Agree, in Z6 you can get away with planting now. So long as you've got a good 2 months before the ground freezes, you should be fine.

They'll probably be fine, they have the ability to put out another set of leaves. With that said, if it's going to get down that low again, bring them inside. This year will be tough on a lot of trees, as 1.) We had a record warm March, so everything is further along than it should be right now, and 2.) They are forecasting record lows for many areas this coming Saturday. I know some of my Japanese Maples' leaves are wilted and black because of a few cold nights already. I plan on covering them with a frost blanket this weekend to try and prevent any additional damage. We'll see if it helps.

Watching the weather and happy to see improvement and read some reports of garden survival! I have been thinking of building simple shelters for my potted driveway plants. I know someone who lives in the ever changeable climate of North TX who constructed collapsible frames from PVC. I think he built flat panels and then drilled holes for wire "hinges" of sorts so he could unfold them and lock them open with tree tie supports, the kind with open loops for sliding the ends through and locking with a twist. (Sorry about vocabulary loss. I know those ties have a name.) Then, like John, he drapes and ties old textiles over the frames. Every time we get a weird cold spell, I swear I'm going to make a set of "freezer frames". Carol

Sorry to hear this, Whsaa. I don't have a fraction of the plants (or space or likely money to spend on plants LOL), but I do understand your frustrations about the weather. I usually keep my weather-related rantings to the Far North forum, but this seems appropriate. Last Oct we had a record-smashing cold of -13 bookended with a record-smashing week of cold in mid April including one day with a low of -11 with the high not reaching freezing for several days in a row. It's actually kind of annoying because I've always wondered what is more damaging, an early or late freeze and I can't even test my hypothesis because we had both! To top it off we just had 8" of the wettest, heaviest snow imaginable that seriously messed trees. The damage is unimaginable. Not a single deciduous tree is unscathed. Snow on June 8th. I lost my ohio buckeye to the snow. I was up all night shaking, but couldn't get the snow off the leaves and it's now in pieces on the ground. smh. Some of my losses from late and early freezes include bigtooth maple, species Austrian pine, prairie fire crab, numerous Canadian roses that I was told were unkillable, numerous other perennials, every raspberry cane from last year which I guess has never happened in my town, burning bush, a betula pendula. So stuff that should be hardy here. Some of my evergreens seem stunted. Little growth on one of my Oregon green austrian pine, one weeping Norway spruce and Tannenbaum mugo. There are dead and stunted trees everywhere. Mature and young alike were hammered. I would say 75% of green ash were killed outright. Thought it was impossible to kill those! Mature cottonwood are dead, too. I've never seen that before, either. Damage to box elders and fried junipers of all varieties. Lots of burn on pines and spruces. It's been an unbelievable year. Two tree species that came out completely unscathed that surprised me was honey locust and ohio buckeye. Not super surprising, but bur oak is pristine, what a beast of a tree. And my butternut seedlings came through unscathed. woop woop!