Cannot say. Whatever you do, let us know the results. I would expect them to be fine.

Those buds made it through the winter, as with all spring blooming shrubs. Twentys should be nothing for them.

Good to hear, laceyvail, because as it turned out, DH and I both fell asleep on the couch last night and forgot all about covering them!

I agree! There's only so much we can do. And actually, the next morning, after a cup or two of coffee, I said: oh well, we forgot about the viburnums and the oak leaf hydrangea (that one I know is more sensitive to being nipped by cold)... but after all, shrubs have been growing and blooming for thousands of years without our help and they will continue... It just is awfully nice when we can enjoy those blooms, and it's why we choose those certain ones anyway.

So- water under the bridge at this point, but I went out and took a quick photo of one of them really quick... hopefully you can see the buds here. It's a messy photo because they are building a house next door, so the background looks awful. There are clusters of flower buds - pinkish hue.

Yes, I guess I would have thrown sheets over them, since they're still small enough... if someone had said it was important, and if we hadn't fallen asleep and forgotten! LOL!

ah so what ... lol .. it will double in size this year ...

ken

Let's hope!

Well, it's clear that the temps didn't bother the Korean Spice the other day.... This is a photo yesterday of one of them starting to bloom. But we're having a little bit of that wintry system moving thru right now, so who knows what will become of them in the next couple of days!

I'll say this -- those flowers smell like heaven (or what I imagine heaven smells like --- don't know yet! Lol!).

Are the leaves on those leathery? I am trying to figure out what kind we have.

Windymess, mine survived three nights in a row in the teens. Buds looked great. But oh yeah, then the squirrels came through and ate all the buds off four of my viburnums. I have never seen them do this before and I'm really not happy with those little rats right now. I'm hoping they don't go after all of my tomentosum varieties when those get going. And here I was so thrilled the buds made it through the cold! Glad to see yours did well!

Emily - the Korean Spice have soft, velvety-looking, almost gray/green leaves, and they grow to about 5x5-ish (maybe bigger if you let them. Mine are starting their 3rd year here and I can see that they are coming into their own. Where I work, I pass by a planting of 5 of them every day and they are lovely. They're very prunable, but I think they look best if they are left to develop in their natural form - I see a lot of them around the area that have been shaped into boxy hedges and it makes me feel a little sad. Here's a picture I took today:

Thyme - mine were unscathed by the cold, too! I was glad because those flowers are so fragrant and pretty! I was worried about the oak leaf hydrangea, but it looks like it's going to bloom as well.... a happy surprise.

I don't know what to say about the squirrels... the bane of my existence is rabbits! I have that Liquid Fence and it seems to work, but then has to be reapplied after rain. Sometimes I'm not fast enough, or I guess they're eating things between showers. I planted 6 Blue Shadow Fothergillas last year and 3 Chardonnay Pearls Deutzia, and they have made a feast of those! So they all have chicken wire around them right now (not the prettiest!). I have a theory that if the plants can just get larger, with tougher stems and foliage, the rodents may lose interest. So if I can just protect them for a while maybe we'll get past all that? Maybe? Last year they did nibble some lower growth on the Korean Spice, but not at all this year (supports my theory)

So here's another theory - in my garden it seems like the plants with sweet-smelling flowers are nibbled on more than the others. I have 1 fragrant hosta, which seems to be a rabbit-magnet, too - at least more so than the other hostas. So, perhaps the sweet-smelling plants are also sweeter tasting? And maybe it's not just the flowers that smell attractive, but the whole plant (and we humans just don't have such good sniffers).

Liquid Fence - I should buy stock in it.

I also got something granular to use when planting this spring - it's supposed to be taken up by the roots and make the plant taste bad.... we'll see. It will either be good, or my husband will say: 'there's one born every minute!' LOL!