Bundle up and prepare your plants for cold

Happy Chilly New Year!
It appears, as we wrap up our second week of 2009, Old Man Winter is going to pay us an extended visit. Temperature predictions for early Friday morning range from 16 degrees (the Weather Channel) to 10 degrees (James Spann, our local weather guru). Thursday morning won't be much better and factoring in wind chill, it'll be feeling like sub zero weather. But hey, it's winter, right?
But how about our friends, the plants? We can put on a coat or some long johns, but plants can't. They don't have arms and hands.



So, what plants need protecting? According to the USDA, plants with no better than a cold rating of zone 8 need to be protected. Zone 8 plants could sustain damage when true temperatures reach 10 degrees. Some of these plants would be Tea Olive (cold hardiness rating of zone 8), Gardenia (zone 8b, 15 degrees), and Indian Hawthorne (zone 8). When these and other zone 8 and 9 plants are subjected to the kinds of temperatures we may see in the next couple of days, damage may occur. Leaves and stems may die back, root systems may sustain injuries and plants might even die completely.



What can we do to combat extra cold temperatures? Well, there are quite a few things. For one, an extra thick layer of mulch is quite helpful. I like to use pine straw because you can fluff it up adding to the insulating value, but pine bark mulch and even pea gravel are other suitable mulches to help protect your plants with. Another very good protective measure is to cover your entire plant with a sheet or plastic. A cloth sheet is best, but if you do use plastic, be sure to remove it during the day when the sun is out or you could actually harm your plants. Finally, if your plants haven't had the benefit of rain or haven't been watered within the last couple of days, you probably should water them prior to the extreme cold's arrival. A turgid root system is much more likely to survive chilling temperatures than a dry one.