Nipping

Jack Frost was here last night, although only in the most exposed spot. Nothing appears to have been touched except perhaps a few leaves on a few violas in flats not yet transplanted to pots or the ground. Even the cosmos and thunbergia seem fine. But this is the strangest thing. There are two jardinieres right next to one another, one four inches deep and one four and a half inches deep and both filled to overflowing with rainwater. They're hand-thrown glazed red-clay vessels with quite a large diameter. We have forced paperwhites or other narcissi in them in the past. The surface of the water in one is completely covered with a layer of unbroken smooth, clear ice, ice clear enough to read through. The other didn't even have the shards or crystals of beginning ice formation.