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Rocky Mountain Gardening

They Didn't Crocus in the Freeze.

Dan _Staley (5b Sunset 2B AHS 7)

13 years ago

So just about all the snow has melted in the almost-record heat, and all of my little crocus, iris and few assorted perennials fooled by the heat survived the two days below 0F temperatures, as did all my veggies in coldframes and hoops. Nothing croaked.

Whew! Go little xeric and adapted plants! Now if I can get them to survive these dessicating winds blowing over ground with little soil moisture...

Dan

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Comments (4)

treebarb Z5 Denver
13 years ago
Good news, Dan!
I haven't checked on the crocus since the big freeze. Over the weekend I was checking trees and noticed my Granny Smith apple tree is getting fuzzy tips on the buds. NNNOOOOooooooo!!!!! Sniff. Ok, I'm better now. I probably don't have green apples in my future this fall.
The good news is all the deciduous tree branches I checked are flexible, so hopefully no major damage. Some of my evergreens look pretty dessicated. I'll be spending some time watering this long upcoming weekend.
Blasted wind!
Barb
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Skybird - z5, Denver, Colorado
13 years ago
None of my Croaks have crocused either, Dan!

Well I finally had a chance to do a good look-see in my backyard today to see how everything's doing since the most recent COLD spell. Didn't have enough snow to qualify as "protection" this last time around, so everything was on its own! Of my spring bulbs, they're ALL up to some extent by now, and they're all fine! I really wasn't too worried about them--as long as it's just the foliage, but the flowers have a cold limit and definitely wouldn't survive below zero, but until they bud/bloom, they'll be ok. The snow crocus have been up since Thanksgiving, but still just foliage, they're up to 4" high by now, which is kind of curious, because they don't normally get any taller than that even with the flowers, and there's no sign of buds yet! The regular crocus are up now too, but only about an inch high. The daffodils in various places range from 1" to about 3" high, and the hyacinths are just showing--an inch or less. I'm back to hoping it doesn't stay warm long enough for them to start budding, and then get a repeat stretch of sub-zero!

Some of my perennials that had started to grow, like the Pulsatilla/pasque flower, have had the new leaves frozen, but they're cold weather plants and will come back just fine. Same thing happened to the Geum and the spike veronica, but they're established and should come back just fine too. I think I may have messed up a little bit with the Iberis/candy tuft! I had trimmed it back to a neat little round plant before the really cold weather hit, and it was looking really good--it's evergreen--but the most recent cold snap without snow really toasted it! Last week I decided I didn't like the brown, crispy foliage on the "outside layer," and it was pretty and green "inside," so I trimmed all the crispy stuff off! ERROR! Now the next layer is crispy! Oops! No more trimming! Will just have to deal with the Crispies till it gets warm for real!

I think the real problem is that it was sooo warm for so long, a lot of things never really went "properly" dormant, and then when the cold hit without warning---OUCH! A lot of my other evergreen and semi-evergreen things are really sad looking by now too. So far I don't think I'm gonna actually lose anything, but I guess that depends on what happens for the rest of this weird and whacky winter!

