i had a z4 winter in my z5 ....

how would that correspond with your numbers.. did you have a z5?? .. or 4?

i can not grow buddelia in z5 reliably .... they die ... ergo.. i am guessing you hit a z5 winter.. if not worse ...

my GG show no problems going thru a z4 winter...

i suspect there MAY BE other issues to winter burn ... did your plants harden off for winter in a slow long period.. versus 60 degrees one day.. and zero the next day ....

it takes time for tissue to acclimate itself to winter... it cant happen real fast..

any possibility that happened??

ken

Winter here was, according to the UK Met. Office, the coldest for 13 years.

It got down to -5ðC. Not seen anything damaged.

Resin

My green giants survived the cold temps fine, but in march they fried out with south winds and ground still frozen. I've tried many evergreens, and few are reliable in the exposed areas. Pines more reliable than spruces.

I also have little loblolly and pitlolly pines. Seems like pitlolly is no hardier for me than loblolly, which is quite the disappointment. There is a seedling here and there that have survived though, so survival of the fittest I guess. Loblollies had all needles turn brown, but look like they are leafing out on main stem. So not all of them have died either.

My castor aralia keeps dying to the ground and this year was no exception. Almonds seemed mostly topkilled this year, hopefully they all didn't die below the graft. Jujubes always seem to die to the ground so far.

Was coldest winter since I've started growing trees

lkz said: My green giants survived the cold temps fine, but in march they fried out with south winds and ground still frozen.
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i am not sure you can jump to that conclusion ....

there is a big difference between when the damage OCCURRED .. versus when it SHOWS ....

when the ground is frozen .. IMHO .. the plant is in complete suspended animation .... it isnt going to turn brown when suspended ...

as soon as the suspension is removed ... they magically brown ...

march is the intermediate period where the roots can still be in frozen earth ... and the foliage is thawed ... a very dangerous time ...

when did the injury occur??? i dont know ...

if i am wrong.. please feel free to disabuse me of this notion ...

ken

Our winter was very long and cold without many of our usual warm spells to break up the cold. For example, most winters we usually have many warm spells that are several days of warm weather which thaws the ground before the return of cold freezing weather, but this year we only had 2 or 3 of these. We were significantly colder than normal from October through January, but had a mild February and early March before having well below normal temps in mid-March and April. Many evergreen conifers(mostly Pines, Yews, and Cypress, no damage on my GG's) here had problems as well as many broad-leafed evergreens and many evergreen perennials too. Many of these plants are zone 4 hardy and have significant burning and die-back. Even though we never dropped below 0ºF(-17.8ºC) here. Some of this damage showed up last fall, so something strange happened here last fall, as well. But it's a bit more elusive to figure out so far. No droughts, no extreme heat, no sudden temperature or humidity changes occurred last year that I can see. Many deciduous trees and shrubs had their foliage dry up and hang on instead of the normal fall leaf color change and dropping in usual falls also. Most things seem to be coming back alright and it doesn't appear that other than an odd branch dead here and there that there will be any long term losses from this past winter/fall.

Also, Buddleia are mostly partial die-back shrubs here. It's usually recommended to trim them back hard even if they don't die-back. No problems with temps down to -21ºF(-29.4ºC, our all-time record low) here. They died back to the ground, but came back and bloomed the next year. Same for the Crepe Myrtles here(most died back to within 2' to 3' of the ground). Although, I do have one that's been through temps down to about -12ºF(-24.4ºC) without any winter damage.

Beng:

We are not far from each other. Yes, terrible winter. Making things worse, considering the high winds when we had very cold temps, was the dryness. There was a two month period when we had a record for dryness. All this led to deep ground freezing.

I lost a bunch of my Norway spruce seedlings. If I had mulched them better, they would probably have survived, but who knew what we were in for last fall. I also lost a hemlock that I planted 5 years ago--a little green at the base, and my very nice P. abies 'Cupressina' was killed when a severe gust broke off some of its roots. Norway spruce are tough buggers, so that surprized me.

But ny "Green Giants" showed no ill effects what-so-ever, not even the ones I planted last year. Also, no effects on the straight T. plicatas. My crepe myrtle had a lot of dieback, but is OK--it will come back fast.

My Giant Sequoias did fine, but I was careful to give them a good layer of mulch in the fall.

Well, we have had some good rain--3.5 inches in the last week. Let's hope we don't have to struggle with drought this year. I was worn out watering last year.

One downside to the rain--for the first time in 7 years I am seeing anthracnose on sycamores here. Something this valley doesn't see that much of. But this rainy spell is most unusual--very cool, some rain every day, for 8 straight days--real anthracnose weather.

--Spruce

Ken, your zonal comparison seems correct -- stuff dying at about the expected cold level. But there are oddities -- 2 Fringe trees killed to the ground but a nearby Umbrella magnolia just fine.

lkz5ia, yeah, west Iowa is just too much of a stretch for Loblolly pine -- seems my area is right at its cold tolerance limit.

Kman, yeah, my Butterflies will grow back -- they're already sprouting at the bases. One of mine (the old, original type, not a new "dwarf") will grow 6'+ stems each season.

Spruce, I also observe my big sycamore. Sounds like my area is behind yours in emergence, and the buds are only a inch or so out. I don't see any sign of anthracnose, but it simply may not be apparent yet. It gets serious anthracnose more yrs than not, and then doesn't recover its foliage until July 4th or so.

Got ~ 3.75" rain for May so far, so soil is saturated -- despite the dry winter.

And, my 4-yr old Table mountain pine has 2 little ruby-red female cones on the main candle! I hope the birds don't break it off.