Most gardeners make efforts to protect tender plants in their landscapes when they know a freeze may be coming, but do you know what to do after such an episode is over?
Here’s some general information on what to do and not do in your landscape after a freeze:
Move Plants. Move container plants you brought inside for protection back to their location outside – unless you intend to keep them inside all winter. If you will keep them inside, make sure they are close to windows and receive plenty of light.
You cannot keep plants inside dark garages or storage sheds for extended periods of time. Plants must have light to create the food they need to live, and they will slowly starve if not provided enough light.
Remove Or Vent Covers. Remove or vent clear plastic covers on plants to prevent excessive heat buildup if the next day is sunny and mild. The plastic will let in light and trap the heat just like your car with the windows rolled up.
You do not need to remove the cover completely if it will freeze again the next night. You also may leave plants covered with blankets or sheets for several days without harming them, but eventually the cover will need to be removed so they can get light.
Wait To Prune. Even though you may see damage immediately, do not prune anything after a freeze. It often takes several days for all of the damage to be evident, and some damage may not be noticeable until green up in the spring.
Damaged growth on herbaceous or nonwoody plants – such as cannas, elephant ears, begonias, impatiens, philodendron and gingers – may be pruned back to living tissue. This pruning is optional but does help keep the winter garden looking neat.
If the damaged tissue is oozy, mushy, slimy and foul smelling, it should be removed. This decaying tissue is unhealthy for the plant.
To determine if woody tissue is dead, try scratching the bark with your thumbnail. If the tissue underneath is green, it’s still alive. If the tissue is tan or brown, the branch is dead. Start at the top and work your way down to see how far back the plant was killed.
Pruning woody tropical plants after a freeze is optional and will not help the plant deal with the damage. Generally, it’s a good idea to delay hard pruning of woody plants until new growth begins in the spring; then you can more accurately determine which parts have survived the winter and what is dead.
Remember Bedding Plants Are Temporary. Another group of plants that generally are severely damaged or killed by freezes are tender perennial bedding plants such as impatiens, wax begonias, pentas, blue daze, scaevola, periwinkle and coleus. Although it’s nice when they make it through the occasional very mild winter and provide another year of flowers in our landscape, we must remember these plants are not intended to be permanent.
If, or when, your bedding plants have been killed by sub-freezing temperatures, remove the dead plants from the bed and mulch over the area to keep it looking neat. Or you could prepare the bed and plant hardy cool-season bedding plants, such as pansies, dianthus, alyssum, snapdragons or many others, anytime now through early March for an outstanding display this spring.
Remember, there is still plenty of time to see additional – and possibly more severe – freezes before it’s all over.
Protect what you can, when needed. And don’t be too quick to dig up and remove tropical plants that have been severely damaged and appear to be dead. Sometimes, they may eventually resprout from the base of the plant or the roots in April or May.Despite what comes, remember that our climate encourages rapid growth and recovery.
If worse comes to worse and you do lose some of the tender plants in your garden, don’t think of it as a tragedy but as an opportunity. How many of us have filled every square inch of planting space in our gardens and have been unable to purchase and plant new types of plants we want to try? When the dead plants are removed, we will have open areas available to plant. Think about that, and the loss might not seem so bad!
