Just got off with Karla (klas). I'm heading up to her place today to pick up the plants she is holding for me. She said tomorrow nite it will be in the 20's - and Don Dean is further north than she is. I hope he has a plan.........

That's just not fair!!!!
Happened here a few years back...Most hosta looked ratty the rest of the year....
Linda C

to put this in perspective, we had a very warm March followed by the warmest April since 1915... so our gardens are 2-3 wweks ahead of usual and looking great

but some of us old gardeners who don't see the glass as half-full or half-empty - we say the glass is cracked and will never be worth a dxxx - just know that Mother Nature is a nasty bxxxx and will do us some dirt in this convention year!

greenhouse is full, maybe 500 potted plants sitting outside... mutter mutter mutter...

I'm watching the weather forecast on the 11:00 news. Now he is saying "possibly 1/2" to 1" of snow/slush. I don't think the sheets will help at this point. My Lakeside Surf Rider is looking great this year. I'll try covering with a 5 gallon pail.......... the rest are on their own.

The hosta gods are mad at someone here in Minnesota!

Sorry to hear that,Teresa! If it (only) gets to 33 degrees,it shouldn't be a problem. A light freeze down here has never hurt my hostas. One year here,it snowed on April 15th! I had leafed out hostas then and the worst it did was weigh down some of the leaves. I know,that's no consolation to you,but I'm just relating to you my experience. Hope everything goes OK for you. Phil

i seem to have the same issue many years here in central alabama, but we have a warm feb/early march then we get a frost. the ground holds alot of heat and i try to cover the hostas with pots, blankets, or even mulch.

If you really have favorites to worry about.... a sprinkler going all night on the most prized hosta will keep them from freezing.

Thanks Linda. I'm going to watch the 5:00pm forecast. I'm not sure I will do anything at this point. They may get damaged but they'll survive.

Light snow tonite - temps above freezing and snow should act like an insulator - according to the weatherman anyway. However, clear skies tomorrow night and a good chance of a solid freeze.

Thank God I'm not as much of a fanatic as I was a few years back. Nature will take it's course and I will live with it and not get any gray hairs or have a heart attack fretting over the matter!

We had a freeze in late May last year. Not pretty.
Frost warnings here for Sun night.
Good luck
Pam

So you're saying the sky is falling. Told Ya.

Chicken Little

With luck, the snow will fizzle out for many of us Twin Citians Friday night, and the rain today was a godsend. I am much more worried about Saturday night, the possibility of clear sky and a freeze. Shudder!

We are getting varying low temp forecasts here in NE Wisconsin...lows varying from 27-34. I've decided to play it safe and am going out now in the rain to bring all my pots into the garage.

For the plants in the ground, would a carefully placed pillow case / plastic garage bag do protection? I think most of my larger hostas are too leaved out now for an upside-down pot/5 gallon bucket.

Keep us up-dated & good luck !

Do not use plastic. Cloth is the way to go. I don't know why plastic is not good. I'm watching a local news show that has a gardening segment and they said the same thing....no plastic.

Hideko Gowen just called me about some plant markers that I have. I was talking about the forecast for frost and asked her if she was going to try to cover anything in her garden. She said "are you crazy? Silly girl!" LOL I'll have to see how much energy I have when I get home from my two great nephew's birthday party this afternoon. We'll see if I want to drag out the sheets.

Now I have to go to my garage and hunt down those plant markers I told Hideko I would give her.

Plastic forms a condensation on the inside, and then on the plants which in turn can turn to ice if the temps drop enough.
If you can elevation the plastic to keep it from making contact with the plants, then it's safe to use.
Pam

Thanks Pam.....that makes sense.

Ok, I've got my pots in, now I will drag out some old sheets, thank you! That'll be easy...they're all old! :) Mary

Curious how that weather is turning out up north. It's 47 degrees in central IL & I'm not happy about it. I'd be spitting swears if we had a freeze.
Gayle

Just called to make an appt for a haircut. My hairdresser said she planned on driving up to Duluth for Mother's Day tomorrow. Her Mom called her and said - we got 4" of snow last nite - more on the way tonite! Guess I'm not so bad off afterall.

I hope those convention tour gardens have serious plans for covering up tonite. No doubt about it - we are getting a hard freeze tonite!

