Like many of you last weekend, I watched the thermometer drop steadily and wondered what was going to happen to my garden. My yard and garden appears to have escaped serious damage from this April freeze.
Many of my perennials appear to have come through with no problems. Both my emerging tiger and pineapple lilies are pushing their way up with no apparent frost damage. Most of my salvias, including my Mexican sage, already had a number of new leaves and shoots. They appear unharmed as well.
In fact, the only plants that seem worse for the wear in my garden are the lantanas. All of my lantanas, including a low spreading yellow variety and the old-fashioned “Ham and Eggs” variety, were bitten hard by the cold. That’s not really surprising since lantana is native to the tropics.
For now, I plan on leaving the lantanas alone and see how they recover.
As hard as this late freeze was to gardeners, it was devastating to many of the state’s fruit growers, especially peach farmers. Extension professionals and farmers are still surveying the damage, but it appears severe. Tasty peaches fresh from an orchard in Chilton County may by hard to come by this summer.