Skybird
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Related Discussions
Crocuses didn't send up flowers...?
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Comments (3)
Thanks for your replies. I don't thing they're overcrowded... there are a lot of them, but I planted them to line a walkway. Lots of elbow room, LOL. I guess I'll just have to wait till next year.
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Hope you didn't freeze, Dawn
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Comments (4)
George, To me, it feels too early for even a light frost. I'm glad it didn't get everything, although it is too bad it got the ground cherries. Amy, We have the strangest weather here in Oklahoma. About the only thing consistent about it is its very inconsistency. Our first year here we had a killing frost/freeze at the end of September---likely the 28th or 29th. I was shocked. Most years we get the first hard freeze in November, but then one glorious year it didn't happen until mid-December. When someone new here in my county asks me when we get our first autumn frost, I can tell them truthfully and with a straight face that it occurs sometime between September 28th and December 14th. Granted, that is not the most useful info, but it is the truth,. Then I tell them that they likely can count on it arriving in early to mid-November in an average year, not that we have many average years. Being further south doesn't do me one bit of good, and neither does having an average last frost date of March 28th or 29th. Because I'm in a cold microclimate (a low-lying creek hollow in the already low-lying Red River Valley), I'll get colder down here than a lot of y'all will much further north occasionally. I notice the impact of the late cold nights most in April and early May when we are way past our average frost date and ought to be having warmer nights. It means I really have to watch the weather carefully and cover up plants with row cover in March, April and even the first week of May if I feel like we will get colder than forecast. Sadly, the low-lying microclimate doesn't seem to keep us cooler in summer. When I woke up the other morning and checked the mesonet map on my phone before I got out of bed, I was so shocked when I saw the 33 degrees listed for the Burneyville station. However, I knew before I ever went downstairs to look at our Min-Max thermometer that we didn't get that cold here at our house because our house was warm,, and I hadn't switched the HVAC over from AC to heat at bedtime. We were expecting 45 and went to 42 which is fairly typical of our microclimate. The only damaged plants in my garden are pest-damaged or drought-damaged. That brief period of time at 42 degrees had no visible effect on the garden plants at all. In fact, they probably thought it felt nice after a long, hot summer. Sometimes we get frost damage even when the overnight low was only 37 or 38, so I am careful to harvest everything before we start dropping down into the 30s. I'm usually harvesting warm-season crops in November, and occasionally even in December. In the years when I plant cool season crops in the fall, I often can harvest the most cold-hardy ones, like kale and collards, all winter long but the lettuce will freeze once our lows start hitting the teens pretty regularly. Dawn
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didn't protect them enough ...
Q
Comments (2)
Yes I am quite sure you can assume that the roots are fine. The leaves even if not dead will be unsightly and can be removed. There are of course 2 schools of thought on this issue, plants need leaves to photosynthesize so remove any that are really nasty. The other side of the coin is that those damaged leaves will never recover and are simply robbing the plant of energy. I would leave some leaves on until new growth begins. That covers all concerns. It really depends on the Hosta. Unfortunately I speak from experience. Last year after all of mine were up we had a major freeze. Invincible was total mush and bounced right back like nothing had ever happened . Sum and Subtle took a really hard hit too and did not send out many if any new leaves. Lineage. Any pips that have just emerged will be fine (unless temperatures plummet again). Hostas are very resilient - there is probably no reason to delay division. p.s. I am a slow typer and was doing dinner prep at the same time so Ken posted first. You will rarely get exactly the same answer from two people lol!
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Why didn't my alliums flower this year?
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Comments (0)
A few years ago (2016) I planted some allium bulbs. They were allium Giganteum, allium Gladiator, allium Purple sensation, alllium Mount Everest and allium sphaerocephalon. I planted them in October. The next year all of them flowered except for a. sphaerocephalon. I thought it needed some time to establish. I let them go to seed. This year, only a few Purple sensation flowered, no signs of any white Mount Everest, no signs of Giganteum nor Gladiator. Sphaerocephalon hasn't flowered yet. I fear they are lost. Could it be they are dormant this year? Did they die off? I also bought a. moly, a. caeruleum and a. oreophilum last year and planted them in late fall (December) as the soil was workable and no freezing temperatures. This spring only a few of them flowered although I planted 10 of each. As with my alliums I always leave leaves on, never tear them off. I live in a city so no special animals. No voles nor mice. There are a lot of slugs, though. I have a sandy loam, neutral soil. Climate is something between oceanic and Mediterranean with hot (sometimes dry sometimes humid) summers and dry winters with the lowest temp. - 12 degrees C (around 11 F). (I won't post any photos because this is the third time I am posting this so something is apparently glitched.) Thanks for replies in advance
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Skybird - z5, Denver, Colorado
13 years ago
Speaking of FLOWERS!!!

When I was out in the yard today I discovered my first little snow crocus is blooming! When I looked them over closely the other day, I didn't find anything that I could identify as a bud forming, so I was pretty surprised.

BUT, the REAL surprise was when I went back to last year's pictures to see when they had started blooming, and it was FEBRUARY 6th! I thought it was more like early March when they started! Guess they're not too early after all!

In my pics from last year the daffodils started by the 9th of March, and I'll be surprised if that happens this year---they just don't seem that far along to me---but we'll see!

I'm really glad to have a flower to herald the arrival of the new growing season!

Skybird
0
jclepine
13 years ago
You crack me up, Skybird!

I'm glad everyone's stuff didn't freeze, crackle and break off. We had it so cold that it got down to -27f or -30f (the reports around town are not exact). For the first time we've been up here, my car wouldn't start. I couldn't even get it to come out of first gear it was so frozen. It was -24f in the morning and I had to take the bus all the way to school, then work. I'm not complaining, I'm just sayin' is all.

My friends in Steamboat had it down so cold that on the warm up afterwords it was still -28f and they had to send their kids to school. Funny, the Boulder schools closed because it was below zero. Really!!?

Anyway, I'm glad we're under snow, maybe the temps didn't affect my plants.

The more recent freeze had us at -22f in the morning but the car started. I kind of found that hard to believe because it was so much warmer down in Boulder but everyone agreed, -22. Well, one friend said -18 but still, cold!

I'm loving the winter and the snowshoeing but, man, I am so tired of waiting for my garden to become exposed. I want to play in the dirt!!

Oh, that was a darn funny title to the post, Dan!!

Happy winter,

Jennifer
0

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