What to do post

In the salad days of my effort with these columns, right after succeeding my grandmother, there appeared one effort in January of 1985 telling of severe cold damage to outdoor plants in this area. What goes around comes around, or something like that.

Yes, we had even colder temperatures that January than we did this past winter in December. For the fifth time in 10 years, weather officials were stating then the temperatures of 15 below zero and 16 below zero on two consecutive nights made for a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence.

I had remarked then that if the law of averages ever caught up, we were due 600 years of mild winters. Needless to say, it has not caught up.

I know I have harped on the severe damage occurring recently after only 6 below zero in December. But, after all, a once-in-a-century occurrence is worth a lot of ink, is it not? The difference in horrible damage this time and only troublesome damage in 1985 was the month or so preceding the cold.

December this time had been relatively warm and outdoor plants were not acclimated to any severe cold. The sap was up in them and it froze a la a water pipe and burst the cambium layer, effectively shutting down any sap flow which, of course, meant the demise of literally thousands of plants in the upper West Tennessee area. I don't doubt the total damage to valuable plants will exceed millions of dollars in toto in the area. As far as I know, insurance does not cover freeze damage, though it can be more costly than a tree blown down. In the 10 years of that 1985 decade, there had been four of the coldest winters in history and two of the warmest.

What to do now? Well, it costs money, either way. My helpmeet volunteered to salve my wounds over a 25-year-old Japanese maple that was as dead as the proverbial doornail. It had been adroitly (ahem) pruned over the years into a rather effective sculpture. She suggested to leave the leafless skeleton as a monument to the horrendous freeze. On about my 200th look at the specimen, I began to see the possibility. Maybe I could paint it Tennessee orange.

Then there are the literal thousands of kaput Arizona cypresses around, some with several years on them. Answer: Hoick them and dig some native cedars — junipers — from the woods and plant them. I did just that some 10 years ago and they stood the cold without turning a hair, or a needle as it were. They are as good a screen, or even an ornamental if the right cultivar is chosen from your friendly nursery man, as some other conifers. Some of these bear gobs of blueberries, which are technically cones, that make for excellent Christmas decorations. And, those red cedars are acclimated to our climate, and have been for thousands of years.

Smaller stuff, i.e., boxwoods, some hollies, azaleas and hundreds more, aren't as big a problem but it is still an undertaking to dig out a 10-foot plant, as I experienced with two Japanese cedars. They are gone, but only cut down at the soil surface and azaleas are proposed for just a couple of feet from their stumps.

Even many sizable trees, other than the Arizonas, took it on the chin. Leyland cypresses, any still standing that is, are a cheerless brown as we speak, and, again, how about native junipers — cedars — in lieu of them? For a good judgment on which will and which won't, just view the selection of sizable conifers in front of Henry County Medical Center which my friend Mike Garner supplied. Some varieties of them are browny dead and some are still green.

For all you dear readers, I wish you success with your plants, or long life if not.

JIMMY WILLIAMS is the garden writer for The Post-Intelligencer, where he can be contacted on Monday mornings at 731- 642-1162.

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