Wednesday 18 December 2013

Post Freeze Update

As many of you are aware, just over a week ago, much of the PNW saw the coldest temperatures in years. The cold lasted for roughly one week with several days below freezing. These events certainly test the limits of many plants in the garden - mine particularly. Temperatures in my neighbourhood dropped near 12F for a few brief hours. Luckily, that very night clouds rolled in and temperatures rose significantly. But I thought it was about time to do a post cold follow-up.

While things are looking a bit sad in the yard, I thought I soften the ugly winter state of the yard with this wreath at the front door. I took a fair amount of eucalyptus, olive branches, rosemary and things from the yard plus some extra touches.

And onto the plants. Usually my first concern when we get any significant cold is the palms. Specifically, any new"ish" ones. This sabal minor seems to have shrugged off the cold without any care. I can already tell that I've found a new favourite plant in this palm.

Echeveria gluaca are looking surprisingly good considering how long the cold lasted. This plant has been around for about three years now. I love it! If you are looking for a somewhat hardy tropical looking succulent for the PNW, I would definitely recommend it.

I put this side table over my agave ovatifolia frosty blue but I don't think it was necessary considering the cold was for the most part dry. I did throw some evergreen branches around it to try and give it a bit of insulation. It seems to be doing well.

Trachycarpus wagnerianus is a garden rockstar and looks great! This is the best palm in my opinion for the PNW. Mine is small and has proven to be much slower than t. fortunei.

And the nearby trachycarpus fortunei are looking great as well. You can see a strand of christmas lights if you look closely. I turned them on in order to provide some protection to the central growing spears of the palm in case temperatures went lower than forecasted.

I did protect this chamaerops humilis. As you can see there are some christmas lights going up towards the central growing spears and the top half of the palm was bundled up tight with burlap in order to protect the fronds a bit from dry wind. I don't think it was necessary but I've grown so attached to how full this palm is. It currently stands about 6.5 feet tall and wide.

I have no idea how this olive tree will handle the cold. If you remember it was ripped out of the ground and left dry and completely bare root. It was then planted late in the autumn and had already had some tip die back. The foliage seems really healthy but time will tell.

As per usual, all the yuccas look great. This banana split yucca has since taken on some pink tones. They tend to do this with colder weather.

Sabal palmetto doesn't seem to mind the cold either. The browning on the one frond tips was actually from the summer.

Here's where things start looking less pretty... this tuscan blue rosemary took some damage. It will recover just fine but it looks a little scrappy.

Same goes for this ground cover rosemary.

The worse of all is my schefflera yuan shan. It didn't rebound like it usually does from cold? It was already looking a little bit sad in the fall and I'm wondering if something more is going on. On the other hand, I already have seen signs of new growth.
 
Just a couple feet away this schefflera brevipedunclata is looking happy.

On a happier note, as per normal, fatsia japonica takes the cold weather in stride. I don't think anything phases this plant.

My butia was protected with burlap and a tarp. I have an emotional connection to this palm and will not risk the cold weather.

Opuntia (no i.d.) looks great. It froze solid but doesn't seem to care.

The big surprise is this phormium. It had some burlap around it but I thought it was for sure dead. When I pulled the burlap away it looked pretty good!

These trachycarpus and yucca rostrata don't really mind the cold.

And my first year with loquats in the ground seems to be a successful - so far. I think they are much hardier than people think.


These echeveria - that I was too lazy to lift in the fall - seem to be okay after the cold. This is certainly a surprise. They look like sempervivums, this is probably a stupid question, but do they hybridize together?

Dyckia grape jelly looks okay. I think it will pull through. I hope.

And another happy surprise is this nolina la siberica. It looks great! I'm always somewhat skeptical of hardiness ratings until I've put them to the test. Seeing as this was planted last spring from a small 4inch pot, it is doing really well given the cold we just experienced.

There you have it. The garden seems to be doing pretty good all things considered!


18 comments:

  1. Great report! 12F is pretty cold per the ratings of many of those plants but they seem to have done well with your excellent care. We have seen as low as 14F three years ago so I'm definitely watching your reports since I didn't have nearly as many iffy plants back then.

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    1. Oh, and I love your wreath!

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    2. Thanks, Shirley. After winters like the last I get overly confident sometimes about our typically mild weather. The only thing this cold spell had going for it was that the really cold weather was brief. Several nights into the 20's and daytime highs around 30F on the coldest of days.

      It always surprises me which plants shrug off the cold and then others that should do well that show signs of stress. I didn't realize you guys can get so cold. Thats really crazy!

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  2. It is definitely refreshing to see how many things were able to survive 12F. Thanks for posting this. Hopefully the cold air stays where it belongs for the rest of the winter!

