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| My Weeping Cherry was beautiful in the spring of 2013. |
It was a tough winter for my garden and every day that something leafs out and shows signs of life, I consider myself lucky. My Weeping Cherry that was beautiful last year and full of bees, has only a few flowers this year.
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| Lots of flowers and bees. |
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| The spring of 2014 with few flowers and no bees. |
I have walked the gardens and observed lots of winter cold damage. I never bury the canes of my climbing roses and this year I will need to cut them to the ground and start over. My Spireas have some new growth, but they will need to have a major pruning this year to clean out the dead. I have several Blue Atlas Cedars that are brown from the cold. It was a long cold winter and I can tell that I will have lots of gardening jobs ahead of me.
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| My Spirea with some new growth and lots of dead limbs. |
What do you do when you have winter cold damage to your plants? The best thing you can do is remember that there was not much that you could have done to protect your plants from such
extreme temperatures. The cold temperatures were more than many plants could take. Give your trees and shrubs time to grow, then you can see what needs to be done with each plant. Clean up, prune and cut back dead limbs as they leaf out or after flowering. I have given some shrubs and trees fertilizer to help with new growth. I figure that with many shrubs and trees, I will have limited flowers this year but it is more important to get that tree or shrub off to a good start for future growth.
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My Leyland Cypress has lots of brown in it caused by the cold.
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For those trees or shrubs that were damaged, do not be in a hurry to remove them from your garden. Fertilize them and wait to see if you get some new growth and be prepared to wait for several months for that growth. Then give the plant time to fill in. Prune or remove dead as needed. If your tree or shrub does not show growth after several months then consider it a winter loss. I plan to fertilize, water, wait and hope for the best!
Happy Gardening!
Debbie
