Don and I just are reacting to different environments. I live in a land where expertise is a dirty word. He lives in one where pedantry drains the passion from the art of gardening. See how alike we are.

“My second [New Year’s] resolution is to make a point of learning something new…if you have been gardening for awhile it is easy to become fixed in your likes and dislikes and to dismiss things of which you are ignorant. I want to challenge my own ignorance…”

I’m glad I didn’t give up so easily because the third time’s a charm. The Ivington Diaries is just the kind of gardening book I find to be the most readable: a personal adventure in creating a garden. Monty Don moved to a new house in 1991 and the book draws on journal entries written over the subsequent 18 years. There is one entry per day, beginning with January 1st, for almost the entire year. The interesting twist is that the years are not in chronological order. The first entry is January 1, 1998, then January 4, 2004, followed by January 5, 2002.

I really like this layout because it focuses on the gardener’s year rather than on the chronology of building the garden. I received this book as a Christmas present last year and I have read it bit by bit as the seasons changed in my own garden, comparing observations and differences in climate with Monty Don’s. The book has color photos of the garden every few pages which help the reader to visualize the layout and special features of the garden. The photos aren’t glossy printed so they never distract from the text. This is a very readable book, not just a flipping-through-the-pictures book. (That is, it’s meaty not just eye-candy.)

Like a garden blog, the journal entry for each day has a theme and a title. The themes are quite varied. Sometimes Monty Don details some project, problem, or success in the garden. Sometimes, he muses on his observations of the nature and the garden. Often he describes people who have influenced him over the years as he became a gardener. He describes in detail his experiences with many plants, his desires, his trials, his successes and his failures.

I marked scores of passages in this book and will go back and dip into it again and again. Because the entries for each day are fairly short and because chronology is not important, The Ivington Diaries is an ideal book for delving into at odd moments when one wants to be entertained and informed by someone who really thinks about and is passionate about gardening.

Genevieve at North Coast Gardening wants to know what five books do we think are a must for every gardener. Creating a book list was one of the first things I did when began this blog almost a decade ago. I’ve read hundreds of gardening books since then and yet these few are always at the top of my list.

Karel Capek: The Gardener’s Year

Find out if your favorite gardener has this book, and if not, make a present of it. This has to be the funniest book ever written on gardening, more so because it is all true. To give examples, I’d have to quote long passages. Don’t give this book to a beginning gardener, though. The reader should have gardened through at least one year to really appreciate Karel Capek’s observations.
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The Elements of Organic Gardening

What can you learn from a prince about growing veggies? Quite a lot, actually, even if your suburban lot is nothing like his castles. This looks like it might be just another gorgeous coffee table book (and it is beautiful) but it is also full of information, written intelligently, clearly and compellingly. This is my favorite gardening book of the last couple of years.

Down to Earth: Practical Thoughts for Passionate Gardeners

People have told me that I should write a book. After reading Margot Rochester’s Down to Earth, I don’t feel the need to. I turned page after page and thought, “Hey, that’s exactly what I’m always saying.” I knew I’d found a true kindred spirit. And she’s written my book for me. Of course, the title clued me in. I’m both passionate and practical, a combination which confuses those who think every choice is an either/or choice.
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Passalong Plants

Offbeat, wacky, outrageous…words not normally associated with gardening books. I love these guys! I’m also pretty sure that my Bouldin Creek neighbors take landscape design advice from these two southern plantsmen. An antidote to English gardening books from a couple of good ole boys who garden in the south and understand our weather and our ways. Descriptions of each plant run about a page, accompanied with a memory, and a color photo.
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Tottering in My Garden

If Midge Ellis Keeble lived now, she would have been a garden blogger. She writes delightfully the various gardens she had over her life and the lessons she learned from each. The focus is foremost on the stories: the thrill and the trials that face all gardeners. But like talking with any experienced gardener, there is so much to learn. When I reread it years later, I was amazed to discover that many things I’d done and learned in my own garden were from seeds planted in my mind from this lovely little book.

Dateline: 2010

2010-11-25. Much drier than 2009. The garden is bare of self-sown cilantro and baby blue eyes which were a foot tall this time last year. The Japanese persimmon is in full color but the umbrella tree has already shed its leaves. The exuberant rose ‘Ducher’ died suddenly of cane dieback over the summer.

