I'm so sorry.

If the sap is actively flowing now then protect the plants/trees, especially those that have no walls or other plants around it. Monitor the overnight lows closely for the next few days too as forecasting of overnight lows is very variable from day to day. Just be ready to protect foliage, flower buds inside the ends of the stems and stems as best as you can. Water deeply the night before. Maintain 3-4” of mulch. Use sheets or frost cloth if practical. The good news is that the dip will be limited to a few hours in a few places (not everywhere though) and then the temperatures go back above freezing in those places for each day instead of remaining low for days. If you get a hard freeze, consider protection for those that are actively growing. Consider extracting newly/recently planted plants onto containers temporarily while cold if you cannot winter protect properly. Hydrangeas that bloom on old wood may be leafing out or developing new growth so these need attention. Hydrangeas that bloom on both old and new wood may lose the spring flush of blooms but will still produce the summer flush of blooms. Hydrangeas that boom on new wood should not be affected from a blooming perspective but they may still have stems damaged if the water in actively growing cells form ice crystals that break the cells.

I have actively growing roses. We shall see what happens. They are well hydrated. I have learned, NEVER plant new roses until around Mothers Day. All my new roses are in 3 gal. pots. I just moved then under my house in the crawl space. They will be fine.

Sending much sympathy!!! No more freezing weather!!!!

@fig_insanity Z7b E TN your hosta are almost fully leafed?!?! That’s insane!!! I barely have pips!

I'll have to cover everything again. I already did it once this season. It's a major annoyance.

@luis_pr, Great advice! I had forgotten about the hydrangeas and I just planted one recently. Lots of work tomorrow evening after small Birthday party for my sister. Ridiculous.

Stillann,

Have you ever heard of bags of ice placed around the fruit tree's trunk at soil level, then covered with some insulating material to keep the ice from melting too rapidly? This is supposed to retard the start of blooming.

This could be effective in holding tvtttvtt back blooming until late springspringspringspr frost a are over.

MosMosesMosMosMosesMos. (gremlins at work again, sorry!)

Apologies to Ann for monopolizing her thread.

@oursteelers 8B PNW You folks in the NW have had more winter than we have this year. The ONLY truly cold weather we've had here was the week of Christmas, and it was bitterly cold. For all of three days. Ever since, our temps have pretty much been above normal, with February being insanely warm. Hence the hand-wringing now, lol.

I have around 50 or 60 hosta varieties. I've been growing/collecting them since they were still known as "funkia". Not all of them have mature leaves, but almost all of them are at least beginning to unfurl, if not fully leafed out. Some of the giant varieties like Earth Angel, Liberty, Empress Wu, and Wu La La are farthest behind (Thankfully. They'll be hard enough to cover, as is), but the only ones that are still "just pips" are the H. sieboldiana 'Elegans' and its offspring, which are ALWAYS my last to sprout, normally in April. So they're in sequence, but earrrrrrly.

The old-fashioned H. undulata variegata (the "Oh yeah, I've got the green hosta and the variegated hosta") clumps are the farthest along. The leaves are completely mature, at their peak of beauty, but oh-so-tender. At least those are as common as grass, and not a rarity, lol.

The only thing good so far about such early sprouting is that it's still too early (miraculously) for slugs, lol. But if the hostas survive this freeze, I'll be putting out slug bait soon...which I don't normally do until MAY.

When I've covered hydrangeas but left some uncovered the uncovered ones were damaged. I have too much stuff to cover everything but I'll cover some. The trouble is, when we get these cold fronts they often arrive with strong winds.

Most of my plants are leafed out and have been for awhile due to very mild Jan. and Feb. temps. No hostas are leafed out but are starting to wake up as is Japanese maple. I don't see much in the way of buds yet except on Fortuniana which is always very early. We've had hard freezes several weeks ago, but tonight it'll be about 5 hours of freezing temps and tomorrow night ten hours.

So I have to haul most of my small potted plants under my house. It works well. Around Christmas we had the several days of extremely cold temps. I protected most of my small plants but left out a test group and the test group is 90% dead. Even some of my gallon roses died in that cold snap. Usually they can stay outside all winter, no problem.

My clematis plants have a lot of new growth. I worry about them but I think they're hardier than roses. I am not stressing out too much about this weather. Will stress out later if it does a lot of damage. Good luck to all!

