Clark, is the forecast still holding up for such cold ? Here, we're set for a bit of a roller coaster and with possible frost in the coming days, often gets a bit colder than predicted.

It got worse. They’re saying possible single digit’s now. I’m in denial at this point. Record heat today followed by record smashing cold. It’s getting really old

Hey man. That’s terrible news. I’m getting sick of the Rocky Mountains area taking all the crap. Our September two years ago was practically a November, our feb was coldest in 40 years and we just had our coldest aug 31st in 90 years. Meanwhile the rest of North America doesnt break any cold records outside of winter which they barely do.

I saw a map today that showed our area in middle of North America as the only one not warming up in the last 20 years. Meanwhile the Arctic is cooking and so is the coasts

Yes, very hard on plants and trees to experience such a very severe killing frost with no easing into it whatsoever. Looks like my region might get away for a bit without a freeze and some good decent average to above temps ahead.

Boy, you guys really ride the roller coaster in temperatures.

We've had a cool down the last several days with highs low 70'sF and lows in the high 40'sF and low 50's. Things have been hardening off nicely with most trees here showing winter buds but that's only been the last week or so.

I can't remember having summer going directly into winter although it may have happened once or twice here in the distant past.

They're talking chance of frost Thursday morning with a low of 32F so not too bad and maybe in town, it won't quite make it down to that.

Highs mid to low 60's after that, so Fall has definitely arrived and is much chillier now. Our usual first frost is Sept. 12-16th but the last few years it's waited until mid October. We can't count on that every year.

We've had next best thing to drought this season, with the exception of a few good rains but it got so dry, the rains barely got us through from having severe drought conditions.

I've supplemental watered but not everything, and my spruce and pine showed less than half the new growth this year, compared to previous years. A lot more borers and cutting insects too this year. All my deciduous trees grew but less than what I expected because lack of rain.

We hope to have a nice fall with winter staying away until at least early November.

Hope it's not as bad as they're predicting for you guys and your plant don't have any permanent damage from the cold.

Well the lows seem to have gotten better, but it’s not supposed to get above freezing tomorrow. I wrapped some trees and put some flowers under pots and i got some styrofoam cones too. I’ll be interested to see how those cones perform.

I put my prize butternut seedlings under styrofoam cones

The view from my office. No explanation necessary

Sorry to see that. We had 7' of snow one year on Oct 12th in zone 6 NY state.

October 11 2018:

I think the weather got better for a while after this but at this time of year, you never know what to expect. :-)

We had 26F (-3C) this morning, but they had been predicting 16F (-8C), so I feel as though we dodged a bullet here.

35F this AM.

Tomorrow AM 32F predicted.

I'm almost hoping for enough cold to start the leaves turning.

The last couple of years, the tree turned over a two month period, a little at a time. Not very impressive at all.

Douglas - Where are you?

My grapes got toasted last night but might have enough good leaves to keep them going. It is the leaves that are higher up that seemed to have missed the worst of it.

ive Got bananas outside that give me the most accurate measure of when we drop below freezing lol. Also, hydrangeas burn below freezing and mine haven’t yet.

I live in Montana, valley just west of the continental divide, about 4700 feet

3AM to 6AM we had below freezing with 31F the low temp.

Bird bath had 3/8" thick ice on it.

I had just broke the ice, went back into the house and looked back from the window and my Black Panther appeared and was already drinking. :-)

So the lows haven't been as bad as they were predicting, thank the Lord, but the duration of the cold is ridiculous. I think we'll be 36 hours below freezing now, then a short break then back down to like 24 tonight.

What do you guys think the chances of injury to trees are? It got cold, but only down to like 22 or 23. Think any leaves on trees have a chance of coming through and still giving fall color?

Wayne - what grapes do you grow? Are they in a greenhouse?

I have Valiant, Summerset Seedless and Brianna. The Valiant is the most reliable but is recovering again from die back mostly from Spring weather. Brianna is a nice orderly vine with yellowish fruit when ripe, it has a very complex flavor. The summerset is trying to get established but it will need global warming to do well. I should do a cover over the area, that would help a lot.

Some trees Will brown up but not all. There are lots of species that survive very hard frost but normally only if it goes above freezing during the day so there is a possibility...

On the topic of grapes, I found out my client is growing kiwis on their acreage in solid zone 3 with zone 2 winters sometimes and they fruit! Thait’s insane and they were growing grapes too. This is the kiwis. They have black raspberries which are amazing. They are called wyoming raspberries.

