They won't die. The worst that can happen is that they are smaller this yaar than last year. Do your best to protect them and go on down the road. We had one of those crazy low temps for a few hours last year. They all survived.

bk

That's getting pretty cold. It depends on how "substantial" the pips/eyes are. They won't die but at certain stages it can affect how your hostas look all season. But hostas can take a lot of abuse before they die.

Only going by my experience in my yard, the pips/eyes, if low to the ground, aren't much affected until they start elongating into spears/shoots, or whatever that's called. Then the tips can be frozen and mush out. It doesn't sound like you have any leaves unfurled yet, but I don't think you wasted your time by protecting them.

(edited to add eyes and shoots)

One or two of mine got too cold this year and it disfigured some of the early leaves. That's also what I had last year. Some just didn't look right. Others had damage that looked like they were in too much sun and some were all crinkled up. If they are in the ground, cover them with cardboard boxes. That's about all you can do.

bk

i would move the car out of the garage.. and move the pots in ... and leave the garage door open during the day ...

though you dont really mention.. how many pots we are talking about ...

ken

Everything planted in a pot came inside last night. I turned some plant pots upside down over anything in the ground that had shoots lengthening or was unfurling then covered the pots with mulch. Some places I piled mulch directly on the shoots, then put an overturned pot over the mulch trying not to squish the plant. I took inventory Wednesday of what was growing so I had a list of what needed protection. I'll report results Sunday when it warms up. Predicted low is down to 21F tonight.

Kathy

you will speed leaf growth.. bringing them indoors ...

but you do.. what you have to do ...

simply keeping the cold air.. off the leaf.. is all you need... as its a FROST warning.. not a FREEZE warning ... there is a big difference between the two words...

as noted.. they wont die ...

ken

I would put them on my driveway, ohh sorry wrong thread!

Down to +18 here tonight but the Sagae are only up a couple of inches.

It is when the leaves are unfurled already frost does the most damage.

Bruce

I know it's really cold where you are, Ken, but 21f sounds like more than frost.

bk

I've been out and uncovered everything as soon as it got above freezing. I'd like to propose some nomenclature. "Pips" could be used to refer to a growing hosta whose cataphylls are still closed. I won't bother doing anything but throwing a handful of leaves over an exposed pip for a snap freeze. They did great.

"Shoots" could refer to a pip once the leaves have started to lengthen out of the cataphylls. Some of the shoots took a fairly bad hit from the low (21.5F) last night. "Unfurling" hostas actually did better than the ones in the "shoots" phase. Maybe I covered them better.

A pot overturned over shoots, wrapped in newspaper and covered with a bigger pot produced the best results.

And then there's the do nothing option, which I tried on my undulatas. They didn't notice their neglect.

This is my untended Undulata Univittata This morning.

Kathy

The hosta eyes have it; pips came along with more recent gardening lingo from other plants.

As in how many eyes were on that hosta clump you just dug?

22 degrees last night but Sagae look ok.

Bruce