Plants kept on the dry side survive frost much better than those which are wet. Massonias, Alstromerias,Freesias, Lachenalias, Ferrarias, Ixias..... can survive down to minus 15 c provided that they are fairly dry. Yes they do suffer from the drought, but they survvived for me this way. Minus 18 c in an even colder winter did more damage and few of the frozen bulbs of a more tender nature survived. That year the frost also came with less warning and the plants were wetter. If plants are turgid they are a lot less frost hardy from Loderi Rhododendrons to Opuntias to Alstromerias. Peter (UK) On Wed, Jan 16, 2013 at 8:21 PM, Nathan Lange <plantsman@comcast.net> wrote: > > Don't forget to water your plants. Plants are generally more > susceptible to cold damage if they are also water stressed. Cold > weather arrives with dry air and this has certainly been the case > this past week in California. I watered a lot of dry plants > yesterday. Remember to water early in the day and keep all water off > the foliage at night. Any water left on leaves at night can freeze > and do significant damage. The alternative is to pretend that you are > growing citrus and run the water overhead all night long to keep the > temperature of the ice from going too far below freezing. Of course, > controlled water stress *prior* to cold can generate some beneficial > tolerance to cold temperatures in some species but this should not be > confused with water stress *during* the cold period. > >