ow, I’m not one to wish my life away, but I have to be honest with you: Now that the holidays have come and gone, and we’re all just a bit fatter than we were a few weeks ago, I am quite ready for the cold weather to move on out and spring come on in. If it won’t turn 80 degrees and sunny – and stay that way – beginning tomorrow, then I’m OK with the idea of just skipping January, February, and most of March. The only thing the rest of winter has left to offer me is some good May River oysters.

Not to mention that I’m cold. I have to wear layers and layers of clothes during these months just to keep my core temperature around normal. You would think a fellow of my stature (read “girth”) would have plenty of natural insulation to ward off the chills, but it just ain’t so. Add to that the fact that I live in a matchstick house where the slightest breezes outside can be felt as the coldest drafts inside, and you can begin to understand my complaining. I feel like the little brother in “A Christmas Story” whose mom puts so many clothes on him to stay warm that he has a hard time walking around – he’s all stiff legged and his arms stick straight out to the sides on account of all the layers.

I was in Atlanta the other night on business. It was one of the coldest nights of the year so far with temperatures in the low 20s in the city and upper 20s around Bluffton. I had just finished dinner with some clients and had returned to my hotel and was hunkering down in a big king-sized bed with fluffy pillows and a thick duvet. I was looking forward to a night with no dogs vying for bed space, no sheet-stealing wife to contend with, and a bed big enough to have its own ZIP code all for me. I started off in my favorite sleeping position – one which I do not get to enjoy often: diagonal across the entire bed with one leg splayed way out in one direction, an arm going the other way and covering as much real estate with my body as possible.

The thick cotton of sleep had just begun to fill my brain when an annoying electronic song invaded my thoughts. A series of beeps and dings and chirps assaulted me before I realized it was my cell phone on the vanity on the other side of the room.

Unbelievable. Here I am, just a mere second or two away from bliss, and someone has the gall to ruin it for me at this hour with a stupid phone call.

Though I thought about ignoring the call, I knew that if I did, I would subconsciously be thinking about who it was and what they wanted all night, thus ruining the perfect night’s sleep I had been envisioning.

I jumped up and dashed across the room to grab the phone and dive back in my nest before the warmth of my self-made cocoon dissipated. I saw where my wife had called and punched in the numbers at home thinking how sweet it was that she just wanted to call me to say good-night.

“Hello?” she answered, sounding somewhat aggravated.

“Hey, pumpkin. How are you?”

“The stupid heater is out,” she said.

“No it isn’t,” I laughed, enjoying the warm weight of the duvet. “It’s 78 degrees in here. I’m as snug as a bug in a rug.”

“Not yours, you imbecile. Ours.”

“Oh,” I said, refusing to let the guilt get a toe-hold on my thoughts of slumber. It did, though, and those much anticipated hours of sleep were fraught with thoughts of a shivering wife. I never did enjoy my sleep and woke up with a headache.

When I returned to my home that next morning, I walked in to find the evidence of a night that was 1000 times more miserable than mine. The thermostat read 48 degrees – inside. There were two tiny space heaters running in our bedroom near a bed that had five blankets over our regular down comforter, a hot pad, and the hair of two dogs, two cats, and one bride. I later learned that my wife was outfitted in full flannel gear with wool socks, a fleece jacket and a stocking cap to boot. Needless to say, I made sure that priority-one for that day was getting the heating people out to the house and fixing whatever the problem was at whatever the cost.

As residents of the Lowcountry, we all enjoy the benefits of living in a tropical climate zone. We are not, however, immune from the occasional frost or freeze, or even snow. But as such, we sometimes find ourselves in a precarious situation when it comes to our outdoor plants. Unlike folks who live in south Florida, where protecting plants from cold weather is as foreign to them as needing a snowblower, the occasional risk of losing hundreds of dollars of ferns, herbs, and tropicals is as real as a sunrise for those of us living in Beaufort County. If my wife was cold that night in the house, I can’t imagine how the plants must have felt outside.

It is simple enough, though, to keep all but the most tender of plants, alive and well from year to year around this area. Our winters are comparatively mild, and save for the few days that would cause any real alarm, our plants would do just fine with a good watering an occasional feeding through the winter months. Interestingly enough, it is not so much the cold that kills plants during the winter months as it is them drying out.

Think back to the recent times that we have had a cold snap that drops the temperature below the freezing mark. A vast majority of the times these snaps hit, it is associated with a cold front that is moving down from the Great Lakes, through the Ohio Valley, across the Appalachians and down across the Lowcountry. More often than not, these spells are accompanied by strong breezes that cut through whatever you’re wearing and make it nearly impossible to tolerate.

A plant “breathes” much like humans do. They absorb moisture through their root system and carry that water through veins up the stems and to the leaves. On the bottom side of leaves, cells called “stomata” open and close to regulate the amount of moisture released back into the atmosphere. When the soil is cold, though (as in a freeze), the roots constrict thus restricting the amount of water carried through the plant’s vascular system. A stiff wind, however, encourages the stomata to open to enhance the transpiration of the plant. What happens is a simple “more-going-out-than-coming-in” phenomenon. The plant transpires water out that is not being replaced by the roots, and you essentially kill the plant by drying it from the outside in.

On the rarest of occasions, it will actually get cold enough around here to freeze a plant’s cells. This happens on nights with little wind and sustained temperatures below the freezing mark. In still conditions, the moisture within and will freeze within the cells of the plant. (Incidentally, a light breeze will actually facilitate a plant’s survival in sub-freezing spells. Much like a dripping water-pipe, if a plant is encouraged to transpire, moisture within the plant is always moving, making it difficult to freeze.) The actual freezing of the cells is not necessarily what kills the plant, though. If a plant is thawed quickly, as would be the case with direct sunshine heating up a plant in the morning, the cells actually rupture.

For a relatively small investment of time and energy, nearly all plants enjoyed around here can be saved from the death grip of freezing temps. For all intents and purposes, there are two things the plant needs to be shielded from: winds and moisture depravation.

Perhaps the most important of these, particularly for plants in the ground, is moisture. It may seem counterintuitive to water a plant right before a hard freeze, but you need to do just that. By insuring there is plenty of water in the ground, you are insuring that there is plenty available for the roots to absorb, thus maintaining the plants ability to transpire. Spread a thick layer of mulch around a ground plant’s base to retain moisture near the ground. The thicker the better. Once spring comes, you’ll need to thin the mulch down some, but at least the weather will be conducive to doing outside labor by then.

Secondly is to protect the leaves from the wind, thus minimizing the effects of transpiration. Any old cover will do: bed sheets, canvas, frost cloth…even a trash bag. The idea is not to insulate the plant from the cold, but to create a barrier from the wind. Whatever you use, though, make sure it is not so heavy as to break the stems of the plant. The key to using any of these coverings is to make sure you remember to remove it in the morning! This is particularly true for plastic. It may be 25 degrees outside, but if the sun is up, it will heat up under the coverings like a sauna. I have cooked more than my share of plants by being too lazy or forgetful to remove covers in the morning. If a plant’s cells goes from constricted (cold) to expanded (hot) too quickly, they will rupture and die.

And if you thought my wife was upset about the heater going kaput, you should see her when I break the news that I killed half a dozen of her favorite ferns.