At midday we had about 11" and it was still falling at a rate of at least 1.5"/hour.....We're anticipating 8-12 more hours. Wow

Jingles enjoys the snow with some reservations. Apparently it's more fun if the snow depth is less than her height, though she did barrel through a drift or two. Karen and Peter had a job scheduled for this morning, tieing up boxwoods to prevent snow damage. They moved it to yesterday afternoon. Good call!

In general though, as far as plants and gardens are concerned, I like heavy (accumulations) of light (dry, fluffy) snow. It's a good insulator, keeping roots at 32F and doing a bit to prevent heaving of perennials and premature growth. This is a good storm. This snow is light and fluffy so it won't break branches. We aren't technically in a blizzard, but we have had winds up to 30mph, snowfall at 3"/hour, with  a temperature of 25F. The winds prevent enough snow accumulating on evergreens to do any damage. All I'm doing is adding logs to the fire.

I've never driven away from deep snow to go to Florida, but I think I can handle it. We're going down this week and I'm pretty excited. The winter visit is always fun because it's been raining regularly since the last vist (in July). There'll be weeds, but the plants will have grown nicely and a number of them flower heavily this time of year: Odontonema stricta, Schizostylis coccinea, Cuphea micropetala, Osmanthus fragrans, Kalanchoe blossfeldiana, Aloe saponaria (a hummingbird magnet), et alia. Others will have some flowers. I erected a couple of trellises last trip; one for a Bougainvillea, and the other for Lonicera sempervirens. The plants ought to have made good strides towards concealing their new supports.

Rosa luciae var. luciae.....nice hips....or heps

I have read and reread the literature without really understanding the relationship between this and Rosa wichuriana. I think that R. luciae and R. wichuriana are synonymous but that begs the questions of variety luciae. Our rose, like Wichuriana, is a prostrate scrambler, rooting readily as it creeps, that flowers in late summer through early winter. The plant itself is frightening in its vigour and the ease with which it sends down roots, but the hips are nicely urceolate and a pretty glossy red.