Austin gets its first official freeze early Wednesday (12/1) morning. But Zanthan Gardens experienced some frost damage last week (11/27). That front blew the leaves off the pecans and cedar elms, making for golden December days in the garden. I spend Monday (11/29) mower mulching the fallen leaves. The air is so incredibly dry that they are easy to clean up; they just crumble. The garden is pleasingly tidy for a change.

I’ve been frantically busy planting ‘Ice Follies’ daffodils and spring annuals. I enjoy being in the garden now more than any other time. The days are clear but the temperatures cool enough that it’s a pleasure to dig and rake. The bluebonnet seedlings are still quite small and requiring supplemental water (or else they shrivel under the glare of the sun when temperatures top the 70s.) I also have to keep all the seed beds moist. 2010 is such a contrast to 2009. Very few self-sown seedlings have sprouted, only those that get a bit of water when I’m watering other plants. Rain is promised with each cold front but none has fallen. We are on our way to becoming a desert again.

Dateline: 2009

History repeats itself. A gloomy week is forecast and I spend today tidying up the mud room (aka the entryway) and bringing in aloe, kalanchoe, and golden thryallis which I’ve potted as backup plants. Just in case. I planted out my Meyer’s lemon, my cutleaf philodendron, and my ‘Ming’ asparagus fern because they got too big to lug in and out. If I installed grow lights in the mud room, I wouldn’t have to cart the pots in and out. But that room doesn’t have any electrical outlets so this probably won’t happen anytime soon.

The leaves are all turning color. I always think this is late until I look at my notes. The umbrella tree is a brilliant yellow. The Mexican buckeye and the pecans are a mottled, muddy yellow. The Mexican plum trees are a bit more golden. The Japanese persimmon is just turning orange and red. And the red oaks are blushing a deep red from the top down. Once again the ginkgo is a dud; it lost all its leaves before they turned yellow. [2010-12-02. The ginkgo finally died in Spring 2010.]

All the rain has fooled the cilantro and the false dayflowers into thinking it’s already spring. The whole yard is thick with both of them. The cilantro will be flowering soon and the false dayflowers have been flowering for a couple of weeks. Yesterday, (11/28), AJM and I trimmed back the fig ivy on the chimney so that we’d be able to have a fire inside without starting one outside. We found some “figs”, too. A first.

The cuttings of culinary sage, Jerusalem sage, licorice plant, and rosemary all seem to be rooting. The English peas are up. I continue to dig out the nandina roots from the front north border where we want to make our screened in tomato patch next spring. Like 2002, I’m madly trying to plant narcissus bulbs I dug up in the summer. This is very late as some of the Narcissus italicus are already sending up scapes. Lots of paperwhite foliage but no flowers.

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Dateline: 2007
When I lived in Japan, the weather was pretty consistent. When summer started cooling off, it just colder and colder each day through winter and then it started warming up until it was spring. Once winter arrived, there was no relief from the cold. I much prefer Austin’s weather pattern. For example, Wednesday (11/21) temperatures hit a record high of 89F ahead of a cold front that dropped temperatures overnight to near freezing. The entire Thanksgiving holiday was gray and cold and windy–perfect for baking and feasting but not much fun for the boys who wanted to spend their time off hiking and biking. Saturday we got our first good rain since October 22nd. You northerners will laugh, but after four days of cold, I’m tired of winter. Luckily next week the sun and temperatures in the 70s return.

Even Austin’s idyllic approach to winter has some drawbacks. I spend a lot of time covering plants up if a freeze threatens only to uncover them the next day when temperatures soar. The potted plants get trotted into the house and then trotted back out again. I watch the roses anxiously wondering if this latest flush of new growth will freeze before it can flower. (‘Ducher’ and ‘Blush Noisette’ are blooming this week; ‘Heritage’ and ‘Prosperity’ have buds.) Our plants don’t go dormant, so they are very vulnerable to the half-dozen or so hard freezes we get each winter. But this is a small price to pay to enjoy a string of warm, sunny days between winter storms.

Looking over the notes from previous years I’m happy to see that I finally DID get my mulching mower–it took almost a year but I finally followed through.

First flower: Helianthus annuus ‘Moulin Rouge’ (11/20).
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I have two oaks in my yard. At a glance they look identical to me. Both are beginning to turn a deep red.

