A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Plants and Flowers Forum Another spring freeze?

It seems they are forcasting another spring freeze for my area. All of my perennials are up and growing, many with buds, especially my peonies and tree peonies...columbines, creeping phlox are blooming, and so on. We are going from a high of low to mid 70's Sunday to a high of 45 Monday, and lows in the high 20's to low 30's two days straight. Looks like I'll be covering up lots and lots of plants Monday and Tuesday. One thing I don't really understand is why there is a difference between our local TV station forecasts and the Weather Channel forecast. The WC says it's only going down to 36, while our locals say 29 or 30. I just hope the WC is right. Please, everyone, send out good vibes!

same is predicted for here Alan,,,,,,, I have lots of seedling up too .. and my fan fare Gaillardia's are just starting to bloom.
I too will be covering up AGAIN,,

Its freezing here too ... I have chard,spinach and arugula already up ....I just watch the TWC and the local news and take the average but I live along a river so I can just about count on being colder than the forecast says ......

I've heard it's supposed to be 28 here next week. I can cover some but not everything. boo hoo.

Hello Everyone,

I am new here and just found this forum this morning while searching google about my peonies. Alan, I live west of Knoxville near Harriman. We bought an old farmstead last year and there are about 1 dozen big old peony bushes out there. They are all about 1 foot out of the ground right now. Do I need to cover all of those for Monday and Tuesday nights? If so, do I uncover them during the day? When I saw the weather for our freezing temperatures I panicked. I don't want to lose those beautiful peonies.

On a side note, I am happy to have found this forum. Once we get out to our new place, I want to have a big garden and I am a total black thumb. As my son says, "My Mom can kill a silk plant". LOL I'll be looking forward to learning from all of you here. I'm afraid I won't have much to offer in return as you definitely wouldn't want to take planting advice from me. Not yet anyway. Thanks.

Blessings,
Lisa

Lisa, you should go ahead and cover your peonies and as long as they aren't blooming, they should be alright. You do want to uncover them during the day to allow for air circulation, unless the temps stay below freezing, which isn't supposed to be the case.

Thank you for the reply and information Alan. We're not living at the property yet, so I was wondering, if I went out there and covered all the peonies tomorrow, would it be okay to leave them covered until Wednesday? If not, I can drive back out there Tuesday and uncover them. Also, are black garbage bags okay to cover them with? Thanks again for your help.

Blessings,
Lisa

Hi Lisa, I'm Thornius in Nashville, and I'm Worried about losing my Mulberries. I want the Cedar Waxwings to come this year so I can photograph them but That won't happen If I lose the berries.

Lisa, since the temps for Tuesday are supposed to be low and it's to be cloudy, you can kkep them covered, but maybe not with plastic. You need to cover them with something that will allow some air circulation, like frost cloth or sheets. If all you have is plastic, you may want to go back and uncover them if it looks to get warmer than expected or sunny. The main problem with plastic is that if it freezes, the plastic will cause the plants to warm up even faster and that can also damage plants.

Thanks again Alan! I got them all covered up. Sorry for all the questions, but when I say I don't know what I'm doing, I am not exaggerating. LOL Take care.

Blessings,
Lisa

Hey Thornius,

We have a huge holly tree at the home we're in now and out at the farm. The Cedar Wax Wings stripped both trees at some point this spring and I missed them at both places! I have seen them the last 3 years though. It's amazing how fast they'll clean a tree of the berries and move on. I hope you get to see yours. Take care.

Blessings,
Lisa

same problem here, freeze warning for tonight and I have tons of bulbs and stuff up...what should I cover?

Lilly of the valley
irises
bushes
small trees??

help I need answers before tonight

aren't your plants spread out? I cover what I can and then the rest are on their own. Does your yard have a lot of trees? If so your plants may be ok.

my bushes are spread but I have an iris boarder almost all the way around my yard, I'll have to get some pictures and update my yard.

I just got 10 new baby trees from the arbor day and planted those, also just got 5 new bushes and planted those. I've been working in the yard when I can cleaning beds and reseeding in the bare spots (no seeds up yet) so that was good, but I also had lilly of the vally just came up and new baby hostas

just way too much that I didn't want to risk loosing.

I'm crossing fingers and toes because I don't have a thing to cover my plants with. Especially the fruit trees I just put in last month. I'll be praying for all of us that we don't sustain any loses.

Especially the 7 peonies that are up and that I just planted last fall. I've never seen them bloom and you know I don't want to lose them.

Yeah! I dodged the bullet. It only got down to 33 instaed of 29 as expected, so all my plants are fine. Whew! (sigh of relief)....now the task of uncovering all the plants I covered up, and it was a lot! I used every scrap of frost cloth I had (4 huge rolls) and every spare sheet, plus I covered many of the lower growing plants with pine straw that will have to be removed.

Later this morning...
I spent almost an hour removing the frost cloth, sheets and pine straw from my plants in the front yard and small portion of the back....time to rest...will do the remainder of back yard after lunch...need food...and water...going to collapse....(thud!).

same here, I'm up loading pic's of my yard right now hopefully we won't get any more freeze warnings.

Lucky you..

We had 20º freezing and snow covered daffodils......What price success??

oh it snowed here when the daff's were in bloom too
check your mail I'll show you one

It's freezing here too ... I have chard,spinach and arugula already up.