Plant experts explain how to protect your garden for the upcoming freeze
“When we have severe freezes, quite often the tissue within a plant will burst and explode, kind of like a coke can in a freezer,” Scott Ricca, Co-Owner of Clegg’s Nursery, said.
Ricca says certain plants are more susceptible to damage from the cold, like blueberries and blackberries. He says flowers that are just starting to show color are more likely to burn, but buds that are fully dormant and tight can handle the freeze a little better.
For other tropical plants like petunias and hibiscus, you might want to consider covering them up with a freeze protection cloth.
“When covering plants, you want to make sure that the surrounding or the cloth itself is secured to the ground because what you’re trying to do is capture the radiant heat coming back from the ground. So if the cloth doesn’t have good contact with the ground where it’s stable where the wind can blow underneath it, you’re catching or you’re losing the heat that the cloth would catch and help your plant,” Ricca said.
Ricca says some people have already planted tomatoes, eager to have the first one of the season. Luckily, there’s ways to protect those too.
“Sometimes just a nursery bucket turned upside down on it and put a brick or something heavy so it wont blow off will protect it,” Ricca said.
“But don’t rush,” Ricca says. “That’s the biggest thing that we want you to do with pruning this season. Don’t rush into your pruning.”
Ricca says if you are not absolutely sure if tissue is dead or not, wait until you see new growth to best protect your plants and have them flourishing come springtime.
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