For me, it seemed to depend on how far along the leaves were. If the leaves had had a chance to harden off, they made it. But many tender new shoots are now pointing to the ground. Some azaleas, trees (even side by side with ones that are ok) and a few fern fronds (but most made it). One paw paw was covered with blooms, not sure if they'll make it. And that would mean no fruit!

I know the leaves will come back, but I'll sure miss all those blooms that turned to mush. I can't help but be glad to hear some ligustrum blooms bit the dust. That means fewer seeds to be spread. I noticed the Tree of Heaven's foliage was all too tender - it looks like wet dishrags now.

For gardener, this certainly is a sad day. And it's not over yet. We still have tonight to get through.

the species hydrangea are toast although the oakleafs look okay. The hosta looked like goo yesterday but some show some hope today. Damage to the newest growth on the roses- as much as 6" on some shoots. The azalea blossoms appear to be dead but the leaves look pretty good. Only plants in the garden right now are parsley- looks so-so- and asparagus- mostly okay. Think goodness I didnt put in the tomatoes last weekend!
jg

I was out Thursday night after I got back from work for 4 1/2 hours covering plants in the dark lol. Didn't get in til' 12:15 am. The neighbors thought I was crazy but what I was doing paid off and I will probably do so again next year if this occurs.

My plants/beds are widely scattered and I didn't have nearly enough blankets & plastic to go around. I do however have access to a shavings pit from the mill on the family property. So I used all the 2 quart to 5 gallon plastic pots or buckets I could find, doubled them up so that each plant I wanted to protect had two of these as protection over top of it and then filled it with shavings before inverting it over top of the plant. The shavings are light enough that there was virtually no limb breakage during the process. Everything that went under these insulated buckets looks unphased today, including the tender tomatoes & basil plants I had already planted over a week ago. I just wish I could have used a similar method for my taller shrubs & Irisis.

One good thing about shavings is that they not only regulated the cold temperatures but the warm heat of the day temps as well. The buckets have been on since Thursday night because it would be far too much work to remove them all every morning. I do spot checks during the afternoon and every plant I've checked remains cool under the pots. Of course this wouldn't be good long-term and they'll be needing some sunlight soon. Thank goodness this has only lasted a few days.

Squirrellypete

I did the same with some pine straw and overturned buckets and plastic pots. It helped with the smaller items.

Luckily the sun was out in full force today and it's up to 51 now. Supposed to get down to 32 tonight, but after last night, that's not so bad.

laxfan, what do you mean by the species hydrangea are toast? Are you talking about the big leaf hydrangea that have big blue or pink flowers? That's hydrangea macrophylla. Oakleaf is hydrangea quercifolia, which is a different species from the other. My oakleaf hydrangea did surprisingly well also. My hydrangea arborescens 'Annabelle' also did well, but it has had it's leaves for a while and as I said, I think the age of the leaves was key for my yard.

Of course now that I say that, both will get zapped tonight!!

My azaleas are toast.
My ES hydrangeas are ready for the waste bin
My Oakleaf hydrangeas are a-ok.

Next time someone says to plant from southern stock I'll remember this and do the opposite,

The overall damage was not as bad as I'd expected this morning. Some nice surprises that survived well:
- oakleaf hydrangea and just-starting flower buds
- tender new purple leaves on forest pansy redbud
- new leaves on coral bark maple
- nova zembla rhododendron
- star jasmine
Not doing as well:
- crimson queen japanese maple
- hydrangea macrophylla
- sedum
Not sure:
- young (about 10 year) gingko, who's new leaves look really droop, but I figure they've lasted a long, long time as a species. Maybe it'll be ok.
Tonight's lows in Atlanta are still going to be about 34°F... let's keep our fingers crossed.

My hydrangeas looks ragid. I've lost my hibiscus (in full bloom last week). Hostas, cannas, angel trumpet, and elephant ears are all black.
The worst of it is my amaryllis...it had it's first bloom, just days from opening and now it's fallen over.
I covered everything with sheets and garbage bags, but it didn't seem to help. (When my husband was removing the coverings this morning, he said that he saw frost on the leaves.)

