freeze

The frost and the frantic freeze frenzy…


You know you do it…

Maybe you don’t talk about it, hiding it like a bad plant in the back of your garden.

When the cold winds blow and the forecasts foretell of frigid temperatures, do you do the…

frantic freeze frenzy?

Sssshhh…I won’t tell any one, honest.

But I’m sure I’ve seen you — lurking about at night, all covered up in dark clothing, sheets, blankets, Christmas lights and rocks in hand. Furtively darting about in a futile attempt to keep wind, rain and ice off of your precious plants.

Fingers numb and stiff, ears red and raw, you’ve braved the elements.

You truly believe that man (or woman) can win out over nature. Surely your clever plan to secure your contraption will hold and save the day (or night).

Is this you? Do you see yourself in this post? Isn’t it time to step out into the light and admit it?

You do the frantic freeze frenzy to protect your precious plants in the winter. Don’t you?

Plants were not the only ones who felt the freeze…

Here is another casualty of last week’s prolonged and bitterly cold weather.

This beautiful Mexican Talavera bird bath couldn’t handle the thaw with two inches of ice sitting in it. (At least it wasn’t the pipes in my house, I am thankful for that.)

Last year, I brought it in the garage to protect it from the hard freeze.

Sadly, I just didn’t think to do it this year.

I was contemplating super glue…but that won’t work.

I bought this a few years ago at our local HEB grocery store. They sometimes get special orders of pottery or garden furniture in the summer time and I grabbed this up the second I saw it.

Maybe I’ll run across another one somewhere — I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

By |2016-04-14T02:40:10-05:00February 8th, 2011|bird bath, Blog, freeze, Sharing Nature's Garden|0 Comments

All ready for a long winter’s nap …

Last week’s cold weather scare sent many gardeners (including me) scurrying for sheets and towels and shoving plants up against the house.

And of course it did not freeze. Not even close. But that’s the nature of, well…Mother Nature.
Because I heard the freeze warning late in the day, there was no way to get all the plants into the greenhouse, especially the big monsters that I simply cannot budge.
So, today I got some help to move the giant pots to get the hardest part of the move situated. Then I spent most of the day putting in the rest of the children…I mean, plants…
The biggest challenge is using sun-lovers to provide enough shade for more delicate plants that spend their summers under the part-time protection of the back patio and the cabana. So plants have to be carefully placed so as not to scorch or get leggy. Then there’s the issue of enough room for me to get in there and reach back windows and have some space to work.
This is the work space – just enough for repotting, cleaning up plants and preparing seeds.

The daily watering starts again now — with the cooler weather, these plants have gone up to 3 days without water around the back patio area. In the greenhouse, it will be too warm yet during the days to let most of them go more than a day.

With a forecast of 60s for the low tonight, they are sleeping with the windows and door open tonight. The cold front arrives tomorrow – 58, and next week we’ll be in the low 40s at night. Then the plants will be very glad to be in the greenhouse with the heater on.

Let the winter begin! Are you ready?

By |2016-04-14T02:40:11-05:00November 11th, 2010|Blog, freeze, greenhouse, Sharing Nature's Garden, winter|0 Comments

Dead or Dormant? And what do I do about it?


Dead or Dormant?



Okay. So we’ve all been watching our gardens turn to mush and sticks and crackling paper. The colors du jour are brown and black and rotten. The kind of severe freeze damage we’ve had this winter has left us wondering what will live and what will die?



Is it dormant or is it dead?



We’re on the home stretch now – we only have a few more weeks with a danger of frost left. According to the USDA Hardiness Zone map for the Austin area, our average last frost occurs between March 1 and March 31. It’s typically the middle of March. I say the 15th, because I’m Type A and like my facts just so! (Mother Nature doesn’t always follow my rules, though – imagine that!)



So, it’s time to think about pruning.



First, assess the damage. If you scrape along the stem of most woody perennials you will be able to tell whether it is alive or not. Scratch and look for any signs of green. Normal pruning of most of our perennials will suffice if the plant is just dormant and not dead. Many of our woody plants like Lantanas and Tecoma Stans can be pruned entirely to the ground. Just make clean sharp cuts leaving about 6” of stem above the ground. If you want to leave some size and shape on the perennial, just prune back to healthy tissue. I will do that with my large Butterfly Bushes and my giant Duranta because I want to keep some of their size.



