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Some Like It Cold: Herbs That Thrived Through The Frost

Photo by MONICA BRANDIES

These long, hanging catkins are the flowers on this pepper plant. Wrinkled red fruit is supposed to follow. Monica Brandies’ plant has grown blossoms, but not fruit.

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By MONICA BRANDIES Tribune Correspondent

The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 4, 2009

Master Gardener Al Hendry long ago told me something very wise that I have never forgotten.

"If you plant some fruits or ornamentals, herbs, vegetables that like it cold, and some that like it warm, you will always have something."

More herbs die from summer heat and rain than frost, but some thrive in cold weather. Among them are some of my favorites.

My bay, or bay laurel, for example, survived without any cover or setback. This herb grows slowly at best, but mine is finally about 3 feet tall after several years of growth. I would have hated to lose it. And, I just learned that bay leaves placed between the pages of books, or among them on the book shelves, control silver fish that sometimes eat the pages.

For years, I thought black pepper vine would not do well here. But someone gave me a plant a few years ago, and it also survived without being covered. I had taken a cutting, just in case. It is in the shade by my gate post and blooming as it never has before. So is the black pepper vine that sits in full sun at the herb garden at the Pinellas County Extension Office. Allen Cordell, a retired horticulturist with the extension office, rubbed the blooms to help with pollination.
Borage also likes the cold, and it didn't even mind Iowa winters when my family lived there. Mine self-seeded to the tune of one plant this year, and I am very glad to have it. Borage also was starting to bloom at the Pinellas extension office's herb garden on Valentine's Day.

The comfrey came through the frost and is looking better than ever. I use this plant for human and plant health, usually in the form of a tea. It also is called knitbone and is especially beneficial to use in tea when bones are healing. A small patch of this herb is worth a medicine chest full of pills.

Fennel had a growth spurt to celebrate the cold. This ferny friend is attractive even when it just bears leaves, but I've had it flower with lovely yellow blossoms in flat clusters like the elderberry, and fennel seeds follow. Fennel is used in salads, soups, teas, dye, cosmetics and steam facials. And the black swallowtail butterflies use it as a larvae plant.

Garlic chives came through fine, and they were even blooming at the Pinellas garden when I visited.

But none of the plants I have mentioned are based on that garden in Pinellas, since it suffered much less cold.

In my landscape, I had garlic chives in a pot and they are doing well. I find garlic chives much hardier and more reliable than the regular chives.

My favorite gingers, the pinecone, the edible and the butterfly, are safely dormant, with food supplies stored in bulbs. So I didn't have to worry about them. Some may take until early April to push up new leaves, but they never fail.

All three of my oreganos, the Greek, the Mexican and the Puerto Rican, came through the freeze without a pause in growth. So did the sweet marjoram at the herb garden.

Parsley, the curly- and the flat-leaved Italian varieties, love cold weather. They used to live under a basket through winters in both Iowa and Ohio when my family lived there, and produce flowers and seeds the second year. Summer usually does them in here. The same is true for thyme. Mine is still small, but spring will make it spread, and I'll harvest and dry much of it before summer.

The yarrow was beautiful at the herb garden in Pinellas, where a lush bed of ferny foliage was producing lovely white flowers. Yarrow makes a fine ground cover in sun to partial shade. It attracts beneficial insects, such as predatory wasps. The sign in the Pinellas garden said it repels mosquitoes. This one you can start from seed.

Aloe, cardamom, citrus, junipers, roses, rosemary and many other herbs survive winter and summer with little work or worry. Only some basils and one lavender perished in my landscape, and the lavender might have come back had I not mistakenly hoed it out with the cosmos. The other lavender, in more shade, survived. My patchouli was in a pot, so I brought it in and it's just fine.

Today's Pick

Carolina yellow jasmine, Gelsemium sempervirens, is a nonaggressive but vigorous evergreen vine or groundcover that blooms in winter. Bill Bettison of Seffner built a trellis over his patio and planted these about four years ago. They are dripping with yellow flowers, the finest ones I have ever seen. They give shade and privacy to the patio and the entire front of the house. "We've had to trim it back some," he said. This native plant likes light shade to full sun and grows from Virginia to Florida and west to Texas. It has reddish stems that twist about a support and can grow to 20 feet. It prefers open woodlands, wetlands and roadside trees and fences. It has low salt but medium drought tolerance. All parts are poisonous but not inviting to children. The fragrant flowers attract hummingbirds. This plant is easy to start from cuttings, seeds or air-layering.

Now's The Time To ...

•Work on cleaning up frost damage and do regular spring pruning. I find that dead branches and sticks break away easily. If they resist, it is likely there is still life there. Many things are coming back, either from stems or roots. But even if something in your yard is not recovering, if you really want it, wait and see. If not, pull or prune.

•This time of year is a good time to rethink your plants and the space they are taking. Do you really want it all that much? If not, make room for something you'll like better.

•My silver shrimp plants were nipped back by the frost, in most cases to ground level. They are coming back vigorously, but I am still digging some out. I find that a few swift blows with the spade will break away the dead stems much more quickly than cutting them one by one.

Upcoming Events

Micro-Irrigation Retrofit Workshops will be held at the West Tampa Branch Library, 2321 W. Union St., Tampa, March 7 from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. and at the Town 'N Country Library, 7606 Paula Drive, Tampa, March 25 from 6:30 to 7:30 pm. Hillsborough residents will receive one free retrofit kit per household. Residents of other counties must pay $20 for the retrofit kit. Seating is limited. Registration is required. Call (813) 744-5519, Ext. 144, or e-mail CarverMS@Hillsborough County.org to register or for more details.

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

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