01/17/2023
As we horticulturist, landscapers, garden centers and nurseries continue to get bombarded with freeze questions I remind you to have patience. 90% or more of the plants in our landscapes will recover given time. Don’t fall prey to people looking to take advantage of you by telling you everything is dead and needs to be either cut down or dug up and replaced. Just because the leaves have fallen off doesn’t mean the plant is dead. Plants like hollies, Aucuba, laurels, boxwoods, azaleas and nandinas will likely leaf out come spring. Plants with dead stems (which may include some of the above depending on where you live) like Loropetalum, gardenias and camellias will likely come back from the trunk or even the roots. Conifers like Arizona cypress and Japanese cedars may be a different story. Time will tell. Check out this publication from the University of Tennessee and watch the Facebook Live Celeste and I did on the UT Gardens Jackson page on January 10th for freeze damage tips and Troy B. Marden Travel page for the segment he did for Volunteer Gardener.https://westtn.tennessee.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2023/01/Handling-the-Holiday-Freeze-in-Your-Lawn-Landscape.pdf
