Reilly -

I'd wait to prune until after the rains are over. Not so much because of potential exposure to fungal spores as we haven't seen the extent of the damage yet. A couple of days will tell us how much damage we have.

Pecanmom - So sorry to hear that. The peach crop is toast here as well. Strawberries are hit miss depending on whether they successfully covered. I'll say a prayer.

Jean

I could have almost guessed which roses would have freeze damage. Interesting. On the outer perimeter there were dangling canes and frozen buds. On the inner peremiter within the fence, the roses seemed fine. All raised beds had frozen buds, since the raised beds are all on the outside. All inner beds were fine. Well, no use to cry over it. We have taken out several wheelbarrow loads of limbs, branches, canes, buds and so forth, but there is always the next flush and the next year. It could be worse. It could have been my livelihood but it is just my pleasure.

Thanks Jean. And I too found some surprises today--four blooms on the *same* Parks' Yellow Tea-Scented that had portions of new red growth killed and flopping over! It's on the lee side of the house, east exposure, and the open flowers were right against the masonry of the house. Who knows?

Another question: does anyone know how deep the ground froze? I'm wondering if the JB grubs might have been frozen on their way to emerging. Hope, hope, hope?

It's pretty disturbing to see new basals drooping over like limp lettuce. I do feel very badly for the farmers and people who depend on their crops.

Carla

I don't think it was cold enough to freeze the ground. Our ground doesn't freeze all winter.

I read somewhere that it has to be 0 consistently (not freezing, but ZERO) to kill grubs in the ground.

Thanks, Burford. I should have known nothing stops a Japanese beetle...grrrrr!

It would have made it worth it.

Hi all, I'm new to this site, and relatively new to gardening. We moved here to Arkansas from Wisconsin and have quite a lot to learn about the plants here! My problem is this, the recent frost we got appears to have killed off all the leaves on our dozen or so crepe myrtles, and our two hydrangeas. Will they bloom again? Are they dead? Should I trim them back in some way to get some new growth going?

Sooner or later someone from the South will see this and offer expert advice from your region.

The only advice I would offer right now is to make certain your plants are well watered. THAT DOES NOT MEAN DROWNED!!! It means you pay close attention to the weather and if you can see a warming trend is happening, but with little rain, you play close attention to how damp the soil feels around your damaged shrubs. If it feels at all dry when you poke your finger in the soil down an inch or two, water deeply once or twice a week - unless you get rain.

My suspicion is your shrubs will come back (damaged, but alive and ready to carry on), but I've never lived in Arkansas, or anywhere else in the South. That's why I hope & trust that one (or more) of the Southern gardeners here will see your request and respond.

Just keep your crape myrtles and hydrangeas hydrated. Don't do anything. They will push up new growth when the weather is right. You will have crape myrtle bloom. I live in Alabama and I have to prune my crape myrtles secondary to their location and mine have just begun to leaf out, I noticed it today. Yours will put on more leaves. Your hydrangeas will not bloom this year unless they are Endless Summer, or one of the varieties that blooms no new wood. Just do not despair. Your plants are alive in the earth somewhere and will bloom later. I can just about guarantee it.

caveman, don't prune the hydrangeas yet. I read on hydrangea.com that although the leaves may be fried, if the wood was not, you may still get buds. So wait and see. If no buds come out and the wood appears dead, then prune and wait till next year.

The hydrangeas frequently take a hit here in the spring. Annabelle is always okay and will bloom but the old fashioned ones and the Nikko blue won't if the old wood is frozen. I wait until I make sure that none of the old wood is viable before I cut them back. The crape myrtles will come back to bloom.

I checked my Japanese Maples this morning. I think they will be ok. The leaves on the purple one are freshening up and I will only lose some new growth on the ends.

The Waterfall, which had leafed out earlier, all the old leaves are dead, but it is getting some new leaves. WHEW that would have hurt bad if I lost either of those.

