November 2018 wasn’t terribly cold, so it’s unlikely that the Nankings were killed off then. I’m beginning to think they were just a casualty of our brutal February (Inuvik had a higher monthly average than we did — by about 10c!)

Hardiness just seems really random this year. My Aralia Spinosa (zone 5) has zero damage, my virgilia (6? 7?) has dieback but is budding...and my hackberry (2b) is as dead as a post. Weird!

I’ve also never seen my lone ‘Goodland’, stuck in a back corner, so loaded with blossoms. Double weird!

Buds are still breaking on my trees. My ‘dead’ Mount Royal plum is finally budding, as is the hackberry, although just on the lowest branch. And I’ve been monitoring my ‘Valiant’ grape and that row of Nanking cherries, but no growth so far. We’re about three weeks behind norms here.

About 50% Evans Cherries are dead...some over 20 years old.
The worst prolonged cold spill in February was most likely the culprit!

Look around some more. 7 U Sask cherries have a lot of dead branches, maybe half. Honeycrisp apple survived with a lot of dead branches. 4 blueberries did okay. Norkent doing great.

Two Unity sugar maples look to be totally killed, die back on a small red oak, might be a scarlet oak. One of my Sask., cherries now showing die back, it did start to push. Lots that's slow but I got hit by frost 3 times last week. I have one very tough Black Walnut, it has pushed on most of it's buds. Honeycrisp is pushing on the lower half of a vertical graft on a seedling of Royalty crab, the more horizontal grafts on a different tree are better.

I had 2 to 6 inches of die-back on many branches on my westcot apricot. Other than that, it seems to be leafing out well. Just one year in the ground (here), but it was pretty big when I planted it last spring. I have heard that hardiness improves as the tree gets a little older. No die-back on Scout apricot on Mustang rootstock. It is a smaller tree, also just coming up on 1 year in the ground. I had both of these bundled up in burlap and landscape fabric to protect against the winds, but I don't know if that did much good. My old apricot tree bloomed this spring, but it was sparse compared to most other years except low down where it was covered in snow, and up at the top. I am noticing a lot of small, dead branches on this tree and also branches with a lot of blind wood in the middle. My Pembina plum trees seem to be unaffected by the cold winter and numerous late-spring frosts. They bloomed like crazy, just like normal. But we will see what they put on for fruit. I had quite a bit of tip die-back on my Collet apple grafts (topworked on mature crabapple tree in a fairly exposed area). Of the apples I have grown, Collet always seems to be the first to suffer winter damage. Too bad it happens to be one of my favorites.

Konrad, -35 to -42C is wickedly cold. We didn't even get that cold in Winnipeg. Our coldest days hit -32C in January and there was a 36 hour period in January where the temp didn't rise above -30C. Lots of -28 to -30C in January. But I don't think we were below about -28C in February. So you got hit harder than we did. You weren't talking wind chill temperatures by any chance?

Darrell in the 'peg.

Those lows are similar to some of the official temperatures recorded here, and Peace River has warmer winter averages than Winnipeg. Lowest reading at the airport here was -43C, but my backyard thermometer read -45C on a couple of mornings. I certainly believe the readings as -- like I've said before -- I thought Nanking cherries and my hackberry were pretty much indestructible. All my winter damage (aside from a grape vine) occurred in the same area, which is in a dip, so it must have collected cold pools of air. Strangely, though, my "Westcott" is in the same row, and suffered relatively little dieback.

My Norkent apple on Bud 9 rootstock had started to push out leaves but has stopped growing, it's not sure that it wants to live, this was the second winter here for it. In a different spot against the street one graft of Honeycrisp on a seedling of a Royalty crab is flowering quite well, all things considered, a small graft of Norkent on the same type of tree had a few flowers also but was grafted last year so I will pinch them off if they start to develop.

After my earlier post, I discovered that one of my Summercrisp pear trees appears to be dead, above the first 18" of trunk. It's wasn't real small, up to about 12 feet tall. So I'm thinking Summercrisp doesn't like it when winter temps drop to around -40.

On the other hand, my mature apple trees have flowered this year like never before. They're beautiful, several look like ornamentals.

Summer crisp pear hasn’t lasted more then about 3 years for me...a test winter is all it needs.

Seems nothing has set on Mt. Royal plums due to flowers being deformed/damaged by severe cold. Green Gage seems doing better again. All 3 of my Capilano Apricots are dead..one graft is still alive, the Casino Apricot is hardier and alive. All Gabe Apricots, (A&B) are dead.

