Cold Weather

15 years ago

I received my fruit shipment for this year consisting of 4 blueberry bushes, 2 cherry trees and 50 strawberry plants on Tuesday of this past week. Due to work and weather I have not yet planted them and they were watered and stored in my unheated garage. The weather forecast for the next couple of days has lows of

Tonight-22

Tomorrow-19

Monday-21

Tuesday-30

Wednesday-32

and highs pretty much 41/42 each of those days.

My question is if I should still be getting these in the ground now or should I be waiting for warmer nights. Or, do I get them in the ground ASAP but then take frost protection measures like covering them with a 5 gal bucket or something?

I worry that in the garage they will start to "wake up." Maybe I'm just being paranoid but the little cherry trees have had unfurled leaves since I got them and I swear the buds on the blueberry bushes are now more "open" after being in the garage. Maybe I'm being paranoid but any advice would be GREATLY appreciated.

~Jeremy

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Comments (5)

franktank232
15 years ago
If they are leafed out, I'd keep them moist in the garage and wait until Tuesday. You throw them out there with 19F overnight temps and those leaves will freeze solid, along with any flowers.
foolishpleasure
15 years ago
I have 4 trees Plum, Beach, Apple and sweet Cherry still in my Garage for almost 10 days now. Yes they have leaves and swallen buds. I am not planting them untill the weather improves. On a sad note I have 4 Apricot trees with beautiful flowers. I know it was going to be cold for a week so I hanged outside Xmas lights on two of them. Then I had unexpected company and could not do the other two. Just looking from the window I see my car is covered by snow. Probably I lost the other two trees or at least all the flowers. STPID
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rocketjeremy
Original Author
15 years ago
Thanks for the advice. The bushes are a little more then twigs right now so I know they wont' be setting fruit this year but I wanted to make sure I wouldn't damage them if they already started to push out and I threw them out in 19 degree nights. It's still cold today but I hope to get the last of the spots prepared that way I can put them in any day this week after work when the weather will be decent. I know it will be some time before I get fruit but I want to get them off to the best start I can!!
alan haigh
15 years ago
Bare roots are usually pretty strong and you should have no problems if you put them in the ground at this point. I'm in southeastern NY and am getting colder temps than you, and I dug and moved some big bare roots last week. I do a lot of that in Dec. as well. Even if they've started to leaf out a bit I would doubt that the temps you mention would do any damage at all.

If you were bringing them out of a green house it would be a different story.
blackrag
15 years ago
Hi Jeremy, I am having the same temps as you. For what it's worth, Yesterday and the day before, I planted strawberries, blackberries, blueberries and a few bareroot apple trees from a delivery earlier in the week. It seems I usually do everything backwards, so I'll have to report back in a month to let you know if they survive. I also transplanted 3 4-year old blueberries. The bareroots and transplants were still dormant, the rest of the berries had green. Chad