Hard to say if your garlic will recover. One year long ago I planted a row of store-bought garlic along with several rows of hardnecks, and after a cold winter the store-bought plants died while all of the hardnecks survived. That was the end of store-bought for me.

Music is my primary variety these days, and complemented by Estonian Red and Russian Red. All are hardy and produce large bulbs with fat cloves. Music yields 4-6 cloves in a very large bulb with a rich flavor, so it is my favorite so far.

TomNJ/VA

It is a soft neck variety. I am curious if you have had any squirrel problems with the hard neck variety. If it wasn't cold killing my garlic it was squirrels eating the new shoots and leaving partial cloves behind.

The only problem I have with squirrels and garlic is them digging up newly planted cloves and replacing them with acorns or hickory nuts in the fall and then digging in the garlic beds in the spring to retrieve said nuts. I remedy this by putting chicken wire or some other sort of wire fencing over the garlic beds in the fall when the squirrels start to bury nuts and I don't take them off until the garlic starts to grow in late winter.

I don't usually put a screen on until spring. I don't like keeping it on with heavy snow.

I've been working with Music for years, and it has no winter hardiness issues to -5F with frozen soil. Southern Exposure has a softneck called Nootka Rose that's great in the garden, too. The real survivors in my garden are mid-size rocamboles -- passalong strains I call the Appalachians. About half the size of Music, but easy to grow and store really well.