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Winter weather in our garden

Sometimes mild, sometimes freezy

Given its location close to the Gulf Coast, our garden in the unincorporated area between Sugar Land and Richmond, Texas has a mild, subtropical climate, marked by mostly mild, wet winters, hot summers alternating between thunderstorms (and the occasional tropical storm system) and periods of drought, and not much of a distinct spring or fall. We're in USDA hardiness zone 9 – it officially changed from zone 9a (minimum temperatures bteween 20-25°F) on the 2012 map to zone 9b (25-30°F) on the 2023 map. But that doesn't tell nearly the whole story, because the variations in winter minimum temperatures has been quite large during the years we've lived here (since 2016).

In fact, when we moved here, one of the most attractive features of the area was the multitude of orange and other citrus trees you could see peeking up above the fencelines of many homes in established neighborhoods. But a few years later, a hard freeze killed nearly all of them, and another even more severe freeze three years later got the rest of them – even the citrus trees deemed most freeze-tolerant, such as satsuma oranges. So climate change appears to have made our area not only warmer on average (hence the hardiness zone change), but also more prone to occasional polar vortex events. In other words, plants marketed here, and considered hardy to zone 9, are still likely to perish, or suffer severe setback, in our colder winters. On this page I collect some observations on the survival of marginally hardy plants through the freezes of 2018 and 2021.

Mostly for my own benefit, so I can remember the progression of winters as I'm considering the hardiness of various plants that (used to) grow in my garden, I've collected some temperature records from the internet. There are weather stations close to our neighborhood, but it doesn't look like I can access historical records for them. So unless otherwise stated, the data below are for Hobby airport, which may be a few degrees warmer since it's surrounded by the city of Houston.

Year Winter weather

2023‑2024 Minimum temperature of 20°F occurred on January 16th; the previous and following nights had freezes into the twenties as well

2022‑2023 The cold snap arrived early, with a 22°F freeze on Dec 22, dropping further to 17°F on Dec 23, and progressively less severe freezes persisting until Dec 26. The daytime high on Dec 23 was 33°F.

2021‑2022 No cold weather at all until February, when a few mild freezes arrived early: a low of 27°F in a sequence of four nights from Feb 3-6, another quick dip on Feb 13, and another on March 12 (which killed the tomatoes I had planted just days earlier).

2020‑2021 The hard freeze of the year announced itself on Valentine's day, with a low of 18°F and a high of 27°F; the harshest overnight low came on Feb 15th, to 15°F, accompanied by freezing rain. That was fun!

2019‑2020 No freezes at Hobby this winter, with the lowest recorded temperature of 35°F occurring on Dec 18.

2018‑2019 Just one dip to 32°F on Jan 22

2017‑2018 Early frosts, down to 30-31°F, came Dec 8-9, but the more damaging freeze was the following month (Jan 16-18), with the low of 20°F coming on the 17th. Daytime highs were above freezing.

2016‑2017 Our first winter in our Texas home. We had planted a couple of young citrus trees, which did not survive the freeze event of that winter, which occurred on Jan 6-8, with the low of 23°F on Jan 7.

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Last modified: December 28, 2024
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