Most of the trees SHOULD recover - although it may take some time. Almost all trees have so-called auxilliary buds, which will leaf out and take over when the primary buds are damaged in some way - as by the recent freeze. It can take time for the chemical signals to make their way around the tree to all these auxilliary buds. Wait and see, is all you can do. If there is NO sign of any new growth after a month, then look at a few smaller twigs/branches; scratch the bark lightly, or cut it a bit in from the end - if the cambium layer, the layer right under the brown, outer bark - is still green, then the branch/twig is still alive and may still leaf out. Give it another few weeks, making sure the tree is well watered but not drowned.

Resist the temptation to immediately begin to fertilize the tree, especially with a high-nitrogen fertilizer, as the tree was more than slightly stressed by the freeze and the loss of leaves, and high-nitrogen fertilizer, even any fertilizer at all, can also be a stressor. In a couple of weeks, a low-nitrogen, relatively balanced and slow-release fertilizer might help.

It may be no help to be told that you have plenty of company - I was in Hendersonville, NC today, and driving up the mountain on I-26 and then around the city was like going back to late Feb. or early Mar. as far as the trees looked. The high winds of the beginning of the week (40-60 mph) didn't help, as they dried things out, tore off leaves and knocked down branches and trees. It was NOT a pretty sight - normally by now, the trees are almost fully leafed out. Instead, many trees had almost no leaves on them. The whole forest ecology of an entire region is in a sad way, if not to say in dire straits!

However, this was not the first late freeze nor the first high wind storm that the area has ever had. Trees evolved to survive such plights, and ours will too. It's just that A) these are OUR trees, and B) they are going to look really ratty for the rest of the spring, if not through the summer! And C) some of them won't survive, much though we want them to.

Yeah, as Dibbet mentioned, you are not alone... much of this is typical now for the upper south. By now, most of our trees are typically full of foliage. Not so this time, as it was in late March, but record lows in the lower 20s ruined all of it.

I feel your pain... the same thing has happened here in northeast Tennessee. Sadly, NONE of my trees that lost new foliage in the freeze have recovered at all. I am not sure if they ever will. Tge leaves are brown and dull. If so, its going to be one ugly summer. If not and they do recover with new leaves, I think that we will have to deal with the pollen all over again.

On an interesting note, I had to go to Maryville, Tennessee today- which is about 30 miles southwest of Knoxville. I was happy and surprised that there was little damage to the foliage there on the trees, which leads me to believe that the tree foliage damage in northern Alabama and northwestern Georgia was very minimal as well. I have heard some reports however that in north GA and north AL that some leaf loss is as much as 90% in some areas. I have no idea however, as I have not seen any photos of the trees in that area to make an evaluation. We do have areas with more foliage, like the Kingsport area has much more, as does parts of town around here. I guess this weekends and next weeks upper 70s and lower 80s will really accelerate the foliage.

It was not until I got almost into Knoxville that I started really starting noticing the much less damage... it was really noticable when I entered Knox county and the further southwest I went, there was less and less damage- which should be expected as they are further south and about 800 ft. lower in elevation that us here in Bristol, but I did not think there would be so much less damage. I noticed that the Willow oak trees down around the airport have NO damage whereas mine was heavily damaged. They did have some leaf burn however on some of the Pear trees, but it was worse here, but only on the side that the wind was coming from... I guess that added to the chill on them. In Knoxville, this did not seem to be a problem as bad as it was here.

I think we were in the worse situation for this... we are far enough south to have had the temps in the 70s and 80s for weeks- making the trees well ahead of schedule, but far enough north to suffer more of the effects of that unusually cold chill we had on the first weekend of April.

I am really concerned about my Live Oaks... I think it ruined them... all of the new growth was destroyed and I see no new growth coming back out....

Here is a before/after photo... I took the last photo right after the major freeze. I will take more this weekend and as you will see... not much change. Most all trees are still bare, which is very unusual, as by now, most are getting quite full.

Late March looking out my front lawn.... (to view - "copy" the link and paste in your browser, but leave off the " [IMG] ".
[IMG]http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e172/Tennesseestorm/Tree%20album/100_4599.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e172/Tennesseestorm/Tree%20album/100_4609.jpg[/IMG]

Around April 10th-11th....
[IMG]http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e172/Tennesseestorm/Tree%20album/100_4730.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e172/Tennesseestorm/Tree%20album/100_4741.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e172/Tennesseestorm/Tree%20album/100_4731.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e172/Tennesseestorm/Tree%20album/100_4745.jpg[/IMG]

New growth on my Southern Live Oaks were destroyed:
[IMG]http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e172/Tennesseestorm/Tree%20album/100_4675.jpg[/IMG]

NE Tennessee - Zone 6B-7A

dibbit, you're right, it could be weeks before the trees recover.

But I'd bet that practically no native-to-the-area trees will incur permanent damage from the freeze (I've seen it happen enough times) -- unless there's more freezes.

But typical plantings often have alot of exotics. I'm guilty of it myself to a small extent.

Beng, don't jinx us!!! Another frost???? NO!

The heavy winds were bad enough. Luckily, despite rain and thunder last night, there seems to be little wind today - for the first time in what seems like MONTHS!

Most of the trees I saw up the mountain are natives, but they sure look awful at the moment. I went to one public garden/OLD homeowner site now public garden (Bullington Gardens), with some gorgeous old weeping Japanese maples, one was about 12-15' tall, the other 10-12' tall and both about half again as wide. They had both been almost fully leafed out and growing new wood - and were now collections of brown, ratty leaves hanging down and soft-wood twigs that were now grey dead-wood. Heartbreaking. They WILL probably recover, but this year won't be pretty.

Both of my new trees lost all their leaves...they were 50-80% leafed out and now they have to start over. The funny thing is one of the trees had just one leaf left...so i will get a small show from it :) And I know its definitely NOT dead.

I know, its been horrible in many areas... today I was out and about and noticed a lot of new growth on trees that were not out during that freeze, so thats good. They are behind too, because they normally come out in early April and they were set back because of this.

I have seen no regrowth on the poplars here, which were all getting full... now they are brown crisps.

Our damage here was relatively minor - even my peaches are pushing out a few blooms that hadn't opened the first time around.

The Callery Pear in my neighbor's yard didn't bloom - and the new leaves were killed but it's already showing new growth.

I really doubt that this one freeze turned the entire South into a leafless wasteland permanently - I'm sure things will start stirring again soon.

I noticed new buds on my walnut trees today!!!!!

It will be interesting to see how the neighbors cottonwood tree does this spring---it is 90 or so feet tall and broad/old enough to start worrying about branches breaking off.

I often have 'snow' in May from that thing.

Oh, sounds like you were lucky and your Peach tree had not bloomed yet? Ours bloomed out in late March and it is fully leafed out now. I am amazed that there was NO damage to the leaves on it. I keep hearing of peach tree damage in areas well south of here, but ours seems fine and little peaches are coming out. ??

I was out and about today and have noticed alot of new growth on trees just over a couple of days.... I think most is from trees that had not budded out yet before that harsh and late freeze.... some of the damaged trees are starting to recover, but not so with the tulip poplars... not yet anyway.

QUOTE:
Posted by hairmetal4ever barely z6, Ohio (My Page) on Sat, Apr 21, 07 at 15:14

Our damage here was relatively minor - even my peaches are pushing out a few blooms that hadn't opened the first time around.
The Callery Pear in my neighbor's yard didn't bloom - and the new leaves were killed but it's already showing new growth.

I really doubt that this one freeze turned the entire South into a leafless wasteland permanently - I'm sure things will start stirring again soon.