It’s freezing out here! Literally.

Last night, for the second night in a row, temperatures dipped into the upper 20s. Snow flurries were reported in El Cajon and other parts of the we’ve-never-seen-snow-before sections of San Diego County three days ago.

My garden sprinklers went off at 4 am today, and by 6:15 when I left for work, the sidewalk was coated in a bubbly sheet of ice. My plants? Well, they looked like I employed the same tactics as the citrus growers.

Tonight, my garden is full of little ghosts. Sheets and towels cover everything that proved itself not hardy enough for sub-freezing nights. These ghosts are almost symbolic of the loss of life I fear in my beloved gardens.

It feels silly to say I’m attached to a plant, but I am a sentimental person and many of my plants have sentimental meaning. Like the pot-bound, waterlogged Jade we rescued from the back yard. It was finally making a comeback.

And the Aeonium clipping from our last home that had grown (exponentially) into a mounded knee-high pile of green. Today, they look like a pile of cooked collards. Or the Costa Rican sage my mother and I planted just last summer to cover the ugly shed in the back yard. It had reached a proud 4 feet and was a nice distraction from the rusting, faded, metal building. Today it is just a stalk of withered leaves.

And, the Giant Bird of Paradise Chris lovingly bought me to soothe my disappointment after someone stole mine right out of the garden of our last home. Now, the black-brown leaves drooping from the stalk look more like a vulture warming itself in the desert. The list goes on, and so does the cold.

I covered everything I thought couldn’t take it another night, and I apologized to the rest. I hope my little symbolic ghosts turn out to be just that…symbolic. In the mean time, Holly and I have snuggled in for a long winter’s night. San Diego-style.


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