Good luck to you all and I am keeping fingers and toes crossed!

Alexa

Avoided the snow last night... put on the long johns and got out in the gardens at noon... had to come in for lunch because it started to hail... somebody up there hates us!

So far, hail is small and not doing any damage... crossing any of my extensions that can still bend...

Hail???????? I don't even have any precipitation of any kind here. It never ceases to amaze me how you can have totally different weather going on than I do Jim - and you are less than 5 miles from me!

Crossing fingers and knocking on wood, no hail nor any precipitation here (Golden Valley) either. So sorry it targeted Jim! I am hesitant to put sheets and frost blankets out until later in the day, in case it gets windy later. More clouds, please, with no hail in them!

We had 1 in. diameter hail yesterday with the storms that came through yesterday, high winds and tornado warnings. So much fun. Today its 50, wind still blowing with a low tonight in the upper 30's. My poor hostas got torn from the blasted hail, and they were looking so good this year.

Karen

You will not believe this....I brought all my pots into the garage, then I went out with the old sheets and beach towels to cover up the hostas that mattered to me most....the two large Sum and Substance, especially.

Looked down into the 2nd unfurling S & S and discovered HVX.

SIGH.

This is the first case I've ever had in my garden (as far as I KNOW.)

SIGH.

On the positive side, I'm thankful that I know what it is (because of this forum) and how to handle it.

How ironic is that....you go outside (when you don't feel like it) to protect something and WHAM!

That one did not get a sheet.

My hostas better do well on their own overnite. I don't have the energy to go out and cover anything. I just got home from the two great nephews birthday party. My whole body hurts. My best advice - if you are 56, you have no business getting into a "bouncy house" with nine 3-5 year olds. I got a 3 yr old's head in the left ribs along with some little feet in the right ribs. At some point I was on my back and some little body part bounced off my head. I need a hot bath and some pain killers and to hell with the hostas.

We have warm springs nowadays. In the 70s there was a day in May with a lot of snow in upstate NY, but then I had no hostas. My neighbor lost his tomatos twice until the end of May.
Teresa, I know how you feel after being with several active kids. We raised a VERY active grandson since birth, full-time, will be 7 soon.

The hail was small and lasted a short time - no damage. Other folks also had tiny hail in the southern part of the cities but reported no damage.

Our current local area forecast is showing a low of 35 for about 3 hours before dawn... so we may dodge the bullet.
Rest well, Teresa... your hostas will be fine in the morning!

My sympathy, Karen... we got hit hard by May hail 2 of the last 5 years. Pretty discouraging... but we ended up still having pretty nice gardens by midsummer. Not a good year for entering leaf competitions, though!

We have a freeze warning for tonight - midnight to 8am. And tomorrow night also. That's twice as long a time period as the freeze we had late last May. I don't think sheets will even do any good.
Pam

Teresa, hope your long bath did the trick!

Our frost advisory was from 3am-8am. I woke up at 8 am, looked outside and not a bit of frost, full sun. Everything looks fine from the window. Looks like we may have dodged the bullet in this area... Now, to enjoy gatherng sheets and taking all the pots back out! I may cash in a "Mother's Day" coupon and ask for help! :)

I deployed everything from spun poly row cover suited to the purpose to canvas drop cloths to bed sheet drop cloths and dust covers to worn beach towels and pillowcases from the car cleaning rag bag to old wool blankets that shrank in the laundry. And I didn't get all my hostas covered.

If there was frost, it was light and only in low spots. All is well. Pshew!

Now my hostas are looking forward to a good rain on Tuesday to break the drought.

It was good news / bad news for me... officially it only got to 34 and for the most part, things look good.

But I did see, upon close inspection, a lot of leaves have little discolored spotting which may be cold damage. I think I'll have to give them some time to determine how much damage was done. It was very discouraging to go out to check on my emerging War Paint only to see spotting throughout the lighter center section on the most open leaves...

I haven't done a total walk thru - but from what I can tell - only two hostas in a corner in the front yard were damaged. Winter Snow and Lady Isobel Barnett. Still young and rather thin leaves. The large clump of praying hands 5 feet away looks just fine.