I decided to SP a no-name yellow rose that I suspected has RRD or some kind of disease and got severely damaged by the frost while the ones next to it are fine. So that's a no brainer. Besides, Julia Child will look fine in that spot :)

My azaleas are blooming! well, inside and at the bottom at least. The top leaves look a bit fried, but good excuse to cut them back a bit, I haven't really touched them since they were planted 3 years ago.

My QE climber is also blooming, on the inside against the house, so after the rainstorm today, I will go out and remove any outside foliage and buds that don't look as if they will open so at least I get some visibility for the buds in the back. I do think the cooler weather has intensified the color of the Queen, she's especially pink this year.

The hydrangea that came with our farm, the one that lives on the north side of the 200 year old log cabin is laughing at the damaged 'name' hydrageas I planted last year.
The old Crepe Myrtle that last year had reached twelve feet in height has not yet decided what elevation to releaf as all new growth is totally dead. About twelve years ago I had to cut the crepe back to four feet plus or minus depending on where live growth appeared. ...so I'll have a measuring stick for this freeze.

Glad to learn your azaleas are blooming, buford! That means the plants will be fine. Just keep them watered if you don't get rain. Even if you don't trim them back, the new shoots that are too damaged will just die off and you'll get new growth from whatever dormant leaf buds are viable and are highest on the stems.

I haven't read anything on the forum lately and was surprised to hear how cold it got down there Easter Sunday. We had a real fluke day Easter Sunday. Not one cloud in the sky and 70 degrees. I guess somebody had to pay for the only nice Easter Sunday I can ever recall.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed for everything is budded out nicely, almost no cane loss this year.
Sorry to hear about everyone''s roses. I know how it feels when the lilac buds freeze.

The weekend after the massive freeze things look bad here. Lots of deep permanent damage to trees. My hydrangeas are brown and mushy. Roses will live to see another day, but I have lost the entire spring flush. C'est la vie.

Jean

Here in Boston lots of sunrise services normally held outside were moved inside due to sub-freezing temperatures. Those held outside had worshippers bundled in parkas like on First Night (New Year's Eve celebration in Boston).

Hi kaylah, I think you are the one I've talked to before, mentioned you today on a thread. It was nice. That is amazing you get 70, I guess you deserve it. You have paid your dues and then some. I think we talked before about different things and how you have to haul water or just let things go. Hope things are going well.

It's hard to assess the damage here. Not much talk about any of it on the local paper forum but I think the nursery business is taking a beating for sure. But they may make up for it later, and there will be a scramble.

I think most of my things will come through, win a few lose a few. Would have lost a few anyway. Always do.

Thanks for the info everyone, I realize now I put this question in the wrong spot, but I'm glad someone noticed it and took the time to give me some advice anyway! Thanks again!

Hey, this is the rose forum, but we are gardeners and have other plants as well!

On the bad side, I finally went out to clip off some damaged parts of my roses, and it's much more extensive than I thought. The new growth is rubbery and when cut, is brown or black down to the core, in most cases, down to the main canes, so a total loss of new growth. The weather is lousy, again, so I just stopped and came inside. I can't face it today.

Sorry to learn that, buford, but I'm not surprised. That rubbery growth is from cells with burst cell walls. When ice crystals form in the cells they take up more room than the liquid water does and so the cell membranes and walls rupture. Plants aren't usually very good at fixing that, so you have pruning to do.

They'll recover, but the pruning will be painful in more than the usual way.

There must have been some big high pressure area sitting here which bounced every thing around. The thing is we had a nasty snowstorm just a couple days before.
Usually Easter is a crappy cold day. Studying the weather report, I planned an Easter tree. Hung crepe paper in the pussywillow and tied little presents to the branches.
We played outside all day. The White Rose of York usually has to be pruned to half, but this year it's got no loss.
Usually they start to make leaf buds then freeze. I wait until late May to prune.

Oh-- I just realized kaylah is Otis. Hello, Deb!

