So they said it's going to freeze...
Tips on how to prep your garden for a cold snap
When temperatures start to drop below freezing, I get a lot of questions regarding what to do with certain plants. I’ll give some guidelines, but I am also going to give you a little bit of controversial advice, too. That’s because I will try to convince you to do less, even if that means letting some of your plants die.
When I first started gardening, I covered everything that was in the ground and brought everything in a pot inside. My first real heartbreak was when my pineapple sage plant died from exposure even though I covered it.
Plants are meant to die from time to time. It’s natural. Most of them will come back. Some will not. The ones that will not come back were going to die at the end of the season anyway, and I have a suggestion on what to do with those buggers. Before we get into the advice part of the story, it’s important to know what type of freeze is headed your way.
A freeze is considered to be anything that is below 32 degrees. Most plants, however, can tolerate a light freeze. To determine what type of freeze is headed your way, you need to ask the following questions…
Is it a freeze that will last longer than a couple hours?
Will the temperature go below freezing for multiple days?
Will there be rain connected with this cold front?
Is frost expected?
If it will be 24 degrees or colder for an extended period of time, then you’re in the “severe freeze” category and that’s when you’re going to need to pay attention. Everything else is considered to be moderate or light. A light freeze will require very little attention if any at all.
One big thing to remember about a light freeze is that the temperature in a city tends to be less cold than rural areas. If you’re surrounded by concrete, chances are it’s going to be a few degrees warmer in your neighborhood than in one out in the country. In fact, some reports say that a downtown area can be 15 degrees warmer than rural spots.
RELATED: Downtown areas hotter than rural areas: urban heat islands
This is a big reason why I suggest doing less if you’re in an urban landscape, especially if you’re located in a warm state. In Louisiana, I did not cover or bring in any plants last year and I didn’t lose anything.
That being said, there are general preventative tips that help maintain the health of your garden through any freeze conditions. That includes heavy mulching (use those leaves instead of buying stuff at a store), and watering plants before a freeze. The reason why you water is because cold weather also comes with wind and that can try your plants out. Watering them before can help prevent that from happening.
What tends to be a bigger issue for most plants in the south is frost. This becomes possible during a freeze and it will kill a lot of the foliage. Your beautiful plants are going to look like the poor unfortunate souls from The Little Mermaid. But most of the time they’re actually not dead.
RELATED: Tips to help your garden survive frost
The heart of the plant is underground, so it will typically come back in spring. The pineapple sage I mentioned earlier came back that spring even bigger and better than before.
If some of your plants die, the best thing to do is… nothing! Well, at least until the end of winter (around March for most of us). Although your neighbors might give you a snub for letting all your dead plants remain, you will know that you’re doing the right thing to ensure the health of your plants.
Every time you prune a plant, it puts energy into regrowing what was lost. During winter, plants are dormant to conserve energy. When you clip that dead foliage, it signals the plant to begin producing energy for new growth. Everything has a limit on the amount of energy it has available. If you force the plant to use energy, then it freezes again, it might not have enough energy to hang on until spring, which is when it can replenish its storages.
Now that’s great for those plants that will come back, but what about the edibles you have planted? The best thing to do is harvest what you can and cover what’s left. The good news is that most of you are just growing for fun. The livelihood of your family is not dependent on whether or not you get that crop of lettuce, so just be okay with the fact that you may or may not lose a few soldiers on the green battlefield.
Also, if a severe freeze is on the way, make sure to harvest any fruit from your citrus trees. The fruit will be ruined by the cold, so it’s best to go ahead and save what you can and toss anything that was unripe. By the time of year, however, most of your citrus trees are at the end of their fruiting cycle.
RELATED: Protect your citrus trees from the cold
There’s one plant I do not risk, however. My pineapple plants always remain in pots because it makes it easier for me to bring them in during a freeze. Pineapples do not like the cold, they are a tropical plant and it can take up to 2 years for it to produce one fruit. So, if a moderate or severe freeze is on the way, the pineapples get sent inside.
I have noticed, however, that allowing a pineapple plant to get a little frostbitten does seem to stimulate fruit production. I have no idea if this is true, this is just based on my observations. When a pineapple plant stays out below freezing, it will impact the tips of the leaves and work its way inward. The years when this has happened, the plant always ended up fruiting shortly thereafter..
Fruiting is the way a plant literally spreads its seed. For pineapples, they only get the one fruit and then the mother plant will die, allowing pups to grow from its base. I believe that being exposed to cold temperatures signals the pineapple plant to fruit because it believes it's in distress. Again, I could be wrong, but it sounds good, right? If you know this to be true or false, send me a message, I’d love to know.
For the rest of the plants in my garden, I take clippings from all the plants that can propagate that way, which is almost all of them. It’s best to do this in the fall, however, because again, if you clip from the plant, it will use some of its stored energy to regrow what’s been removed. However, taking one small clipping is a lot different than regrowth of the entire plant from nothing.
If you begin rooting your clippings in fall, they will be ready to replace what you lose in the spring. If you lost nothing, then you have some new plant babies to give to friends. It’s a win, win!
To all the new gardeners, most of you will spend the day dragging in all of your plants. I’ve done it, so I throw no shade. Most of this is because you don’t know enough about your plants to know what the right course of action is. That’s another reason why I suggest doing nothing. Learn more about the plants you have before reacting. And if you have a plant and have no idea what its name is so you can’t look up care instructions, then I really suggest just leaving it out and seeing what happens.
The best part of gardening is that there’s always something new to learn. Just when you think you’ve figured things out, you learn something new. Every freeze is an opportunity to learn something new about your plants. If you can, keep a journal and take notes.
I hope all of you make it through winter with little damage!
Great advice. I know from experience that this strategy does work.