Lost to the frost

Before the frost that truly killed, we were enjoying flowering paperwhite narcissus, Chinese sacred lily, two varieties of asclepias, nasturtium, clockvine, pink oxalis, a few wild sunflowers and lantana flowers, and perhaps other blossoms that I can't now remember. We failed to pick the bud stalks of paperwhites, Ice Follies, and Chinese sacred lilies that were about to open, and they truly froze solid and will never open. I'm particularly sorry about the last of these, which sported bud stalks in vast profusion. We were about to enjoy more sacred lilies than ever before. We lost all but one of our geraniums, also. Some peas froze. We had brought in the two giant sheffleras yet again, so they survived and have now gone out again. The milkweed that couldn't be carried indoors was a particular loss, because those plants were in the process of ripening big fat seed pods. Ranunculus and anemone plants turned a bit purple (the sugars in the leaves) but seem to be fine. We somehow made room indoors for all of our chile plants, one tomato plant, a yellow milkweed or two, and some potted violas, all back outdoors again. Newcomers in bloom are Ice Follies (those not about to open before the cold spell--these are usually in full bloom for Valentine's Day and are usually stolen the night of or the night before Valentine's); a mysterious tiny tazetta narcissus of a creamy faintly yellow color, two to a stalk; blue hyacinths; puce-colored hyacinths; a few puny red anemones and some not much larger fringed blue anemones; and several Fortune narcissi. Our fennel was frozen, leaves and stalks together, but perhaps not at the root; we'll see. Somebody has stolen all the morning-glory seeds out front.