Well, preliminary prognosis is mixed. Everything I covered is doing fine, but many things I did not cover seem to have bitten the dust. I give high marks to the syrofoam. Everything that was under styrofoam is pristine.

I can't really tell if leaves are fried. Buckeye and Norway maple leaves appear fried. Norway maple fall color isn't great anyway, right? I planted mine this summer. Birch, elm, cottonwood, aspen seem to have made it through OK. Bigtooth maple seems OK, which is awesome because that's my favorite in the fall. Oaks are a mixed bag. Bur seems like it is about half fried and northern red oak seems like maybe 20% fried. Raspberries (which I expended too much time and effort into protecting lol) seem like they're fine, but time will shortly tell.

Oh, petunias seem unaffected. They are quite tough, it turns out. Pretty much every other annual I have is toast.

My lows were 24, 22, 26 the past three nights and we didn't ht freezing for about 48 straight hours, in case anyone is interested.

Overall, I'm feeling pretty lucky and fairly pleased.

The roof tops were white here but reports say it only got down to 34dF.

The Ash trees look a little off color and the Hydrangeas are toast. The rest of the trees don't look too bad but after 2 nights of this, we may see some go into Fall colors.

The forecast shows milder weather for at least the next 10 days. Could go well into October before we see more frost/freeze.

What's the extended forecast for you Lane?

Wow are the prairies and mountain west insane. We flirted with frost Monday, only got to 39f and today we are 80f!! And by the weekend, lucky to hit 55f. Insane swings going on. The long term shows us getting near 80f again next weekend for three days if the Canadian model holds or near 70f if the American model does.

My hydrangeas are still in tact.

I checked out Lane’s and it’s nice summer weather next week. Not too hot. 70s.

Got my three flowered maple and Kentucky coffee tree in my latest order. So excited to try but scared to have more failures as well!

Yup, nice weather in store. Sounds like everyone’s in the clear for at least a couple more weeks.

plant- other than leafing out mid to late June, Kentucky coffee trees do well here. I’d think they’d perform well in Alberta, too

Do the sudden 80's down to twenties do any damage to the trees you try to grow? I'm guessing zone hardy trees aren't equal to native zone hardy trees in this respect?

What is the single most problem you encounter growing trees?

Is it short season?

yeah, i don’t think it’s the 80s to 20s or30s that does the damage, it’s the 60s to the single digits or below zero without hardening off that destroys trees. I don’t think this year’s event will be as bad as last year where it went from 70 to zero in a day in early oct and that was the first freeze. This type of swing can happen in fall or spring.

plus it’s dry here with extremely high evapotraspiration. Trees don’t grow here naturally and it just tough in every way, I guess. Plus terrible soil.

'Trees don’t grow here naturally'

Thanks! I had no idea.

If you don't mind me asking, When you say 'terrible soil' what's terrible about it? Shallow? Sand?

It's very alkaline, heavy, heavy clay with limestone cobble, basically no topsoil, little organic matter. I'm lucky because whoever built my house in the 80s brought in a few inches of good soil and things grow pretty well

That's great to hear Lane.

Nothing that a dump truck or two of good top soil can't cure. :-)

I once put a cu. yd. or so of black dirt ~2 ft. down along with a healthy dose of 0-0-60 (potash) with native top soil on top when moving an apple tree. The soil it was planted in was like beach sand that wouldn't hardly grow weeds. The tree did super good for many years (35?) producing many bushels of apples over that time.

I don't understand the soils out West but it sounds a lot like around here as far as how the soil varies from great to terrible. :-)

I’d love to see a pic of the fall colours off your Bigtooth maple there in Wyoming! I’m thinking about planting some next year. I’ve seen there amazing fall colours in Utah and southern Idaho one autumn!

Lane:

You've probably seen this before. (safe site)

Yes. I've got quite a few from that list ha ha. It's interesting, Cheyenne is 1,000 ft lower in elevation and like 4-5 degrees warmer in average annual temperatures than Laramie, WY where Iive. You wouldn't think it, but that makes a huge difference.

mwheyboer - There is a pic of my bigtooth maple in this thread https://www.houzz.com/discussions/5493339/how-is-your-fall-color-and-did-you-have-any-freezes-yet

It won't let me copy/paste my OWN picture for some reason.

Thanks Lane!

I think I understand it better now.

