Saving frost-bitten plants
If you've been living through the polar vortex, or just plain cold temperatures, you may have been worried about a lot of things, including your garden. While your plants took night after night of cold temperatures, your nails might have ended up bitten to the quick as you waited to see what
Posted — UpdatedIf you've been living through the polar vortex, or just plain cold temperatures, you may have been worried about a lot of things, including your garden. While your plants took night after night of cold temperatures, your nails might have ended up bitten to the quick as you waited to see what happened. Even with protections like frost sheets, cloches, and a nice layer of mulch to insulate roots, extreme temperatures can be too much for many plants to handle.
Does your garden have some brown, drooping, miserable specimens in it? Those frost-bitten residents of the garden may actually be capable of recovery, so don't start playing a funeral dirge and ripping them out just yet. Instead, let's talk about how to help plants recover from frost bite.
First of all: that brown, drooping foliage? It's dead. But you probably already knew that. The delicate capillaries inside the leaves burst when they were filled with steadily expanding frozen water, and they're done for. However, if your plant has a woody stem, it's entirely possible that the stem (and root system) are still in good shape, and that the plant can recover and go on to produce new foliage once you've trimmed the dead material away.
When you do prune, be conservative. We know, that dead growth looks awful! But here's the thing: pruning streesses out plants, which is precisely why we do it, because it lights a fire under their butts, as it were, and promotes the development of new branches and leaves. When a plant is healthy and fertilized, that's good, because it will develop strong, even, healthy growth. When a plant is frost-bitten and brow-beaten, the stress of putting out new growth is often too much for it to handle.
Think of it this way: when thawing frost-bitten fingers, you don't dunk someone's hand into a bowl of boiling water. Instead you move slowly and steadily to restore circulation without damaging the hand. The same holds true for plants, which can be further traumatized if you're too enthusiastic in your attentions.
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