And don’t fertilize newly-pruned shrubs. They need to use all of their energy to begin new growth and fertilizing now will over-stress. Wait until later in the spring when they are established again.



But what do we do with succulents and agaves? Many of our aloes, agaves and their cousins just bit the dust in this freeze.



Ironic, isn’t it?



Like many Central Texas gardeners, I bought a lot of these plants to expand the drought tolerance palette of my garden in last summer’s scorching heat. Then this vicious and unusually-cold winter reduced many of them to pulp!

Freeze damaged succulents are usually a lighter color, almost white, soon after the freeze. Later, that part of the plant will wilt, and then turn black with rot. In some succulents, the affected part just eventually fall off.

Even if you have rotten or dead leaves, if the bud is green and firm, the plant will likely to grow out and recover. And look closely before you start to dig — I was shocked to find two pups under this Agave desmettiana ‘variegata.’ I thought it was a goner for sure, but instead of losing one, I have just now found two new plants!



However, the parts that are damaged or dead never will recover, and here is the tricky part. For these types of plants, it is important to cut out only the dead parts, whether that is a whole leaf or only a part of one. It is a risk to prune living leaves on these kinds of plants because it invites infection, and when the plants are stressed out anyway, they are more susceptible to disease.



The same applies to palm trees: if the bud is fine and you see green in the center, the plant will probably live. Cut off dead or highly damaged leaves once it is warmer. Palms grow in the warm spring and through the summer, and may look much better by the end of the summer. Just give them time.



Cacti are very sensitive to pruning timing. While they may look really bad with their dying pads and stems, it is important to wait until it is really warm to prune them. Then dust the big cuts with sulfur to help dry out the cuts. Jointed cacti regenerate really well, but the columnar ones should to be cut back to the base or you will just end up with a permanent stump. If the plant is oozing, you can give it a quiet burial.



I’m off to do my assessment and start asking all my plants…



…”Are you dead or dormant?”

[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

By |2017-11-29T23:27:33-06:00February 18th, 2010|agaves, Blog, freeze, pruning, Sharing Nature's Garden, winter|0 Comments

Hope Springs Eternal…

Japanese Quince

Hope springs eternal was the first thing I thought as I captured a few more early spring blooms in the garden this afternoon.

Then I wondered, does this saying have anything to do with the spring season?

Sadly, no. It originates from Alexander Pope’s ‘An Essay on Man’ (1733-4), and speaks to human nature in general.

Nothing about gardening or bulbs popping up to surprise us.

Oh well. Hope really does spring eternal for the gardener, though.

And those of us in Central Texas are holding onto our hope with both hands these days. Just waiting anxiously for the official thaw to evaluate our gardens and determine which plants we can dare to hope might survive this brutally cold winter.

Mid March is our official last average freeze. (Average being the key word here, in a season and a state where we have seen nothing average for several years, in fact.)

Then we have to wait for things to grow. And many of these plants that were so damaged by the cold, may also be very slow to come back.

But we’re holding onto our hope, by golly. I have many plants for which I am holding out hope — my biggest concern is my Eureka Variegated Lemon tree.

For which plants are you holding onto hope?

Daffodils

Revitalizing Rain

After our recent slow, soaking rain, I heard my plants in the garden give a collective sigh of relief.

Then the sun came out and several sad little specimens started lifting their frazzled foliage upward – reaching for the warmth radiating once again onto their little world.

Many things are very dormant. Some: dead-dormant. And most of the plants, while salvageable, are still sad. But the Aralia, above, once bowed over and brown, perked up again and was very pleased to be sporting some ravishing raindrops.
The teensy Bluebonnet plants are all still alive and beginning to grow again.
Many daffodil bulbs are popping up around various beds.
My Hellebores are a little worse for the wear, but they do have some fresh, new leaves. I can’t wait for the first blooms. Three of my 4 plants are new from last year and have never bloomed for me so I’m eager to see what they look like.
These darling little Hyacinths were a totally surprise when I happened upon them today. Forgot I’d planted them!
Who knows who this guy is! But he’s on the fast-track up.

This Autumn Joy Sedum survived all the cold – 18 and lower, without anything more than a few yellow leaves. And it’s blooming. Wow.
Then you turn around, and on the other hand…

Need I say more? Sigh…

Go to Top