I conducted another close order inspection at dusk. Echoing what others have said here almost all the tender new stuff regardless of the plant, shrub, or tree is bowing groundward. I noted this evening the Achillea are turning to mush, too. A bit of a latent effect I'm sure I'll see more of.

I can't tell yet the effect on the young peach fruit. Pears and apples look fine.

My oak leaf was OK too, I guess they are different. I have another hydrangea that I ordered on line, called Europa. It ha s a fantastic violet color, it came through ok, some leaves are damaged, but not all.

The other two Nikkos that I got at Lowes are the ones that got fried. My Annable, that I just planted last year, and wasn't sure that it was coming back at all, did ok, as far as I can tell. But it was closer to the house, as was Europa. I think that is key.

Damaged plants list:
Vitex (all new leaves are black)
Hydrangea (all new leaves and buds on tips are toast)
Fatsia japonica(all new growth is black)
Mexican Petunias (about 1/2 dead)
Crimson Queen Jap maple (all leaves are toast)
Clematis (tips not covered are fried)
Water Lillies (all leaves have sunk)

All of my hydrangeas are droopy. Does that mean no blooms this year?
Most of hostas are OK, except for Guacamole, my favorite!
Impatients and coleus are done. Elephant ears, cannas are a black mush. New tender foliage on camellias, gardenias are history. Miraculously basil survived. I thought it would be hit first. My beloved foxgloves are really droopy and sad. Will it help to water the plants today? Hopefully the unexpected frost is done for this season. Nature is a trickster! Who could think after temps being in 80s it would drop suddenly to 20s? Well, I've learned my lesson for sure. No more planting annuals till at least mid-April.
May they rest in peace...

So far I've noticed that I've lost (I'm sure it will come back eventually) the following:

alstromeria
some varieties of hosta
chionathus virginicus (Fringe tree)
Lillies
Butterfly bush
Blue Bird Rose of Sharon
new growth on the azaleas is brown
Tulip tree new growth doesn't look too good either.
The caladiums that the sheet blew off of are dead. those that remained covered are fine.

We'll see if the list grows longer as the day goes on.

I think I did ok, but my salvias look rough, garanitica (black & blue)and elegans (pinneapple sage). I hope they come back.

I covered some things Friday night with plastic sheets and noticed they looked worse than the things I didn't cover. I covered only the most tender stuff on Saturday night. Didn't cover anything Sunday night, but watered the heck out of everything with the overhead sprinkler instead.

Looking mushy:
new hostas - old ones look okay
new growth of certain roses, others look okay
warm-season annuals (thank goodness I didn't get too many)
dahlias that overwintered in the ground
butterfly bush
rose-of--sharon (althea)
oriental lilies look droopy but may recover

Surprisingly, petunias, gladiolas that overwintered in the ground, and salvia guarantica look like they made it!

New growth on vitex which was a beautiful lime green is now all black.
My Endless summer hydrangea that was planted in the fall has some damage on the tips.
All my oakleafs are just fine.
My azeleas that are well established are fine, the flowers even still look good.
Do you just prune the frost damage off?

natalie4b, we have similar tastes! I'm a huge fan of the Guacamole hosta...although I don't have any, but I've found a shady spot and plan to order some from Plant Delights in a few weeks.
Also, I love foxgloves! Whenever I go to a nursery, my husband can always count on me purchasing one. In fact, I have several seedlings (growing inside) from last years' blooms.

Sorry to change the subject slightly, but wanted to post this note for efam. Auburn, GA has a wonderful hosta nursery called Pixie Forest (google them). They have beautiful Guacamole hostas for way way way less than Plant Delights. They have all kinds of beautiful hostas, but I know for sure they have Guacamole because that's where I got mine - which seems to have survived this weather - I guess because it's so close to the house.
After reading other people's posts, I took a closer look at my vitex. Toast!! Same black leaves everyone else is talking about. Will it get more leaves for the summer? Anyone know?

Not to change the subject again but I was at Bloomin designs and they also had Guacamole 3 for $20.00 I think

All trees and shrubs should recover and put out new leaves or fresh growth (if it just got the tips) if those trees and shrubs are normally hardy to this area. Most will not bloom again if they are the type that bloom on buds formed last year. If they bloom on new wood, you might get some.