The tree in the back yard has been dropping acorns like crazy this year. I don’t remember ever seeing so many acorns. Viewing each one as a potential sprout I’m going to have to pull up next spring, I’ve been raking them up and grinding them into meal with the chipper grinder.

The tree in the front yard hasn’t produced as many acorns. However, they’re almost twice as large. When they drop on our metal roof it sounds like someone’s throwing rocks at my house. They usually fall with their caps on. The leaves on this tree are larger, too.

Comparing them side by side, I now recognize each tree as an individual.

This post was published originally on November 23, 2006. It’s been updated to include data from Winter 2006 to Spring 2010.
Tamara up in Plano and I both have been eyeing these gorgeous October days with suspicion. It is after all November. As memory serves, Thanksgiving week is cursed with ice storms to frustrate all the Austinites trying to make it back to their parents in DFW or Houston or Lubbock. (Austin has a population of about 60,000 students from 5 universities. Many, like me, stay after graduation and make a trek out of town for holidays. The Friday after Thanksgiving, downtown Austin is so void of people you’d think the rapture had hit, except that this is Austin and if the rapture hit we probably wouldn’t notice anyone missing.)

But does memory serve? or does it distort? I decided to troll though my garden journal and the KXAN Weather Diary for data. These go back only to 1997 not enough to make out any trends except the already known: Austin’s weather is unpredictable. We get 8 to 15 days of freezing weather but rarely at one time. The all-time record low? -1F in February 1899. I’m glad I didn’t live through that!

Typically we have a week of bad weather (yes, Kathy, just one) in mid-January or early February. But in 1998, the only pre-spring freeze was on March 10th. The peach growers weren’t too happy. We also usually have a winter storm sometime in December.

A lot of our freeze dates are just light frosts with temperatures brushing 32F. Our hard freezes (28F or below) are the result of arctic fronts. Even then, freezing temperatures last only three or four days. It’s unusual, even in our worst winters, for the daily high temperature to stay below freezing. (This happened in 1997 on January 13th and 14th). The record for consecutive hours below freezing at Austin was 140 hours from December 21-27, 1983. The water main on South 1st St near my apartment broke. Also the rubber connectors on the fuel line of my Spitfire cracked and a month later my car burst into flames as I was driving down Anderson Lane with my kid in the car seat.

Due to the general mildness of our winters, any time Austin does get freezing rain or sleet, the town shuts down. Schools and stores close. Hundreds of people get into traffic accidents. Airline flights are delayed. And the power goes out. Northerners are agog. The answer is simple. For a once-a-year winter storm, why invest in infrastructure? So our cars don’t have chains or snow tires.

Our ground never freezes. Our plants don’t go dormant. A bad freeze is often preceded or followed by record high temperatures.

Last Spring Freeze

Looking back to 1997, the last freeze before spring in Austin was March 10th, 1998.

If it’s 81F in January, wouldn’t you plant out your tomatoes? That’s what happened in 2002. Then March brought the coldest mornings of the year (and two of the colder days in this little study) when it got down to 24F on March 3rd and 4th.

First Fall Freeze

As for the answer to the question that started this research–When should Austinites expect our first frost? Anytime now.

A Summary of Winter in Austin Over the Last 14 Years

Note: In 1999 the weather service begins reports from both Camp Mabry and the airport (ABIA). I stuck with the Camp Mabry statistics to be consistent. The weather in my garden is closer to Camp Mabry’s than ABIA’s. ABIA is often 3-5 degrees colder than downtown. As I’ve learned from my gardening friends, your results may vary. One part of Austin may freeze and another not. Even within your yard, the microclimate varies.

1997: 16 days freezing temperatures.

Austin gets all our winter in one week and then have ten frost-free months. The coldest part of winter was a week in January from 1/7 to 1/14: 1/7 (32F); 1/9 (30F); 1/10 (30F); 1/11 (25F); 1/12 (24F); 1/13 (23F) high (27F); 1/14 (26F) high (32F); 1/15 (30F); 1/17 (26F). 1/28 (27F); 1/29 (29F). Not another freeze until December: 12/13 (29F) and a few snow flurries; 12/15 (32F); 12/28(32F).

1998: 3 days freezing temperatures.

