How to Handle Freeze Damage in the Garden 🥶

With the freeze last night here in Atlanta, many of our eager plants are waking up this morning with a bit of whiplash…

Last week’s edition, we went over the fact that we were hitting temperatures 12 degrees over the 10-year average. Needless to say, a drastic drop below 32 after historically warm temperatures can cause some issues. Luckily, we had some solid rain prior to the freeze here in Atlanta, so our plants have some root insulation. Regardless, you could see some of the following:

• Droopy, limp, curled leaves
• A darker color on leaves
• Collapsed stems
• Stems that look fine at first, then slowly dry out from the tip down
• Flowers turning brown and dropping

So, the question is what do we do!? First things first… Do nothing! Easy peasy. Right after a freeze is not the time to prune out branches, stems, and leaves affected by the drop. We want to think about it from the POV of:

• How might the plant recover? When you prune right after a freeze, you can butt in on the plant’s self-regulatory systems. It’s hard to predict how much die-back you may have and which nodes the plant will want to promote in the future. Let the plant do some of the decision-making after this initial shock.
• Will we get another freeze? If we immediately prune, you can create trigger points for new growth, essentially fast-tracking the plant’s response. While that can be fine under other seasonal situations, right now there is still threat of another wacky spring freeze. This is the same reason we don’t prune shrubs and trees in early fall. Lingering summer conditions can trigger new growth only for winter conditions to freeze it all away.

When do we intervene?

When we get back to consistent warm weather, a freeze affected plant might start to show signs of new growth again. Maybe a week or two, but sometimes longer. A big reminder: dead leaves do not immediately mean a dead or dying plant! You can have a shrub lose all of its leaves without any of the major stems or branches dying. These kinds of events can trigger a recovery-borne dormancy, where it can take quite a while to push out new growth.

Scratch a teeny cut into the bark with a fingernail or a knife. Green underneath means it’s alive; brown or gray and dry means it’s dead. If you find dead material, work your way down the stem to find the point where it’s still alive. You can prune to that point or more preferably to the nearest living bud. For non-woody, herbaceous perennials, (especially natives) they tend to take freeze damage just fine, even if they look totally wiped out. You may have the entire crown die-back after a cold snap, but underground their roots are alive and well. Wait about a week or two into warmer weather to see where new leaves and shoots are emerging from the base. Prune out whatever didn’t recover OR leave it! Those dead leaves will act as a natural mulch.