I am in KY and the frost got all my roses. I have about 23 roses: antiques, hybrids, knockouts. Just got the antiques last year. They are brown and look dead. Will they come back out? Will they bloom still this year? I was so excited. Some had pink buds on them and were just about ready to bloom...now nothing.
My snowball bushes were covered in blooms that would have opened within a day or two until the frost got them. Now they look dead.
Hydrangeas, nandinas, bridal wreath, lilacs, almost everything turned BROWN. All my trees, including fruit trees.
The saddest thing for me was the snowballs, as they only bloom once in the Spring. I almost cried.
I just hope it didn't kill everything and that it will come back out.
I live for my flowers, and it is such a let down.

After reading all this I should be very thankful that my plants are still dormant, the frost hasn't hurt them, nor has the snow. Actually the snow had a silver lining in that it watered the soil that was almost bear all winter. I hated that I couldn't get out to garden because of the snow and all the frost still in the ground but now I am thankful for those things as it has preserved many of my plants.

I really feel sorry for the folks who grow for a business, this is where it has hurt the most.

valerie

Iriscottage -

Cut your roses back and water them well. Do not fertilize until you have some growth on them. They will recover. Your other plants, particularly fruit trees, lilacs and hydrangeas are done for the season. It sucks, but you are in excellent company.

Jean

Just wanted to say how sorry I am that so many of my Southern friends have had such damage to their roses. How disappointing to be on the brink of your Spring flush and have them hit like that.

I feel for you all!

Hey Piph! :-)

Jean, I have another question--how often should I spray fungicide? My plants are all just cruddy with cane canker.

What jean in Tennessee said! You have had a freak frost - one of the worst on record. Your stuff (or at least most of your stuff, at the very least) wil recover, but you need to keep it watered. Don't fertilize it first. Water is far, far more important.

THAT DOESN'T MEAN YOU KEEP IT DROWNED!!! It means you pay close attention to the weather, and if you can see it's getting warm, without rain, you water deeply once or twice a week until you can see new growth pushing out and establishing itself. Once you know where the new, healthy growth is you can prune back to that, make sure it stays hydrated and fertilize it.

Does anyone have any idea how long it might take for the roses to start growing again? It was a couple weeks ago when we had the deep freeze (down to 19 degrees). Thought the damage wasn't too bad, but it is looking worse each day. Have started pruning down, down, down--searching for healthy white pith. Some of the canes are only 6-8 inches tall now; some are mere nubs (sob).

My concern is that I'm not seeing any little leaf buds trying to peep out. The roses are just sitting there. Just wondering what a realistic expectation is for seeing new growth.

Kate

Kate, I have new growth an inch or more long on most roses. Two weeks is about how long it takes for growth buds to pop, except part of that time it may have been too cold. Probably some of these buds were at the red-bump stage when the freeze came, since I had pruned about a week before. If you have pruned canes back more than once, that could slow things down, because the growth hormones concentrate at the top of the cane.

Canes that I stripped after the freeze have shown a faster response than canes that I didn't strip. On the hardier roses, there are many new shoots that had their growth tip killed but retained some viable or semi-viable leaves. Canes bearing these shoots have not produced much if any new growth, though the canes themselves are OK..

I've had to re-prune canes (as opposed to new shoots) on only one plant so far. Our low was 19 and I had covered most of the tenderer roses.

Own root roses are amazing in their ability to make a comeback. Roses frequently reappear in my garden one to three years after the mother plant has been 'totally' removed. This is true of modern own root roses as well as the antiques. They will regenerate in friable moist soil from tiny pieces of root. So, even if they seem lost, if you trim down to white pith, even is you lose the crown, you may be surprised eventually with the reemergence of the rose. Perhaps this does, however, depend on the maturity of the original plant. The plants that have reappeared in my garden have been mature, established plants.

It is important to keep patroling the garden after a damaging freeze and after you've pruned off the initial blackened ends. (We had our own under reported freeze down to 10 this year.) New blackened ends may continue to show up for a few weeks after the original damage has been clipped. Stay on top of this and you will usually save your plant.

