I am really upset. Help!

I am NOT ready to give a full report but all my large Bloodgoods, Atropurpureum
and Misc 10-15 ft trees are all releafed and fine..I have NO idea if these are late primary or early seconday but my instinct is primary the same question of primary or seconday goes for the following:..... about 1/4 of my younger trees look like they made it though pretty well including Yubae, scolprdrifolum ( green and red), atrolinear, Berrima bridge,Abigale rose, Coonara pigmy,Beni otaki,Nishiki gasami, Ukigumo, Tamukeyama, Koto no ito kamachi, Red baron,Aka shiragasa sawa, Beni komachi,Shishigarshira, Acontifolum,Autumn moon... many others shoew some re-leafing most dissectums other than berrima and Tamukeyama look pretty bad...I know I missed some keepers ...I will have a complete list in a few weeks. Most of the smaller trees ( 4+ years old) were covered but all were uncovered for the two surprise night at beginning abnd end of cold spell 226-28 degrees ...some were uncovered for ALL but the 19-20 degree night and most all were covered for that 19- 20 degree night David

Glad that you had quicker recovery than we thought David. This was a little scary. I'll look forward to your continued reports and hope that they are as good.

I should state a disclaimer that even though the listed smaller trees look to be "ok" doesn't mean they will absolutely survive.I don't want to jinx myself and who knows if these new leaves wont dry up from stress..I can say all the larger older trees I am 99.9999999999% sure will!!! David

It is interesting to observe which trees fared best and worst from the freeze. I guess the most important factor is the stage of budding at the time of the freeze, but that being equal, some of my cultivars did better than others, with little rhyme or reason that I can tell. With my JMs, leaf type (dissectum, linearolobum, matsumarae, palmate, amoenum) didn’t seem to be a big predictor, with good and bad within each group. Trees with small or crinkled leaves (shishigashira, okushimo, kamagata ) generally did well. I have 6 osakazukis in different locations and they all got hammered, as did ichigyoji, which is supposed to be its sister. However, I have two green stars which also have a large amoenum leaf, very similar to osakazuki, and they both did great. One of them is right next to an osakazuki of similar size which got fried(see photo). I also have a very large inazuma which was nearly in full leaf and very well-protected from wind and it looks terrible. Trompenberg didn’t do so well either, but another matsumarae, elegans looks fine. I was surprised that most of the linearolobums, like beni otake and red pygmy did well despite the wimpy appearance of their young leaves. Some dissectums took it well, some didn’t. In fact, I have two tamukeyama not ten feet from each other, bought at the same place, and one had extensive freeze damage and the other didn’t. Go figure!

jhayes, today was the first day I could (literally) get out of the house to walk around the yard to review damages. And even today it was raining, but I WAS SO JOYFUL that the temps were above 50 and the winds weren't blowing at 70 mph, I couldn't resist. Every single one of the JMs I have planted outside looks like the one you pictured above. Some just had buds, but those are also torched. Nonetheless, I have every confidence they will be fine since (as I have said before), I went through this about 5 years ago in late May. It is going to take a while, and maybe I am being too optimistic, but this is what I believe. If I had not been through this before, I think I would fall down crying!

On another note, today I dragged my potted JMs out of the basement of my outbuilding (I usually get them out earlier.) They are fine and dandy and were much appreciative of the chance to finally get some fresh air. It was the perfect, overcast day, to get them outside. This weekend, WE ARE OUT OF HERE--off to the Daniel Stowe Botanical Gardens Plant Sale. We're looking at highs in the 60's and SUN! It's gonna feel like a heatwave!

JM's are amazing that they can go through that kind of freeze and bounce back irmaly.

That is so weird about your trees right next to each other jhayes. Nature just can't be predicted most of the time but that sort of thing always fascinates me.

Walter Reeves is with Georgia State University (and is on PBS tv stations here regularly "Gardening in Georgia"). Today one local weather forecaster quoted him as saying that all the leaves which were burned by the freeze will fall off & be replaced later in the season with new leaves but they will probably be smaller. He said rain will help. We are in the middle of a drought.

I’m from Middle Tennessee and this freeze that we had this Easter was devastating. I have been propagating Japanese Maples for a few years. I had over 400 of a couple of cultivars planted in the field; they were about 4 to 6 feet tall and were about 8 years old. I think almost all of the ones that I had in the field are dead. Maybe they will come back from the roots. They were propagated from cuttings. I was lucky enough to have had an underground storage large enough to move all the Japanese maples that I had in containers in to. I was able to save more than 3,500 Japanese maples. About 3,000 were ‘Bloodgood’.

Otis

I posted this at the garden web in a new thread .."things to look for after the deep freeze of 07"...but thought it should go here too ... Oh I haven't forgotten the photos I will post pre freeze Da wife who sizes them has been too buzy but soon.

I have noticed on a couple of plants that tend to revert Koto ito komachi and Beni komachi the areas that had reverted are really doing their thing and the good non reverted parts are taking a back seat and more reversion is happening ( both plabnts faired well from freeze but the revertyed parts the best ;>) ). If like me you have newer plants and were planing on cutting out the reverted parts this year you may have trouble having much left over afterwards ...I am gonna wait and hope the non reverted branches take off and I can get the reversion cut out ...so keep an eye out ...it may not be the same for everyone but I can tell you it is for me a problem. David

That seems like a huge problem David. It's going to be hard to keep the structure of the tree and still keep it reverting then? I hope that it's not too much trouble.

I had a 'helper' cut off all of the red growth on my red barberry. I don't think that I can get it growing back red at all. Guess I'll just have to enjoy green barberry.

we've hacked our red barberry many times and it always comes back red ...may be a differnt cultivar or our areas but..I don't like it... da wife does ...guess who wins... and I am in charge of the hair cut..it is beautiful but in the wrong place and much too big to move ( the previous idiot owners put it there..I contantly get poked by it when mowing or working around it ...like poison ivy you can look but you better not touch!!!David

I love it in the fall but I agree with you that it spends most of it's time unlovely and innocuous unless you get a little too close to it and then it stabs you. This one was cut back to the ground and let one branch go totally unpruned. Go figure. You are right that it wouldn't be a great loss - certainly nothing compared to what you are looking at.