So tonight I get to experience my first late freeze and what it does to potted trees, yay! Starting tonight we're supposed to have overnight lows from 24-27 deg F for the next 5 days. Everything except for some collected American elm and mulberry have leafed out. Most of the outdoor stuff I have is elm(parvifolia, pumila, and americana), Amur maple, cotoneaster, boxwood, juniper, yew, larch, quince(supposedly one that is zone 5 hardy), cherry, crabapple, privet, and a straggly Austrian pine. The prunus tormentosa is stuck where it is as it's still in the pot I bought it in and weighs more than i can move. The maples are taller than my ceiling so they're stuck where they are as well unless I cut them back. Everything else is in 1 gal sized containers or larger, so thankfully no tiny root systems.
I had planned on moving everything in during the nights and back out during the day. Doing this for 5 days though.. this could be a problem. I have a fairly well sheltered area everything could be moved to outdoors and I'm thinking this may be the more sensible option. The location is along the side of the house with the house on the east side and a privacy fence on the north side. The pots would be sitting next to blocks forming the basement of the house and should be holding a bit of heat.
Two questions from all this. Do you think this enough protection from temps as much as 8 degrees below freezing? Are any of the trees I previously mentioned especially susceptible to late freezes and absolutely need to be brough indoors?
Thanks much! And good luck to everyone else who will probably be going through the same thing over the next couple days.
I had planned on moving everything in during the nights and back out during the day. Doing this for 5 days though.. this could be a problem. I have a fairly well sheltered area everything could be moved to outdoors and I'm thinking this may be the more sensible option. The location is along the side of the house with the house on the east side and a privacy fence on the north side. The pots would be sitting next to blocks forming the basement of the house and should be holding a bit of heat.
Two questions from all this. Do you think this enough protection from temps as much as 8 degrees below freezing? Are any of the trees I previously mentioned especially susceptible to late freezes and absolutely need to be brough indoors?
Thanks much! And good luck to everyone else who will probably be going through the same thing over the next couple days.