In some small plants it may be important to also remove the blackened leaf buds down an otherwise healthy cane. Sometimes there will be a green core to these buds, so removal of them, a tedious task, depends on your gardener's intuition about whether the damage could spread into the stem with, perhaps, canker or botrytis setting in. I do this only on small plants whose life seems threatened. If there is a green core to the leaf bud it is almost always ok to leave it.

Courage. All is not lost.

I learned a lot just reading these posts. We normally don't have this to deal with. Actually this part of California had a frost like this near Christmas 1990, around 20 degrees. Since we don't usually have true dormancy here I think it might be comparable to what you had happen. I was in a new home and had not planted anything yet so I was just observing. Our water and gas pipes burst, which was rather exciting, but had nothing to do with the garden. Lots and lots of plants died. Many people had half their gardens wiped out. We don't get this kind of thing very often, and people didn't have the experience to know how to handle it, as many of you do.

I noticed huge 50 year old eucalyptus trees dead, dead, dead. And a year later, some of them sprouted back from the roots! Jade plants were wiped out. They didn't come back. As for bouganvillea, young plants died but older, established ones came through.

One thing the freeze has tought me is that not all roses are equal in my affections.
There are some that I will (and have) gone into without gloves..to remove dead and to pick away at blackened bits.
There are several borders that I haven't even gotten to yet. Can you say "future vegetable garden"?
On my beloved R. moschatas, the devastation is total, but the glimmer of hope is the emergence of new growth at dormal leaf axils much lower on the canes than I would have expected. But the new growth IS there.
And I have one noisette, Princess de Nassau, that seems to take after moschata rather strongly, unfortunately.
I wish there were a detailed description of what makes microclimates....and that I had read it about twenty years ago. This is a learning that comes with our property, but darn, it's a hard way to learn.
What Fantin writes above about the centers of buds is true. Unfortunately all my flower buds have failed that test, but the leaf axils have hope.

I went out and pretty much clipped most of my roses down 6-12 inches depending on the bush. Most new tender canes were taken out completely. 95% of buds were dark and mushy and came off when just touched. I did see new growth coming up one or two leaf sets down on almost all the roses. It's as if I pruned and now they are leafing out.

I have 2 bushes I'm worried about, and Abraham Darby and Pat Austin that I got at costco (body bags) and planted a week before the freeze. They were covered, but seem to be slow to recover. I just watered the two main rose beds well (we haven't had rain in a week), and they both perked up.

I did SP one rose that I suspected had RRD and at any rate it was a $5 rose and not worth fretting over all summer.

I am anxiously awaiting my first Reine de Violette bloom. It is a newbie from Chamblees, small enough to be covered with a 3 gal pot on the nights of the big freeze with it's buds intact. Ballerina is budding out well and QE did bloom, although she lost many many buds and likely will not bloom again this year. Oh well.

Now that it is the end of July, how have your gardens recovered from the big Easter freeze? Mine is still in sad shape. A number of my roses have not flowered at all and may not flower this year, and I am talking about some hybrid teas and other moderns. Never mind some of the once-bloomer OGRs. I think I have about 24 of my 200 dead now, and about half of the remaining ones are in sorry shape. If that weren't bad enough, the blackspot started with a vengeance. Many plants are continuing to die back even still. It is like watching death in slow motion.

However, I have done some fighting back. There were also some real troopers out there. Crocus Rose and Comte de Chambord have weathered the catastrophe fairly well. Out of desperation I also have been using Messenger on everything to see if it will have any effect on anything. I have been fertilizing and watering and spraying with just about anything handy to try to stop the blackspot. I do have 5 varieties that I am following with pictures through all this to see what difference the Messenger can make. The 5 varieties are Barbara Streisand, Windrush, Sunrise/Freisinger Morgenrote, Austin's Symphony, and Salita. So far, at this writing Barbara Streisand has one little stem only about 5 - 6 inches, but she has all her leaves and one flower bud. I plan to follow this through the end of the growing season. Even if things pick up a bit between now and October, the real story will be revealed next spring as to who was able to make it. That is my story. How are all of you doing now?

