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Not Even Frost Or A Freeze Is All Bad For Your Garden

Photo by MONICA BRANDIES

Shrimp plants, Justicia species, can be frozen back to the ground. The varieties are dark red, a brownish with yellow and green near the tips, silver, lime green and ‘fruit cocktail,’ which is lime green with pink hues. The blooms are showy, layered bracts which look like shrimps and last for a long time. The flowers are small white blossoms. The plants grow in partial shade to full sun and can get 4 feet tall. They are native to Mexico.

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By MONICA BRANDIES

The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 25, 2009

A frost or freeze is perhaps God's way of teaching us detachment, and helping with the pruning. The frost takes out much growth and motivates us to shape up the rest.

Nothing is all bad, not even frost. It can check the growth and spread of invasive plants and pests.

During my first days in Florida, I suffered greatly from each frost. When I told my friend Al Hendry that my cranberry hibiscus had died completely, he said, "Well that's good. I didn't think anything could get rid of that."

I was deeply hurt, but now I agree. And I know it will come back from seedlings, if not from the roots.

A gardener's first impulse after a frost is to get out there and clean up the mess. But this is one time to wait. For the first several days to two weeks, you probably will notice new damage showing up.

Be sure also to notice all the things that survived - and how quickly, even without our help, nature finds a way to make things beautiful again.

This is a good time for rethinking some of your planting plans, for buying new, hardier plants and replacing some that you can bear to lose.

This also is a good time to reduce the area where some plants have spread. This latest frost took some silver shrimp plants, Florida spinach and Joseph's coat. Use this as motivation to dig some out and make room for hardier plants - or for winter annuals, such as viola, pansies, African and shasta daisies, snapdragons, petunias, geraniums and alyssum.

Sure, there are some plants you know will only come back from the ground, or from seedlings. It won't hurt to prune those back to just a few inches above the ground. Within weeks, for example, new blooms will be coming on the begonias if some green was left, so prune away the dead tops.

There is some danger of Plumeria branches going soft from the tips, and the rot working down, so they should be checked every several days for at least two weeks and pruned back below soft tips.

But for most plants, it is best to wait. Damaged plants need all the help they can get from whatever leaves they have left, even though they may look dead. Water if needed, but don't prune. This is especially true for bananas, which look bad in winter even in south Florida when there is no frost, and for many other plants. The dead leaves offer protection from future frosts.

If you have a large yard and much pruning to do, use this waiting time to reshape plants that needed to be pruned back before. As a general rule, don't remove more than a third of a plant's top growth, since that is its food factory. If there is still a chance of more frost, remove less until frost danger has passed.

My husband David and I have not had citrus fruit damaged in my garden since the '89 freeze, so I didn't even pick fruit before the cold weather. But I was plenty worried after. Damaged fruit should be picked and used as soon as possible, in part to relieve some of the stress for the damaged tree.

We picked tangerines a few days after the freeze for juice, mostly to be sure they were OK. Usually, fruit falls off and turns dry if damaged, but if used immediately it makes good juice that keeps well in the freezer. Mine didn't fall, and was extra juicy and sweet.

If you have already pruned, like the roses, when frost hits, wait long enough to be sure which buds were killed and which survived, then prune back to the undamaged buds. This will not be a big job, and it will prevent dieback or diseases.

Some of our plants that were in bloom, such as the mangoes and avocados, may not bear fruit. Some ornamentals, such as Hydrangea macrophylla, will skip a year's bloom if the buds freeze, but they will bloom again in coming years.

This is another reason why every year is different in Florida, and you should never remove anything that you don't know about, because it could be magnificent next year.

Today's Pick

Shrimp plants, Justicia species, can be frozen back to the ground. I gave a talk 100 miles north of here one year in a garden where all the shrimp plants in the shade had survived, but the ones in the sun had been nipped so badly that they had been pruned back to the ground.

Most of mine survived this time and kept on blooming - except for the silver shrimps. They had overspread, so it was a good time to dig some out, and the rest will recover. I have five different kinds: a dark red, a brownish with yellow and green near the tips, a silver, a lime green and "Fruit Cocktail," which is lime green with pink. The blooms are mostly showy, layered bracts that look like shrimp and last long. The flowers are the small, white blossoms.

The plants grow in partial shade to full sun and can get 4 feet tall. They are among my favorite cut flowers, since they bloom almost continuously from frost to frost, start easily from cuttings and last five to seven days in a vase. They have low salt and drought tolerance in the garden but never wilt. I seldom water mine. They are native to Mexico.

Now's The Time To ...

- Call professional tree trimmers if you need work done. Many of them charge less in winter, and the shock of the pruning is always less after a big freeze when the garden looks bare at best.

- If any of your plants show no signs of recovery from the top growth, prune them back to the ground and watch for new growth from the roots.

- Don't fertilize until danger of frost is past. Having much of the top growth of a plant die back, and the same amount of roots as before, can lead to great amounts of new growth - much of it water sprouts and suckers, all over the trunk and uninjured branches. It is best for the new growth to come at a more moderate rate. If plants have suffered a great deal of top growth damage, make that first fertilization low in nitrogen to further balance the plant.

Upcoming Events

The Tampa African Violet Society will hold its annual Show and Sale from noon to 5 p.m. Friday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday at the Farm Bureau Building, 100 S. Mulrennan Road, Valrico. "Love At First Sight" is the theme. African violets, gesneriads and supplies will be available for sale. Parking and admission is free. Contact Mary Lou Harden at mlhard@verizon.net or (813) 689-8700 or Mina Menish at (813) 681-1910.

Monica Brandies can be reached at monicabrandies@yahoo.com.

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