Brian Minter: There will still be life in that dead looking garden after January cold snap

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We are now beginning to see the effects of our intense cold spell in January. It was far more devastating to some plants than others simply because the prior very mild El Nino weather pattern caused dormancy to end earlier, and many plants were already starting to set bud.

My concern is that many folks will begin taking plants out because they look like they are dead, which in some cases they are, however many are actually still alive but covered with burnt leaves. When the growing season begins, many of these winter-burned plants will bounce back.

The true test of survival is a few days of warm weather. This may not happen until late March or early April, but a run of four or five days with temperatures in the 15 C to 20 C range will reveal whether or not your plants have survived. Once it gets warm, severely damaged plants will simply not leaf out and they can be removed and replaced.

Plants in containers were the greatest victims. Any plant out of the ground loses at least one zone of hardiness because the roots do not have adequate soil protection. The simple solution going forward is to wrap your containers and the plants with a true insulating cloth like N-sulate which, depending upon the grade of insulation, can make up to a 10 C difference. Burlap, which many folks use, has little insulating effect against the cold but helps mitigate the effects of cold winter winds.

As a precaution, we wrap all our deciduous trees and shrubs with N-sulate during severe cold spells and it makes all the difference in their survival.

Broad-leafed plants,