I have some really tall grasses that moved into one of my terraces and I had not gotten around to pulling them out. I believe they protected the ones in there. See...it does pay to procrastinate! LOL

In spite of 30 degree temps last night damage so far appears minimal though it may not all show up right away. I sure hope this is the end of this carp.

Here in St Louis Park we got down to 33 degrees on Sat night...looks like everything made it. So far.

I only noticed damage on two yesterday. I see a couple more today. The roof of the 3 story apt building which is down hill and about 300 ft from my property line, had a thick coating of frost when I got up yesterday. I ran outside in my pjs and slippers. My grass was not even damp. Wierd. slp - Dr. Bob Olson (Hosta Journal) is in St. Louis Park also. Someone told me he got alot of frost. Hope he can salvage his garden for the tour. I also heard that Don Dean up in Ramsey got hit pretty hard also. Another tour garden. Is it possible that the frost was hit or miss????

thought i would way in. I had a small section of my yard that must have gotten colder than the rest. A line of plants that look like itÂs October 10th! Queen Josephine, Spring Fling, Olive Bailey Langdon, Little Sunspot, and Gunther's Prize. This was year 4 for Gunther's Prize and it would have been nice.......

Sorry to hear about all the frost! It can be hit and miss. I've seen times this spring when there was frost on my neighbors roof,and absolutely none here at my house! We are beyond frost times for this year,and I had no freeze or frost damage this year,at all. Just the hail storm back in April. Good luck to all of you with the frosty conditions. Phil

aw shucks, Mike... those are some pretty hostas. If they are really knocked back like it sounds, I wouln't be surprised to see a big second flush of growth this year... they might look really good by July...

Well, I got out and covered just about every hosta... at least the ones that were unfurled. (I got use out of some landscape fabric WOO HOO!)

According to our personal weather station, it got down to 31.4ºF on Saturday night.... and that was up by the house. I'm sure that in the garden, where it's more exposed, it got lower.

I don't think anything took major damage, though it did look like Maui Buttercups has sustained some damage either over the weekend, or before.

All seems good.
NOW, NO MORE OF THAT!

Out in the western suburbs here in Orono, we had frost on our dock and boat canopy but no sign of any up at our house. Everything seems fine (except the coleus which looked pretty limp).

My sister down in Maiden Rock, WI, had a hard freeze that damaged the shoots on their grape vines. The vines will be fine, but they have to start over and won't bear quite as well this year.

Warm temperatures are gone for a few days in NY zone 5a. We had high winds, clear skies, 31F officially, and white on a black car. Hosta 'Singing in the Rain' at the low point of my 1/2 acre had the edges of its leaves zinged, forming cups, looks like 'Singing Rain Cups'. Tonight another 31F night, managed only to cover some pots with new hostas, plus Liberty and St.Paul.

It was in the upper 20s here, for two nights. We lost several plants out at the camp, even though I had a couple of things covered. It was just that cold. I think the streets in town absorb heat during the day and that helps keep the frost/freeze away during the night as we had very little frost/freeze damage at the house. None of the hostas (eyes and just unfurling the last week or so) appear damaged.

We went just below freezing last night. Lots of droopy plants this morning. I won't know what's permanently damaged until the sun warms the yard, but it smells like frozen vegetation outside.
Pam

We went just below freezing last night. Lots of droopy plants this morning. I won't know what's permanently damaged until the sun warms the yard, but it smells like frozen vegetation outside.
Pam

so sorry, Pam... hope its just a few leaves on each and they bounce back for you this year...

Ten days after the frost I'm seeing some real damage to many hostas. Oh well, perhaps a little Osmocote will coax a second flush of fresh looking leaves.

I visited Jim's place today. He only got minimal damage - in general his gardens look great. My sister met me there and was just amazed at his place.

I exercised restraint and only came away with 3 hostas. As it it I have no idea where I will cram them in!

I live in zone 5. All my hostas are leafed out. We have a frost worning for tonight. Is there any truth to the rinsing the frost off befor the sun comes up will help or save plants. I appreciate any advice out there.Thank you

This post is from last year.

But, there were discussions of keeping the lawn sprinkler on overnight so that no frozen particles have a chance to accumulate on hosta leaves. I've never done it, but I've covered everything (see above)