Funny thing is, my older (larger) Summercrisp pear suffered no damage at all that I can detect. It is probably a bit more protected -- closer to the house.

In Brandon our low was -42.9 c January 30th 2019. One branch of my Honeycrisp is struggling but the rest is blooming. My Mn447 also has one branch that is struggling but the rest is finishing its bloom. Norda, Prairie Magic Wintercheeks all bloomed - Zeestar is leafed out but did not bloom My Brianna, PrairIe Star and Valiant grapes are all leafing out and showing flower buds all above the snow line.

My 'Zestar' did decide to wake up, though had lost a main limb, but such was one I had intended to remove anyways. 'Waneta' is recovering nicely and 'Toka' is pushing out plenty of new growth, these trees had both been moved last spring and it had been rather hot and very dry at my location last summer, thus likely had contributed to the damage they had sustained. Several large 'Greengage' grafts are outright dead, though some are slowly pushing, so all is not lost afterall!

Good to know about 'Brianna' and 'Prairie Star' being so hardy !!

That minus 42.9C was most likely around minus 38C ..and your plants confirms it to me...

The same weather station is showing constantly 5 degrees colder then it is, for instance,
I had minus 35C on my two thermometers matching the correct weather station.

And the faulty one reading 5 degree colder

Bernie, in the city of Edmonton
who lives down in a hole by the river/zoo, had colder then me in Beaumont on the hill, he had minus 40, most all tenter stuff froze above snow line, including Mt. Royal plum and Green Gage etc....we’ve been comparing allot and plants can tell allot
to what temperatures they endured.

Now....my coldest was minus 35C in Beaumont, and I can add another 5 degrees..say around minus 40-42C at the orchard, 10 min out of town, I’ve never ever seen Valiant leafing out above snow line in over 20 years at those temperatures.
Of course...at these temperatures, all Apricot flower buds will be dead! Had zero flowers in town on the Sunrise Apricot at minus 35C.

I found that my Green Gage plum is not pushing any green above the snow line -- guess it probably froze due to the extreme low winter temp. Opal plum, on the other hand, seems to be OK.

I have come to the conclusion that my 6 foot multi stemmed bush Romeo cherry is dead with many other U Sask varieties damaged.

My Gabe A apricot has one tiny apricot forming, the bush is 3 feet tall so I hope it keeps it. I did not lose any of my plums to cold, Waneta, Supreme, Tolka, Lacrescent, Brookgold and, Ivanovka survived above the snow line. Opal, Mount Royal and White Greengage were small enough to be below the snow line so they, of course, are fine. I did lose my prized Greengage but that was to mice or vole damage. Some of the apples though are very slow to leaf out and I suspect that the damage will show up next year.

No blooms on the apricots this year (Strathmore, Adirondack Gold, Westcot), but the trees seem to be OK.

I cut down my 2 Unity sugar maples today, killed at the snow line, but they have yet to push any growth at all yet. One Valiant grape has a wimpy new cane coming, Brianna is doing much better. I had a touch of frost last night, I can see it on the grapes and a small Black Walnut.

Sorry to hear, wayne. I gave up on sugar maples, black walnuts and grapes because we can get frosts throughout the summer, and they just can't seem to handle much frost.

Thanks Douglas, You are correct about them not handling frost well.

Same here ..had frost, looks I need to re- plant beans., and not sure what’s going to happen with the new growth on the Valiant.
I put in about 8 new Valiant plants last year and only 2 are pushing from the base..and we had good snow cover. 3 Somerset grapes ..the second winter again dead vine..pushing from the base.

I just don't think that "Valiant" is hardy much below -38C. I had major dieback during 2017-2018, and it did recover, but died off completely this year. "Beta" did much better, as it survived -43C...even if it did die back to the snowline.

There is room for developing Zone 2 grapes. Most of the old growth on my Manitoba wild grapes survived while all my hardy grapes died (5 or 6 kinds).

I didn’t think that anything is hardier then Valiant..how would you rate Beta grapes?

Well, ‘Beta’ did survive -43C and a week of below -40c minima, so I’d rate it at 2a. I don’t offer my vines any protection in the winter — they just clamber up a trellis — so it seems to be pretty hardy. Mine is about to flower, but the crop is going to be small. The downside: ‘Valiant’ is incredibly prolific and the grapes are tasty. ‘Beta’ bears sparsely for me and the grapes are less tasty, possibly because of its fox grape origins. I just find vitis x riparia to be better as a table grape.

Oh, and the hackberry kicked the bucket. It was my only tree to completely die off completely, while my aralia spinosa (5?) and virgilia (6?) and fragrant sumach (4?) pulled through.

