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| Photo Credit: Bosh Bruening |
| This lace leaf Japanese maple has seen better – and warmer – days. |
Much of the US has experienced an unexpected and late freeze this April, and gardeners are asking what they should do now to repair the damage. The Learn2Grow forum dedicated to Problem Solvers has been very active recently with questions about injuries to mature trees, shrubs, perennials, vines, bulbs and other garden plants. When DJ in Kentucky asked how his drooping perennials, wilted-leaved mature trees and browned-out wisteria vine would fair both in the short- and long-term, I didn’t have a clear-cut answer. There just isn’t much that any of us can do about this freakish weather.
I relayed to DJ what steps I took before and during the freeze in my own Zone 5 garden: I made sure that all my tender potted plants were either protected from the elements or brought inside, and I watered well (because cold spells often do the most damage to plant tissue through drawing out the water) – and I kvetched about it.
Then I suggested to DJ that he employ the gardener’s best friend: patience.
“We’ll lose quite a bit of bloom this year, no doubt,” I replied in the forum. “You’ll have to wait until late spring and do some judicious pruning to any outer branches that died. (I had to do this for my mother’s Japanese maple last year.) The majority of your perennials will be more forgiving than you think – but you may have to do some judicious pruning on them later this spring. Will you completely lose plants? Probably not. But I have a young ‘Jane’ magnolia that I may lose because it wasn’t acclimated for long before the cold spell. (I just planted it a day before the temperatures dropped 44 degrees in one day.)”
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