Frozen plants
If you think you are having fun with the snow, think about your outdoor plants!
Those of us who are plant nuts look at rhododendrons with ice hanging off their leaves and shiver. Will everything survive? The answer is no – there will be some losses. The good news is you will probably only lose those items that you would expect to lose in a normal winter. Some of those hardy pansies and cyclamen will not look so good when the snow melts. If you didn’t take the time to wrap some of those tender plants that are really more tropical than we are (Windmill palms, cordyline, Hardy bananas) you will probably have severe dieback. As long as they were not in containers (in which case you should have wrapped the planter as well) the roots may survive and you could see some growth come up from those roots when it gets warm enough in the spring.
The good news is there was snow with our cold temperatures. The snow acts as a blanket to protect plant roots and may save some plants that would not have survived otherwise. The melting snow will also help to rehydrate ground and plants that have had all the moisture sucked out of them with the wind.
Has the freezing rain broken some branches off your plants? When the weather clears, make that nasty broken end clean by sawing it off so that the wound is at a spot where new natural growth will occur in a way that will create an attractive plant. This means looking at the areas on the stem or branch below the break. Look for a swelling (where a new bud or branch would come out) or an existing branch that is going in the direction you would like to see the new growth go. (For me that means a branch that is going out and up in a pleasing direction – not in to the center of the plant or down at some weird angle). Then make your neat new cut just above that point. Your new branch will come out at an attractive angle creating a beautiful plant!
We will be busy the next couple weeks adding fresh color to our frozen container plants. We will also be hoping we don’t have to repeat again this winter.
As an aside, I just noticed the birds are loving the fact that I haven’t cleaned out the dead seed heads from my garden yet! The birds are delighted at finding the extra sustenance from those Greek oregano and Coreopsis seed heads that never got removed. I hope you were a lazy gardener as well so the birds can survive!