This is the kind of winter that lulls gardeners into putting out the tomato plants too early and peach trees into bloom. The first freeze of 1998 was in March, 3/10. It was also the last freeze until December when we got our one week of winter 12/21 and 12/26. The temperature dropped from 74 degrees at 5pm to 38 degrees at 8pm and continued to drop. The weather service notes, “Freezing drizzle creates early morning chaos. All area bridges and elevated roads become iced over. 400+ Austin accidents. 64 car pileup on I-35 at 290 kills 2. 1 other fatality in area, 16 total in Texas ice-related accidents. Many businesses open late or close. Occasional freezing drizzle continues through evening. A few snow flurries reported at airport. Winter storm warning thought tomorrow A.M. Christmas travelers stranded as many flights into and out of Robert Mueller Airport are delayed and cancelled, mainly due to delays elsewhere, including DFW.” The lowest temperature of this storm was 25F on 12/26. The next day the high was 72F.

1999: 5 days freezing temperatures.

Cold the first week of January. For three days in a row the nighttime lows dip below freezing with the lowest temperature of 27F on 1/5 and then again on 1/10. However, we also have a record high of 81 on 1/17. (The tulips hate that!) The only other freezing day of the year is 12/6 when it drops to 32F.

2000: 11 days freezing temperatures.

Cold the first week of January: 32F on 1/4 and 27F on 1/5. Next freeze on 12/7 (31F). A couple of days later on 12/11 an arctic front moves in. 12/11 has a low of 31F. 12/12 has a high of 31F and the low for the year of 26F. Icy conditions result in more than 300 auto accidents. It continues to be really nasty on 12/13 “90,000 lose power in Austin as heavy freezing rain downs trees and powerlines. More than 288,000 without power statewide, mainly in Dallas-Fort Worth, Tyler-Longview, Waco-Killeen and Austin areas. Record daily rainfall at ABIA. It dips to 28F on 12/17; 31F on 12/22; 32F on 12/27 and 12/28 and 28F on 12/30. December was an unusually cold end to a year of warmer than average months through November.

2001: 12 days freezing temperatures.

The cold weather continues into January of the new year. 1/1 (31F), 1/2 (30F), 1/3 (32F) 1/4 (32F). We are teased with a chance of snow on 1/19 but it is much too warm. When the front moves through leaving clear skies it drops to 27F (1/20). February has two freeze dates: 2/3 (32F) and 2/17 (32F). Then Austin’s frost-free until November: 11/28 (31F) and 11/29 (30F). December is rainy and fairly mild: 12/10 (32F), 12/24 (32F) and 12/31 (32F).

2002: 15 days freezing temperatures.

1/2 (30F); 1/3 (26F); 1/4 (28F); 1/13 (32F); 1/15 (31F) and then a record high of 81F on 1/29. A colder February than in recent memory: 2/2 (32F); 2/7 (30); 2/26 (30); 2/27 (25F); 2/28 (30F). And a cold start to March: 3/2 (29F); followed by the coldest morning of the winter 3/3 (24F) and 3/4 (24F); 3/5 (31F). That’s it until Christmas: 12/25 (32F).

2003: 14 days freezing temperatures.

In 1999 Austin had a record high of 81 on 1/17. Four years later, we get our first freeze on 1/17 (29F), followed by freezes on 1/18 (27F) and 1/19 (28F), followed by a record high on 1/21 (82F). Two days later it’s cold again: 1/23 (30F); 1/24 (26F). 2/17 (31F). Temperatures drop from 78F on 2/23 to 26F on 2/24. Camp Mabry report .6 inch of snow! Then the usual power outages, school closings and traffic tie-ups on 2/25 (24F) which posts a high of 30F. 2/26 (29F). No more freezes until November: 11/29 (30F). December: 12/6 (31F); 12/14 (31F); 12/20 (32F); 12/30 (30F).

Scenes from late February’s winter storm.

2004: 14 days freezing temperatures.

January: 1/6 (29F); 1/20 (32F); 1/27 (29F); 1/28 (30F). February: 2/7 (30F). December: 12/1 (31F); 12/14 (31F); 12/15 (25F); 12/22 (32F); 12/23 (24F); 12/24 (26F). A historic Christmas Eve snowstorm drops snow to the north of us and 12″ of snow to the southeast of us and ZERO snow in Austin. I have never had a white Christmas. 12/25 (25F); 12/26 (27F); 12/27 (31F). We began the year with a high of 74F and ended it on a high of 78F.

