Irvington gardener Amy Mullen covered her cherry tree during the recent freezing temps. Photo courtesy Amy Mullen/fradulentfarmgirl.com
Mother Nature has not been kind the last couple of weeks.
Warmer-than-normal temperatures teased flowering shrubs, fruit trees, Japanese maples, perennials and other plants out of their winter sleep to create an early spring. Then, colder-than-normal temperatures put a stop to the whole process, but not before taking a toll on some plants.
Perennials that had their newly emerged leaves beaten back by the wind and cold will likely be fine. They have a lot of time to replenish any damaged foliage. The same with Japanese maples and other deciduous trees.
Flowering shrubs, such as viburnum, quince and big-leaf hydrangea, may have had their flowers frozen or damaged. The blooms may be missing this year, but will likely return next spring.
The blooms of fruit trees, such as cherry, likely took a hit during the recent freezing temperatures. If the center of the flower is black, there will be no fruit this year. If it’s green, there may be hope. Photo courtesy Amy Mullen/fradulentfarmgirl.com
The greatest loss will likely be fruit trees that were flowering and grapes.
Irvington resident Amy Mullen, who blogs at the fraudulentfarmgirl.com, said she’s pretty sure she won’t get cherries this year, even though she covered her trees. She thinks the cover worked the first couple of nights. But she said there were three problems.
- The coverings really should have reached all the way to the ground to trap radiant heat coming from the ground.
- We had such strong winds that keeping the covers in place was difficult, and a couple of times the twine I used actually damaged branches. Even if those things hadn’t been issues, the covering-the-tree thing really only buys you 2 to 5 degrees of protection.
- So, when temperatures dropped to the mid-20s, I gave up on cherries for the year.
“If this happens again, I’ll try watering around the tree before the frost, which is supposed to give you about 5 degrees of protection, and stitching more sheets onto my patchwork cover, so it will reach the ground and I can peg it in place,” said Mullen, who is a landscape designer at Spotts Garden Service. “These techniques work for frost, but they don’t do much good when there’s really strong wind or temps drop below about 27 degrees,”
Her apple, nectarine, peach and plum trees were not in bloom, so they likely were not damaged, but Mullen and other gardeners won’t really know the extent of freeze damage until trees leaf out and fruit fails to form.
Mother Nature will have her way.