This is the year of the grumpy rosarian.
And it's not just me. I know HT types who've lost lots of roses to the freeze.
Bounce back hasn't happened yet, but we've had decent rain for about a week now, so maybe....
It's not just us. I got a newsletter from Riverbanks Garden in Columbia SC and I'll copy the first paragraph,
"Dear Gardening Friends,
What a weird gardening year we are having! Plantings in the garden have been slow to start and some plants still have not demonstrated their natural potential. As if there werer not enough challenges in gardening, Mother Nature has thrown another variable into the equation."

From Melodie Scott-Leach

Who I think hit the nail squarely on the head with "have not demonstrated their natural potential."

I think Bustopher's reality check of the reveal next spring needs to be factored into all of our plans.

My garden is fine. The freeze was shortly after pruning time, and the low was 18. I was able to cover HTs and small plants. They lost new growth but no canes, bloomed two weeks late, had some short stems. Polyanthas bloomed normally in May-June. Most of the smaller roses are blooming and growing well now.

Shrubs and climbers had all the new growth injured, many tips killed, and the damaged growth of disease-resistant varieties got terrible blackspot, which in some cases spread to later undamaged leaves. I stripped much of the damaged growth, but it would have been better to strip more of it sooner. I eventually took the occasion to remove older canes from a couple of climbers. Some of the larger plants still look a bit sparse but are growing well.

I only have a couple of once bloomers, and they suffered the worst. They bloomed at 1/3 or 1/4 normal and seem unable to initiate new growth from slightly injured shoots, so the summer growth is less than usual and awkward looking, just some basals growing through the dingy foliage that went through the freeze.

The roses here recovered quickly from the freeze and went on to bloom about as well as the usual first flush. A few of the less hardy types are the only ones with long term damage noticeable. The few once bloomers we have didn't bloom much at all but seem healthy enough now. The freeze did more harm to the Japanese maples and we ended up losing a weeping mulberry that had been here for 6-7 years.

I think my garden is getting back to "normal" finally. After the big freeze, I ruthlessly cut back a number of roses--some to just a couple inches from the ground. Those are growing now, but are much shorter than usual--like who ever heard of the 3 ft. Gold Medal?

What I did discover, however, is that I wasn't ruthless enough on some of my plants--should have pruned off more. They kept growing, but no robust growth, and were very prone to blackspot--just wimpy overall, including the few blooms. So in June I went back and selectively pruned more shrubs. That seemed to do the trick--now I'm getting what looks like normal growth. Hope the blooms pile on now--already have several putting out non-wimpy blooms, so that is good news.

Kate

My roses were in bud or bloom when the freeze hit, and many were injured. The constant rains that followed until recently have also done their damage, so that I am not sure where my roses stand.

Just today I looked at my very large Bayse's Blueberries, and their leaves look bad. Either they are dying or they have spider mites. I will go out with my little microscope later to see, but there are may black canes that I have not removed.

I have many areas where there is good drainage, and those roses may be ok, but some where the water was sitting. I am not too sure about them. I also have gone out with Round Up out of desperation, so I am not sure if I didn't do some damage to a couple of roses.

I am taking a serious look at no spray roses. The weeks of rain meant that some roses like Prairie Star, are just canes with no leaves. The roses that still have leaves may be no spray, or possibly the black spot has not reached them yet.

Sammy

I pruned off a lot of mushy new growth, but most bushes kicked right in and had a spectacular spring bloom - just considerably later than 2006. I had one tea that was a little pitiful, but it recovered once it got hot.

I could do without another spring like that though.

More damage to some perennials than to the roses.

Mother's Day 2006 there were TWO hail storms that really beat the .... out of my plants. I've decided NC is the home of scary spring weather.