We had a mild winter in Maryland. Some things are blooming like daffodils, hyacinth, and forsythia. These can take some cold. Even snow. Roses have lots of leaves, but I don't think there are any buds. There are some beginnings of hydrangea leaves. I've found that if the cold arrives early, the leaves get a little crispy on the edges, but it won't hurt blooms. Anyway almost all my hydrangea are white flowered, so they'll bloom fine, no matter what. I'm not worried and won't take any action.

Fig and I live maybe 30 miles apart, and I used to compare Knoxivlle along Kingston Pike with my bloom time. I was almost always seven days later, I think this year I'm 10 to 14 days later and my daffodils that get any sun at all are over (the 70s last week shortened their bloom endurance, even the ones that came with the 200y.o. log cabin). I have a redbud down from the house that really wants to bloom so it won't be great this year.

Being above 1100' and exposed to the winds is a mixed blessing and my peonies on the south facing hill are about six inches high.

OTOH, the nandina three weeks ago showed potential of coming back. Guess I can cut it all the way back and repaint that wall before it regains its former glory.

OTOH, my seedling noisette which have never been grafted to anything and so probably have NO viruses to weaken it....they are leafed out well. We shall see how strong they really are. (From what the late Doug Seidle told me, if a seedling noisette doesn't bloom until it's three years old, it's a pure noisette, and this one fits that bill. ) It's not spectacular, but it's seldom out of bloom. Most years.

I really don't want to learn a lot more about rose survival this year but it looks to be educational, regardless.

I do enjoy reading what the rest of us plan and hope for after this.

Ann, I forgot to mention the local redbuds. Here on the farm they've been in FULL bloom for at least a week or 10 days, and started opening a good three weeks ago. Sheesh! What, nearly a month early? It's probably the best, most full I've seen them bloom in 10 years or more. The roadside of I-40/75 west of Knoxville, nearing the county line, is a sight for sore eyes....purple as far as you can see. They'll be history after Tuesday night :(

I haven't checked my dogwoods. I'm afraid to.

Hopefully your noisette will be ok. Is it your own seedling?

Wow this certainly got me looking st my local weather forecast! fortunately fortunately, our low here will only hit 30 but it will be windy too and i think it’ll really zap the magnolias and cherries and service berries that are currently blooming. My creeping phlox just started blooming. It’s been a really strange year so far and it is the first time I’ve ever had crocus bloom for 3 weeks (and counting). Daffs have been blooming since January 30th. It’s wild with the potential to turn heartbreaking.

I am very concerned also. I have buds on several of my roses already and clematises. I also planted lots of Petunias since it has been so warm.

I dont have any buds but Chianti has leafed out very well already.

im in middle tennessee and our low is 23 overnight but it bouces back to high 40s tomorrow and again on wednesday.

are mine in danger?

I think it depends on how many hours of hard freeze. That includes the hours it takes the following morning for the air temperature to get up enough to help the plant.

Years ago I wish I had washed my roses down with the hose. I know water out of a hose feels cold, but it's at least twenty degrees above freezing.;

Well, last night there were ten hours of freezing temps. Right now it's almost 40, at 10 am. So far I see very little damage but it's very early yet...seems it can show up in up to a week. There are some darkened tips on hydrangeas, even the one I covered. but lower on the stems they look ok so far. There is a pot full of water on my front porch and after ten hours of freezes it is not frozen. Water in a birdbath on the other side of my house is frozen solid.

I'm glad I protected so many of my potted plants and seedlings. But it's going to get down to 26 this weekend. So I have to leave them under my house, altogether about a week.

So far none of the flowering trees look worse.

The frost already damaged young leaves on a newly planted hydrangea and some May Night salvias. I can probably say good bye to blooms from these guys any time soon.

The low here hit 23F last night.

I managed to cover several of my once-blooming hydrangeas. The remontant ones had to fend for themselves, and they.are.a.mess. But hopefully after I prune them back, I'll get some blooms, albeit later than than the normal first blooms. I haven't looked under the covers on the once-bloomers. It's going to hit 27 again tonight, so I'm just leaving them undisturbed, and hope I'm not solar-cooking them in their tents today :P

As I suspected, any roses I didn't cover, which was the majority, lost their buds, and the leaves look like they melted. I'm still holding out hope for the *tops* of some of my high-climbing roses and ramblers (it's warmer up there...cold air sinks), also for some of the albas and gallicas. They look the best of all the unprotected roses. But the teas, chinas, HT, floribundas, shrubs, etc, all look like a blow torch hit them. Fortunately, and thankfully, I did get my pot ghetto (about 50 roses...yeah, I know, I know, lol) covered. I'll know tomorrow if it was enough.