Hardy herbaceous perennials (like hostas and ferns) should resprout from the ground, ferns will put out new fronds, etc.

I noticed that the dogwoods (Cornus florida) seemed to have fared very well overall, I have not seen a casualty yet.

Two butterfly bushes got a bit wilty on top. Other than that, no damage at all!!
No black on anything.
Nothing damaged at church either. Actually, everything looks very gorgeous here and lots of people have passed by to say how undamaged it all looks.
It is really only the direction I face. Frost doesn't often hit the front garden!

GGG

Reading all of the previous posts, I see that our garden was not alone in the general devastation! Ironically, the oriental lilies and clematis Jackmanii (those not covered up when I ran out of sheets) did just as well as those I covered! The clematis is in full bloom! Next year I'll concentrate on hydrangeas.

I strolled around the gardens again this evening and my list got longer. The new stuff:

- Russsian tea olives. Browned top leaves and wilted new growth
- Obvious frost damage (leaf burn) on young cabbages and califlowers
- Beets are now mush
- Many more wilted and weeping rose blooms than yesterday
- Young peaches ain't looking good
- More sweet pea vines are moping (and these are supposed to be cold hardy)
- Young holly shrubs have serious leaf burn
- Spiderworts are blackening

I did note the plants in the places sheltered from the wind faired better, specifically those in the warmer microclimate around the brick house and those tucked around the greenhouse.

-

My list just got longer too--

Loropetalum -- pathetic, even though they were up against the foundation which is surprising
Crimson Queen Jap Maple -- toast
Snowball Bush -- brown blooms
Any tall Iris -- buds/stalks are on the ground & mushy
Cannas -- a few I forgot to cover are mush
Daylilies -- will be ok but look mushier today
Basil -- leaves touching the sides of pots got blackened
Roses -- covered or uncovered none of them seem to be freeze damaged but I managed to snap some limbs on my Iceberg & Glamis Castle varieties while trying to protect them.
Weigelia -- tips are wilted
Mums -- all new growth is shot except some Ryan's Pink near the house
Spiderworts -- droopy

I'm gonna' have to invest in a better defense plan before next year. Surprises are all my clematis did great without cover as did all my peegee hydrangeas.

Squirrellypete

I am just sick-- my fig trees had been all leafed out and covered with spring figs, but all the leaves and figs are mush. At least I'll get figs this fall, probably. I think I probably lost a lot of blueberries. They'd berried out but the berries look fried, as well as a lot of leaves. The pawpaw trees' blossoms and leaves are dead, the peach trees don't look good... No fruit this spring except from the strawberry bed and raspberry/blackberry cane patches. I'm really worried that my two pomegranate bushes aren't going to come back.

Oh and the hydrangeas that had been budding aren't going to do much this year, but everything else will come back I think.

Has anyone else noticed that not a single weed was killed?

Well if the foliage had hardened off then it wasn't killed (unless the plant was tender like elephant ears). Unfortunately the kudzu had not leafed out so it wasn't set back any. The Tree of Heaven trees near me did get all their foliage killed, but I know they'll be back.

I tell you, I can't stand to even go outside and look around - it just breaks my heart to see so much damage.

LOL Good one Sugar Hill why is that?

I lost my hydrangea. Poor thing. Also the new buds on my crossvine are all wilted. Don't know if that means they will eventually fall off or if they will still bloom.

Nothing else seemed to get hit. even my tiny little bleeding heart withstood the nights.

Cath

Sorry to drop in here and brag, but I weathered the freeze rather well.

Whew!

My azaleas were done anyway. They were near the end of their cycle and a few 80 plus degree days had them on the downside.

My hydrangeas are nipped back just a little on some of the tip growth, but the flower clusters look to be OK.

My veggie garden, where I had tomatoes waist high already, had a little damage. I ran the sprinkler over the whole thing all night Sat night and when I got up Sun I was horrified to find the whole thing covered in ice. My gorgeous tomatoes were covered under a layer of ice...yikes!

Our low was 24.

I let everything thaw out and when I surveyed the situation yesterday, some are untouched completely, others moderately. That layer of ice insulated the plants exactly the way that I hoped that it would.