We've had rain and lower temps and the JBs and june bugs are disappearing - the rose bushes are growing and I have some unmolested blooms. I'm looking forward to the next flush. I even have basals on some of the bushes - those basals should have time to grow and harden off well before cold weather.

We've planted more rose bushes and they are making progress.

Gardeners are always looking forward - always planning for the future.

"If you have a garden, you have hope."
--Elizabeth Lawrence

Funny, I was thinking about starting a thread about this today.

My hydrangeas now look better than ever. I have 2 Nikko blue that were complete mush after the freeze. I cut them back almost to the ground. The have both leafed out well and are fuller than before. On has the biggest bluest blooms on it that it's ever had.

My Japanese maples have recovered, the purple lace leaf looking a lot better than the green waterfall, which lost a lot of branches along with leaves.

The roses for the most part rebounded. I have noticed that some HTs have problems this year (black spot) that they didn't have before. Melody Parfume, Rose Rhapsody and Princess Diana all had bad blackspot, the worst in my yard, and before they were disease resistant. Perhaps due to freeze damage, who knows.

Originally I thought that my roses came through that freeze ok...but in hindsight I was mistaken. I trimmed the frozen stuff....and still had an ok spring flush. But not a whole heck of a lot of blooms since. I almost feel like I'm growing boxwoods. A doctor friend of mine who grows roses near here says that he's got the same problem.

At first I thought it was a good thing as the Japanese Beetles wouldn't have anything to eat but they ate the leaves instead and the few blooms I've gotten since spring. I've also battled more black spot than I've ever seen before. A few weeks ago I got very frustrated with the whole thing and assaulted my roses with fertilizer. I used alfalfa, Rose Tone and Miracle Grow. It also hasn't rained much lately so that could be a factor but I've been watering.

The newer roses that I got post freeze are blooming so I'm sure this mess that is my yard is a result of that awful weather. I just don't know what else I can do except cuss Mother Nature and look forward to next year.

Carole

I think because the spring flush was delayed a couple of weeks it was right in time for thrips. Usually there are good blooms before thrip time.
Most of mine rebounded well but some that I had to cut back hard didn't like it. Others responded well to a harder pruning so I will be less timid with those in the future. So it was a good unwelcome experiment.
I think I was the most relieved to see the Japanese maple leaf out again.

I did have a nice enough flush afterward but we have had drought ever since. We have had approximately 2-3 inches of rain since first week in April and our temperatures are high. They might be less than in years past but not enough to make a big difference. However, having said that my water bill has far exceeded my electric bill and my electric bill is less than it was this same time last year by about 20-25% (air conditioning).

I think the recovery of my garden has been delayed by a searing heat wave that followed close behind the freeze and has been further challenged by very little rain this entire season. After another rather severe pruning to remove damaged and dead foliage and canes, the roses grew new foliage and bloomed but the foliage has been ugly beyond belief. Covered with PM and most recently BS. The blooms were ugly as well since many were deformed and all were covered with thrips. I had many canes (especially on the HT's) that split from the tip to the ground and a lot of canes that cankered and died. I'm still cutting out dead stuff. The positive side of this is that the roses are finally starting to look healthier. Many are putting out new basals, the new foliage has some PM but nothing like earlier. I even have some blooms that are normal in shape, size and color. My goal this year has been to get the roses healthy enough to survive the coming winter without more loss or die back.

I was surprised that the leaves on the trees grew back and that the crepe myrtles even managed a few scraggly blooms. My hydrangea that looked like cooked spinach lost some wood but grew healthy new foliage.

I have hope for next year :-).

Carol

Carol described my garden so eloquently, but we had the 40 out of 60 days of rain. It is hard to get into the garden when it is so wet, yet when it is so dry, I have trouble feeling that my roses are soaked enough to spray. I, too have done my best to prepare the roses for the fall.

I hope someone starts a new post on this subject, and keeps it going.

I THINK THIS IS THE LAST POST AT NUMBER 150.

Sammy