2005: 9 days freezing temperatures.

January: 1/16 (30F); 1/17 (29F); 1/23 (30F); 1/24 (32F). November starts with highs of 88F on 11/7 and 11/8 before our first freeze on 11/17 (31F). Then it’s back to record highs of 87F on 11/23. I think this is when I gave up gardening that year. And suddenly it’s winter: 12/6 (27F); 12/7 (25F) and freezing drizzle and hundreds of car accidents.; 12/8 (23F); 12/9 (27F).

2006: 7 days freezing temperatures.

February: 2/12 (29F); 2/13 (31F). High of 82F on 2/16 preceding an arctic front: 2/18 (28F); 2/19 (28F) which results in more than 400 accidents as freezing fog ices up bridges and overpasses.

December: 12/1 (29F); 12/4 (29F); 12/8 (31F).

2007: 16 days freezing temperatures.

January: 1/15 (29F); 1/16 (29F); 1/17 (29F); 1/18 (32F); 1/29 (31F). A high of 81 on 1/5 is followed by some of our nastiest cold weather of the year. In the middle of a nasty 4-day storm, Austin has a rare day (1/16) where the temperature never gets above freezing. The low was 29F and the high was 31F. Bonus. Snow!

Austinites were excited by a dusting of snow.

February: 2/3 (28F); 2/4 (32); 2/14 (30F); 2/15 (29F); 2/16 (24F).

December: 12/16 (30F); 12/17 (30F); 12/23 (28F); 12/24 (29F); 12/27 (30F); 12/29 (31F). What’s a gardener to do? December 2007 had four days in the 80s and 6 days at 32 or below.

2008: 12 days freezing temperatures.

January: 1/2 (30F); 1/3 (29F); 1/17 (32F); 1/19 (30F); 1/20 (25F); 1/30 (32F).
February: 2/1 (28F); 2/27 (31F). This month opens with a hard freeze but then temperatures soar to 92F on February 25th. Seven other high temperature readings this month were in the 80s.
December: 12/6 (29F); 12/15 (31F); 12/16 (29F); 12/22 (28F).

2009: 13 days freezing temperatures.

January: 1/12 (30F); 1/14 (30F); 1/21 (31F); 1/27 (32F); 1/28 (28F); 1/29 (28F). Two days of hard freeze on the 28th and 29th but by the 31st the high has rebounded to 71F.
February: 2/3 (30F). We’re still in the drought and like 2008, this February starts with one cold day but ends with a temperature in the 90s: 91F on 2/27.
It starts raining in September 2009 and we have a much wetter winter than in the previous two years. The cloud cover and the soil moisture keeps the temperatures more constant and cooler. Winter begins with a hard freeze causing many trees to drop all their leaves in a few hours.
December: 12/4 (29F); 12/5 (25F); 12/9 (32F); 12/10 (31F); 12/25 (31F); 12/26 (28F).

2010: 17 days freezing temperatures in spring.

January 2010 brings the most miserable winter weather in most Austin gardeners’ memories. We hope never to see its equal in our lifetimes. Five hard freezes in a row and temperatures in the teens! The official Camp Mabry temperature dropped to 17F but it was lower at ABIA and in many of my friends’ gardens.
January: 1/2 (29F); 1/4 (32F); 1/5 (27F); 1/7 (28F); 1/8 (21F); 1/9 (17F); 1/10 (20F); 1/11 (27F); 1/29 (32F); 1/30 (30F); 1/31 (30F).
February: 2/13 (30F); 2/15 (32F); 2/16 (30F); 2/17 (30F); 2/24 (32F); 2/25 (32F).
December: 12/1 (32F)

We got a wonderful snowy day (but no freeze?) on February 23rd. The snow didn’t stick and alternated with rain, sometimes freezing and sometimes not.

Although two freeze warnings have been issued for Austin, we’re still waiting for our first freeze of this winter.

Update: December 1, 2010

This morning Camp Mabry registered its first freeze of winter 2010/11. Many Austin gardens already experienced light frost damage from cold temperatures last week.