My valiant looks to be dead to the snow line. This is the first winter I did not lay it down and cover it so it is my fault. The grapes in my winter unheated greenhouse that I did take down and cover, Suffolk Seedless, Vanessa and Trollhaugen look to be getting grapes this summer. I am finding that Sommerset Seedless is kind of wimpy compared to those three. I treat it the same but it still is less vigorous.

ETA the dog knocked off my little apricot, I guess it was too close to the ground.

I have one out of three Somerset Seedless clinging to life, Valiant finally decided to start growing from the crowns, those late frosts that I had must have stopped buds that I could not see from growing. The Norkent on Bud 9 ended up dieing to the snow line but the graft on a crab is holding on to one developing apple, my first apple, and I am going to pinch it off LOL. The Honeycrisp graft has late flowers opening that look fully developed but I think all the apple trees around me are done, that graft I can let them grow if they set.

Bud 9 doesn't seem to work for me, every apple I have grafted on them has died, as well as all the Bud 9 saplings.

I will just dig it up and give it to someone with a better site.

Surprisingly, after that terrible winter that followed a very dry 2 previous summers, NOTHING died. My shrubs such as Goldflame spirea and a few different ninebarks, have all died back and are pretty ugly this year. As far as fruit trees go, everything was totally tip hardy this past winter, even my newly planted black currants, which surprised me! I also had newly planted plums, all tip hardy. No die back at all on cherries, saskatoons, gooseberries, haskaps, or anything else. As far as Valiant vs Beta goes, Valiant has definitely been hardier for me. I finally got rid of my Beta and planted another Valiant.

Sadly, the butternut you gave me a few years back, Wayne, died after the 2017/2018 winter. :( It got good snow cover and I had watered it, but..no dice. I was sad, because it would have been a beautiful tree! I left it where it was all last year hoping it would come back, but it didn't. Thanks anyway!

The winter before last, my 3 sea buckthorn died. I couldn't believe it. I really don't know what happened with them! They were doing well and totally tip hardy previous years and then - bam - all dead.

Weeper don't feel to bad about the Butternut, mine really struggle, they don't handle spring frosts well. One of my local seed source trees started to grow the male catkins but frost put an end to that. I ended up pruning all of last years growth off of most of them but I got down into the -40's for at least a few hours. I have a Black Walnut that grows very little each season and it has proven to be very hardy.

What do you call that feeling you get when---- after the plum tree you so lovingly cared for was girdled by mice and you saved 5 scions and all looked dead, then, lo and behold, after much time one tiny scion starts to break bud!

That is how I feel today, my 'Konrad greengage' has been saved for now.

Congratulations. May your 'Konrad greengage' live long and prosper!

Here my Greengage from June 14...

Hit -55 here this winter in zone 5a! Ugh. Still, all of my European plums survived well. That's bavay greengage, mirabelle, italian, long john, kirke's blue, coe's golden drop, and schoolhouse. Toka also survived, along with Superior. No dieback on any cherries - managed to keep Rainier, Lapins, 2 U of Saskatchewans (Romeo and Juliet), Kristin and Craig's Crimson. Lost black ice. Lost Arctic Glo nectarine, Mericrest survived though it sustained injury. Lost all my japanese maples. Lost a normal ornamental cherry and experienced massive tip dieback on a huge viburnum hedge.

-55 good grief! the last time we hit lower than -50 I remember it was as if the whole world just stopped, no noise, no movement, no nothing except the chimney smoke drifting straight up.

Leslie, that was with the wind chill factored in?

Had to be windchill..otherwise all be dead. The Arctic only got to -30F

Windchill doesn’t count in winterkill.

Coldest temperature ever recorded -30F? Where was that? We had -40F here last winter (same as -40C), no windchill factored in.

First, it doesn't factor in the brutal February temps -- that's for January, which was much warmer. Second, it's not necessarily contradictory. Winter 2018-2019 had near record-warmth over much of the arctic, while the rest of us froze further south. Inuvik's Feb. averages were more than ten (and closer to fifteen) degrees celsius warmer than northwestern Alberta (actual air temp below -40C on more than five nights).

I had some tip kill on the extremities of the grapes but nothing serious. My more pressing concern was the bark was lifting/crumbling off the trunk of a Prairie Star I had. I think it is a sun scald issue. I was lucky enough to get a root shoot up which I let grow in the hopes of forming a new trunk but I have my doubts it'll be on the grafted variety instead of the rootstock. Time will tell.

My Brianna has regrown from the base of the plant many times and seems to be the same every time.