I would say that I lost 10% of my sweet corn. My peppers and eggplant are completely fine. A little pruning on the tomatoes will solve my issues there.

I do hate to see the water bill. Three straight nights of all night watering I am sure will add up.

The wind blew the dogwood blossoms off my neighbor's big old tree before the freeze started, so I am up to my ankles in dogwood snow, LOL. My roses and loropetalum are fine (though I'm sure I've lost some of the rose buds but no medium-term damage); the butterfly bush looks horrid but will recover. But, as sugarhill noted, all the weeds are doing better than ever.

Took a survey this morning again. It's really a story of the good the bad and the ugly out there!
The UGLY
Hydrangea macrophyla
chionathus virginicus
Yellow saucer Magnolia ;>(
Chinese Redbud - looks extra sad with it's fading blooms too!
Coralbark Maple
Fullmoon Maple
Exbury Azalea
Azaleas- Leaves fine all flowers tan and hanging
Vitex- nasty!
Viburmun Doublefile no more white wedding cake out the back door
Fothergilla
The GOOD:
All the roses even the giant Don Juan all the buds look good.
Salvias Lucantha still to small to be bothered. Gregii a couple early buds dropped off
Babtisia
Spanish Lavender
Oakleaf Hydrangea
All the perennials on the hillside

(sorry to be late in responding- have been out of town for a week) esh- yes, the h. macrophylla are the ones I mean. Good old Nikko Blue and a new Lady in Red, both were hit hard. the h. quercifolia seem to be fine. A further look around this weekend revealed that a lot of the azaleas were damaged also, including a nmber of different natives.

Sorry to be late here too, but figured I would add my herb-ituaries to the list.

Deaths

Cucumbers - I haven't had any luck this year with cukes. The seeds I set barely germinated, then died. I bought plants after the freeze, but it was still cool and all but two of them died.

Bush Beans - They were germinating and I had a few that had sprouted. I covered them with a sheet, but no luck- they all went to bean heaven.

Squash - My crookneck squash all died. I wimped out and bough some seedlings from Lowes today to replace those.

Survivors:

Tomatoes - I covered them with buckets and they all lived. Strangely enough, I even have blooms already setting on some of my Better Boys.

Peppers - Bell peppers lived with covering. Banana peppers barely pulled through, too.

Squash - Zucchini squash fared very well. I only lost one out of 9 plants.

Corn - I was worried because it was only 2 inches tall when the frost hit last week, but it lived and seems to be growing fine now.

Broccoli - Not surprising, since it's a cool weather crop. My broccoli is the biggest thing in my garden right now.

Morning Glories - About half lived!

Sorry to read all the herbi-tuaries (lol). I think I've lost eight crepe myrtles, six of which I had pruned back. The pruned ones had tender sprouts, and of course, all are burnt and crispy. The others do not appear to be leafing out. I guess all I can do is sit and wait and see what happens. Should I remove the crispy sprouts from the pruned trees?

My poor pitiful Fig tree :( Every leaf killed by the cold, I wonder if I'll see any figs this year. The annuals I impatiently planted which I covered with pinestraw and made certain to water are mostly okay, a little leaf damage is all, but those I forgot, ackkkk, they're mushy, yucky history.

I would wait on the crepe myrtles. I noticed one of mine now has new buds on it. It's going to be warm starting this week so everything should go through a growth spurt.

mid12nt: Wow, your figs got harmed? We have like 3 20 year old fig trees in our back yard and they are LOADED with figs right now. They look healthier than they ever have and for some reason the squirrels and birds haven't bothered the figs much yet.

PS: An update on my herb-ituaries... my garden has fully recovered and is taking off like a bat out of Helman's. I can barely keep up with all the new growth. I had to enlist some help from my family and have a "trellis making party" because my vines (morning glories, snap peas, and beans) started growing in overdrive.

It seems my only permanent herb-ituaray are my mini gardenias. Not sure why, but the entier plant, not just the new growth is dead on both of them. A shame since it's take me 3 years to get them to this size. SIGH.

I was looking at some of my radicans gardenias today and thinking about getting rid of them. They were 2 feet high and about 3 feet wide and beautiful. I am not seeing new growth so far and am wondering how far back I need to cut them. Some parts (few) are healthy but still....