Three years ago I used erosion control blankets to keep dirt in place while my grass seed could grow (which it did with only a little success). The label said that the mat would degrade. Nope. The string used to hold the straw together is still there after three years. The freeze killed most of the St Augustine grass (yay!), and I am raking and thatching the front yard to seed with a buffalo grass mix (which is native to the area). Between pulling up the St Aug runners and the embedded strings, raking is slow going. Live and learn.

Winterpocolypse didn’t kill everything. We have some of the regular wildflowers coming up in the meadow. The clover is loving life and most of the green in the meadow is clover rather than the usual grasses. There are some cut-leaf daisies making a go. We think our Texas sage and cross vine didn’t make it through the week-long freeze, but the honeysuckles are showing signs of life. The iris and daylilies are also stretching their greenery. My husband is putting in an irrigation system in the front yard for the flower beds, but we are only considering low maintenance replacements for the plants that died.

We are trying lawn alternatives to see what will thrive with little intervention and maintenance. The clovers survived the deep freeze much better than the St Augustine grass (I hate St Aug and am not sad to see it go). I am trying some creeping thyme in one of the bare patches to see if it will take and hold. It does need to stay moist until it has germinated, and I am terrible at remembering where I’ve seeded what, so I used the technology at my fingertips to snap a picture and mark it up so I had record of where I need to water.

The freeze marred the snap peas, so I harvested them even though they were small. They tasted OK. Yes, this is the full harvest. But it is better than nought!

So covering my herb pots with clear plastic shower liner did not protect the plants from freezing. It seemed like a good idea. It is a good thing I have skills in other areas, and that there are farmers who do know how to grow things.