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    1. Thanks, Justin. It was certainly an unwelcome cold. But I think the weather we had in late November with a few nights of frost helped harden things off in advance. That may have been the saving grace of this all. I'm crossing my fingers on the olive. If that one survives the stress of being planted bare root in the Fall and then taking record cold I'll be planting more. How did things fare for you?

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  3. Wow Louis you've got a lot of real surprises there! Although I am bummed about your Schefflera yuan shan, that's just bizarre. I bet you're right and something else was going on that had it already sick. I hope the new growth you've spotted comes on strong. Great wreath!

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    1. Thanks. I know, the scheffster is weird. I think it'll come back. But I might replace it - at least in that spot.

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  4. Though 12F isn't too bad...it's the 0F +/- stuff that hits periodically, that can really do much more in, and determine what's temporary vs. permanent...that's about every 20 years where I live. Wonder what your bad stuff and it's frequency?

    Great report, and especially that most of your garden did just fine, including those without protection. I feel more summerlike looking at your pics than here, by far, and we're hitting a fall or spring-like 70 later, they say!

    Something I see with you and Loree, is how the more xeric plants (rosemary, etc) look more stressed by this freeze than do the more mesic plants (fatsias, etc). The opposite of how those types behave here after a freeze. Makes sense, too...even without rain, your soil is damper and when it warms your air is more moist...and our soil and air are drier.

    I'll get an ID on your cactus...looks stout and amazing...I think it's an Opuntia engelmannii, but will ask one of the big guns here more into cactus...

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    1. Most winters we stay between 15-20F for a low out here I'd say. It's not uncommon for temperatures to hit 12F historically, but I'd say it happens twice per decade - enough that tender subtropicals are out of the question. It has been about 25 years since temperatures falling into the single digits - windchill values however always dip into the single digits. That's one thing that I'm lucky to have trees to the north, east and west. We don't get the drying winds that come through the Fraser Canyon during arctic events.

      Rosemary is one that I have always scratched my head at. It grows here but definitely sulks in temperatures that it should have no problem with. It always surprises me how well yucca, opuntia, and agave seem to handle the weather. It seems that there are some cordylines around that even managed. I was in Vancouver yesterday afternoon and large phormiums and cordylines all seemed perfectly happy. I even saw a pair of potted washingtonia at a mexican restaurant that looked great. They certainly have some really warm microclimates. The downtown core might even be more of a zone 9.

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  5. I'm happy for you that so many of your plants managed to survive that bitter cold. Who knew that palms could handle those temperatures? (I certainly didn't.) And your olive tree is a trooper!

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    1. Bitter cold indeed! To add insult to injury it snowed today! yuck. At least its hovering around 34F right now. It's not going to do any damage, just be a sloppy mess.

      The palms can take those temperatures provided they are brief. If we had sustained weather like that they would not be looking as good.

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  6. Your plants have come through so well! It's inevitable that a few will succumb, but for the most part, your protected microclimate seems to be doing the trick to save your beloved palms and yuccas. Shame about the Shefflera, but it sounds encouraging at the base. Now we just have to sit tight for the rest of winter. I find myself worrying about what the next several cold months will bring already!

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    1. Thanks, Jane! things are really looking good over the last weeks. I think my dyckia might die or look ratty when the weather warms up but I'm really happy overall. I know what you mean though about the rest of winter. Jan and Feb can be nasty. Fingers crossed!

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  7. Hooray for so many tough survivors!

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    1. Thanks!! I'm pretty happy with things so far! Luckily I tucked away all the tender cordylines before this happened :)

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  8. I had several palms survive 8 degrees in Washington, DC in early 2009. Although this damaged some of them--a couple of them extensively--it didn't kill any outright, and all put out new growth the following growing season. Except for two waggies that were weakened enough to suffer severe damage again the following winter (and subsequently died), all of them have put out tremendous growth since then, in large part thanks to warmer winters... until a few days ago. I had 5 degrees Tuesday morning, my first time in the single digits in almost 5 years, the coldest I've ever recorded in my own garden (since Dec. 2000), and also DC's coldest low since 1996. We'll see how well my palms recover this time! The main message is to not give up on them, even if they look dead. Windmill palms are tough and fast-growing palms, and will often recover from devastating damage and have a new crown by the end of the growing season.

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    1. Thanks, John! Thats some serious cold! It's amazing how well some of the palms can take the cold. A few weeks out now and everything is looking great. In fact most of the windmills are opening new fronds already. Even the butia has been opening up a new frond. So I think I really dodged a bullet.

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  9. You have some tough plants there - everything looks wonderful - I LOVE YOUR WREATH!!!!

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