Freeze!

It's been so nice to be out in the garden. Buds are starting to swell on some shrubs, weeds are growing like gangbusters.  I'm so ready for spring; I just want to clean everything up and plant away.  But this time of year I have to stop myself from doing one particular garden chore.  Some of my plants are looking a little, okay a lot, bedraggled because of frost damage.  I could make them look so much better with just a few snips here and there. 

For example, here is my avocado Persea americana.  I started it from seed. It lives out on my back patio just under a patio cover. On nights I anticipate frost, I cover it with a sheet along with my dwarf citrus that also live on the patio.  It's not looking very happy right about now.  I think most of this is frost damage, but some might also be damage from the weight of the sheet on the little tree.  I'm itching to cut all that brown damage off.  However in Solano County on average, our last frost date is March 15th.  We may get a few more frosts, yet.  Those ugly damaged parts are protecting leaves and stem lower on the plant.  If I cut the damaged parts off now that will just expose more of the plant to any remaining frosts.  So for right now, I just need to... step away... from the pruners.

Low temperature injury on avocado. (photo by Karen Metz)

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