What To Do With Damaged Plants
The old saying goes "Everything is better when it's fried." Some may believe that with food, but it's certainly not true with landscapes.
Like a bad perm the top few inches of many of my perennials are fried. Give these a quick haircut with shears to remove the damaged portion. Some plants benefit from this technique as they will develop more branches and grow more compact. This will delay bloom a couple weeks. My plan is to shear sedum, catmint, beebalm, aster, and tall phlox. Pretty much anything that sends up many stems. I would not do this to peonies since you will cut the flower bud off. I'm doing a wait-and-see with columbine and old fashioned bleeding heart and only removing the obviously fried stems and leaves. In Sandy's world these two should still bloom, but I'm not sure I've adequately explained that to them.
With trees and shrubs the chant is "re-leaf or die." Healthy woody plants have enough food reserves to develop another set of leaves. The plants may look a bit ugly for a couple weeks with brown leaves until the new growth appears. I'm guessing we will see a crabapple flower show in our area, since they were still in tight bud before the cold. Same is true for lilacs. The leaves on my plants look horrible but the flowers have not turned brown so I think we will see a lilac show.
The bottom line is: be patient and don't give up on your plants. They are amazingly resilient. It is, however, a stress for the plants to use food reserves to send out new leaves. This is a good time to remind ourselves of proper plant care. Water during drought periods. Generally an inch of water a week through rain or irrigation is a good goal. Mulch with organic materials such as wood chips from your local landscape recycling center.
Source: Sandra Mason, Unit Educator, Horticulture & Environment, slmason@uiuc.edu