All I can say is, you've done a great job, considering those conditions. :-)

I was super interested in a big tooth maple as well but now that I have a sugar maple, its pretty similar. I can't find the picture on that link. You have one comment and its about a larch. The trees are considered long lost twins. Its like the western version of a sugar maple but far smaller due to the lack of yearly precipitation in its native range like in Utah. Kentucky is going to leaf out in late June!!?? Thats ridiculous. Reminds me of the sycamore I had. It wouldn't shut down in time for fall either. That explains the biggest struggling with taking eastern trees over to the west.

My soil is really weird around here. We have massive sand dunes everywhere which is acidic. I live in a swampy area where the clay is almost sandy loamy. Its weird. They have found palm tree fossils when drilling for oil so we were tropical at one point. There is a river I tube down called Sandy River that has sand that looks like its from the tropics. Completely white sand. We also have a lake that is a completely sand bottom and amazing to walk into. There are massive jack pine forests everywhere with tons of blueberries. They grow everywhere but they are small. I don't have any chlorosis problems around here. Not alkaline but you go to other areas of the prairies and its super alkaline.

Almost all of the prairies are neutral or acidic it looks like.... https://static.country-guide.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/12104733/slc322_raster_slt_ph5_canada.jpg

I'm not in the clear. -1c predicted on tuesday morning or 30f. Just below freezing. Cold days just started randomly showing up in the forecast but back to near 70 for thurs and next weekend. Really chilly next couple days in the 50s to low 60s and lows just above freezing on wed and thurs. Might have to cover the hydrangeas because they are worth saving the flowers if its going to get nice for another 2 weeks. Easy to throw a garbage bag over. Looks like we might not have rain all month. Cloudy weekend should keep frosts away though but man its going to feel cold after the recent warm days. I actually was burning in the sun.

I found the post about the maples. You have to click on the 105 more posts and then the 5 more posts that appears after that, under the initial post to see it.

That is a wide variation in Ph you have in that area up there PL. There're many types of soil in MN and farms around me that have slightly high ph (7+) with clay loam soils but many more with soil that's poor and acidic.

Nice color on that maple btw. :-)

My Sugar is not looking like it will have great fall color but it's still a hard maple with beautiful leaves and dense shade during the growing season. so I think I'll keep it.

I haven't tested ph on this place but it's deep sand underneath which make regular rains and/or irrigation a necessity (there can be seasons where it rains enough but not regularly). They may have had black dirt hauled in around the house when it was built. Otherwise quite sandy a foot or two down from the surface.

The climate here doesn't have such wide swings in temps generally but the season is about a month or so shorter than my brothers in z4 and 5. And or coarse because of that, the winter is longer and more harsh.

I see the Ash tree is turning yellow but not much else. The hydrangea paniculata has turned with the frost but flowers were going brown anyways.

I just cut the grass but probably not done with that yet. They're talking close to 80f by Tuesday but lows get to low 40's to mid 50's for the most part all month.

We received 3/4" of slow rain last night. We haven't had rain since August and totals then were scant.

Lane, have you tried any of the Alpine firs up there? I've heard that elevation matters with those kinds of trees.

Yes, bill is right, I think you have to expand the thread. ive been thinking about a sub alpine fir. People do grow them here. My dad calls them “piss pine” because their lumber is utterly worthless lol.

any way I’ll post the pics again

This summer. it ended putting on a second flush and added8 or so more inches

Here’s a KTC. Yeah, I believe AB is warmer in the spring so they might leaf out earlier. But I definitely wouldn’t count on them til late May or early June. They are slower than honey locust or ash, or bur oak.

although very, very similar big tooth maple is a small tree, so it’s not really in the same class as sugar maple. Different function in landscape. Definitely room for both :)

Awesome pics. I love that color. It’s very similar to my sugar maple I just planted. There is a seven foot Korean maple in my town that’s been there for a couple years and gets a little dieback but keeps gaining height. I’m definitely getting it’s fall color this year. It’s beautiful. Looks exactly like a Japanese maple. I should get one for a protected area in my yard. An Edmonton nursery was selling the japanese x Korean hybrids and Korean. I’ll try next year once I clear a little room for them.

jfscmidt made an intense fall coloured big tooth. I’m getting so sick of how logistically bad This webpage is. I can’t use it on safari without it continually glitching When I’m writing and I need to sing in multiple times.

i wish they would spend a little time fixing it. It was way better before Houzz came in.

https://www.jfschmidt.com/introductions/mesaglow/index.html

And you’re right about our warmer springs. You have hotter highs but our lows are a lot nicer and that it was encourages the leaf out. Most trees leaf out early to mid May here unless it’s a cold April. When I lived in the city, there was maydays that would leaf out in mid April and other trees would flower in April as long as it wasn’t a really cold spring.