The redbuds aren't showing much damage at the moment, but I'm holding my breath. At least since they were so early, I got to enjoy them a good long time already.

I did get around to checking the dogwood buds. They are beginning to swell, and a few were juuuuust beginning to open, but I think they'll be alright. For now. Sigh. Our *normal* last frost date is APRIL 17-21st, so there's more fun to come. The Cornus kousa will be ok, since they bloom a month later than Cornus florida (PSA: they are now classified as Benthamidia japonica and Benthamidia florida, respectively. Ask me if I care? lol)

Any hostas I didn't cover are toast. Or should I say slime? Most of my perennials succumbed, of course, but they'll bounce back, even if they don't bloom. The peonies are what I mourn the most.

You know what looks undamaged: bush honeysuckle, aka Amur Honeysuckle, that d***ed invasive that seems bound and determined to fill every fence line between here and there. It puts out leaves early and holds onto them late and every da**ed leaf axil has at least two seeds that the birds love to spread. We are fighting it and we aren't winning. One neighbor has abandoned his acreage and he has enough Amur to cover the whole county with seeds.

Sorry to hear about your damage. 23 is awful cold. I think I'm in a slightly warmer micro-climate within my town and some parts of my yard are warmer than others.

We have common honeysuckle ...Japanese honeysuckle I think, and it does take over. I have been pulling up lots of it, trying to reclaim some space. English Ivy is just as bad.

Honeysuckle isn't big problem near me. Probably because mile a minute smothers it to death. I swear, after a heavy rain, I can actually see it growing.

Ann, I can't *like* your last post, but I certainly sympathize! I have a few lonicera wildlings around my property, and I do my best to kill them off, but there are always 10 more for every one I kill. Right now is normally the time I try to catch them, as they're so obvious (the early leaves), but since so many other things have leafed out early, I'll have to wait until they bloom. Then I run the risk of not catching them before they set seed!

The Bradford pear seedlings have begun to show up on my property, too. The first one was 10 feet tall (and had probably set seed for years) before I noticed it. Ugh. There are fields not too far from me, mostly disturbed land where they've done bulldozer work, that are solid sheets of nothing but pears. ACRES and ACRES of pears. Nothing can sprout, much less live, under the darn things. Talk about mono-cultures...

Yeah, and it seems like they're doing just fine since the frost. Figures.

Sheesh! Even colder temperatures expected this weekend through Monday. It's raining now, with a chance most of the day, so I'll have to wait to see if the foliage dries enough, early enough, to be able to protect things tonight. Won't do a bit of good to put cloth on top of wet foliage.

It's *only* predicted to be 29-30F tonight. But tomorrow night and Sunday night...21F. Monday night, 23F. I knew it was coming, but I was hoping not quite so soon on the heels of the last freeze.

Spring. Yee.Haw.Whoop.eee

Oh man… we are supposed to hit 25 on Sunday. I guess I should probably cover my blueberries!

AND it's supposed to get in the 20's again this weekend. My two huge blueberry bush's are toast. I don't even want to think about the rose's.

Grrr Sunday night is supposed to be 31F. I thought we were done with our freezes. I suppose the rest of my mulberries will freeze and drop off. Half did with the last freeze. Plus, I just stupidly planted out 8 tomatoes this week. Tonight is thunderstorms and possible tornadoes, Yippie!

There are thousands of Bradford pears within a mile or 2 of my house. When I read people saying not to plant them because they're invasive, I laugh. Yea, that will make a difference. I think they're now outlawed where I live. The only thing keeping them in check are tree of heaven.

We are supposed to hit 24

I have a lot of young rose and clematises buds already because we have have been so warm. I guess I can say goodbye to them

It's really unfortunate. Quite a few years we are hit with a one night hard freeze near Easter. It's bad enough. This is about six nights of hard freezes that last for quite a few hours each.

I am not gloating over my good luck but so far I see almost no damage to new growth in my garden. Some Yoshino cherry trees look a bit browned but they did bloom beautifully for about a week at least. My crabapple tree is in full bloom and looks fine so far. I do think that in a few days when it warms up to 78 I will see some crispy new growth. It's supposed to get down to 23 here Sunday night.

