The first of my Christmas Cactuses is now in bloom.
(or maybe it's an early "Thanksgiving Cactus")
Today is the 3rd day of the bloom being open.

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The real news of the day, however, is that the outdoor temperatures are currently running 25°F BELOW Normal. The high today was 30 degrees. The "normal" high is 55°F. The normal low is 37°F, which is 7 degrees above what the high was today.

Besides being unseasonably cold, it was also cloudy. That greatly influenced the heat in the unheated Solar Room containing my tropical plants. When the hibiscus started to physically droop from the 45° indoors temperature, we had to turn on the space heaters. The overnight, outdoors low was 20°F. We also brought several of the hardest hit hibiscuses into the warm, main part of the house where they revived. These drastic measures usually aren't needed (if at all) until February. But we are now experiencing February weather in November.

To put things into perspective: Anchorage, Alaska had a high temperature today that was 18 degrees warmer than we did!!! Global Warming???

Just 3 days ago, it was unseasonably warm here @ 78°F. Three days ago, we also had our air conditioner on; plus, some of my tropical house plants were still outside on the deck. Now, we are worried about avoiding this https://pbase.com/image/171422134 and this https://pbase.com/britestar/image/172619987

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In February 2022, the 15 Christmas Cactuses (that I had in our Solar Room) all froze to death; as did 50 to 60% of my other Tropicals. The above plant (a fairly plain Jane) was fortunate enough to be safe & warm inside in the kitchen window where she still sits. Hopefully, the cold weather months of 2022-2023 won't be as devastating as last February was. But today has been a scary start. Unfortunately, the Solar Room requires sun to hold its indoors temperature when it gets very cold outside.