I am not sure what to expect . I think some years when we've had an Easter freeze the spring flush was just delayed, not ruined.

Okay I have a question! We are now predicted to go down to 29F Sun night. I still have some roses soaking in buckets (I just got my 2nd Edmunds order yesterday). Is it okay to leave in them in the water bucket under a shub, up close to the house or do I need to bring them in?

Its been raining and I am not going to be able to dig more in my new beds until its less muddy.

Do your bare roots have any new growth? I have two bare roots potted up that have new growth and I put them under my house. They stay cold but not frozen. If I were you I think I'd bring them inside since they're brand new. If you just have one night of low temps it shouldn't hurt them to be brought inside. If the buckets are heavy you could just dump out the water, bring them in, then fill up the buckets again when inside.

My front yard is full of potted plants and seedlings in flats which I will bring in before tonight. I had to put my other small plants back under my house after letting them out two days to get some sun. I find that if I don't get in a rush and I try to avoid whining to myself I can make it less of a pain.

29 degrees should be OK sultry.

Thank you for your reply:) Some of them do have new growth. Ok I will just dump themand stick the buckets in the spare bathroom and refill them. Ive got 3 buckets lol. I am going to put some heavy pots upside down over the tomato seedlings that I just planted in the raised beds. That has worked before. I have put large upside down pots over some of the outdoor faucets before and it worked down into the upper teens. I was contemplating digging up my tomatoes but so far, they say just one freezing night, so that seems like a lot of work lol.

I've been eyeing the weather report so I can figure out when it's safe to leave my seven flats of native perennial seedlings outside overnight. It looks like Tuesday is the day to move them out! And then it should only get down into the 40s for a week!

Yes, summercloud, Tuesday looks like a safe day to put out plants. No freezes predicted after that. But our last average frost day is April 16 so we could be in for more of this. What kind of perennials are you growing from seed? I have a lot of seedlings too.

I live in the NC piedmont.

Last night/this morning: low of 23F. Went below 28 by 4am. Still just 27. Not getting above freezing until noon. Tonight: even colder, even longer.

EDIT: Annnnnnnnd I just saw the forecast for Thursday is for a high of....drumroll....78F!

It's 1:22 EDT and we're about to break above 32F. It's been so cold outside that the cats are bringing the mice they catch in the rose beds INSIDE to eat them. Can't say that I blame them. but wish they'd eat the whole mouse.

Right now I'm just hoping that the chickweed in the gardens is dense enough to give some protection to any basal breaks that hope to open.

The Accuweather monthly forecast so far has this week being as cold as ever, then warm (as Fig mentions) and the next cold not to be as cvold. I have a couple of bareroot own roots from Edmunds that I may try to get into the ground next weekend if the predictions hold. The downstairs bathtub is getting crowded with some non-roses that have arrived.

@erasmus_gw I'm in the triangle--so piedmont NC as well! Hi, neighbor! Are you ready for the pollening?

I've got common milkweed, swamp milkweed, amsonia, eastern columbine, rattlesnake master, purple lovegrass...those are the ones that've done really well so far, the others are too small to pot up still. What are you growing? Maybe we should meet IRL and swap!

Summercloud, the triangle seems like a hefty distance to me but I've thought about driving over there for something. I have some seedlings I could trade....Creme de Cassis hollyhock, Excelsior foxgloves, alyssum, calendula, bachelor's buttons, red corn poppy, zinnias, picotee cosmos, dwarf cosmos, nemophila Baby Blue Eyes, basil, tomatoes, love lies bleeding. I have others but quantities not quite as good...Fama scabiosa, Las Vegas gomphrena, Blue Horizon ageratum. I have not grown a milkweed but thought about it. Have a few butterfly weed plants.

Looks like tonight will be the last hard freeze, at least for awhile. Temps up to 81 in a few days! The crispy new growth will show up then I bet. I have a bunch of new basals on roses that will be sad to lose if they're toast. But I still look forward to lots of blooms..we'll see.

Welp, it *only* got down to 21F last night, for about three hours. Was below the "hard freeze" point of 28 for 11+ hours. One more night of frost coming, though not nearly as cold. They're predicting 27F tonight, so it probably won't do any more damage than has already been done.

I'm not even going to look under the sheets and blankets until tomorrow. Ignorance is bliss.