I'd leave it alone, bkay. A light freeze only damages what is exposed. Don't remove anything. Sometimes only the outer leaves of that pip are damaged.

-Babka

freeze??? or frost??? .. big difference

ignore it for a week.. and see how it dries up.. remove only that which is necessary ...

often.. leaves remain furled inside the damaged part.. and by simply cutting it all down.. you lose those ...

no need to hurry..

ken

Last year when bro was in the hospital and rehab, 3 plantaginea were unfurled and froze back to the ground 3 times with nobody there to cut back anything. Definite freeze at temps typically droping from 80s to 22F in 2 days time. All of them came back nicely though a bit ragged at first.
They were all planted in the ground, not potted like yours. The warm soil possibly saved them.
Ken, if her pot froze solid after pips formed would it necessarily kill the hosta? Or just make it ugly for a season?
Theresa

This post was edited by gogirlterri on Tue, Mar 12, 13 at 8:19

i doubt a pot would freeze solid overnight ... one would hope one would be paying enough attention to get it in the garage before that happened ...

but i dont know what would happen ...

you know.. they will grow on the driveway .... [that felt good.. first sign of spring.. lol] .... so one would expect some resilience ...

but of course .... its when we start pushing the envelope.. as in growing them in pots .. perhaps with too much fert ... that we start messing with the variables .... and results become very hard to predict ...

i know everyone get spring fever in a bad way .. but you really have to try to slow them down in early spring.. and not get all emotionally invested in beating the curve ... because.. more often than not.. mother nature takes that curve.. chews it up.. and spits it in your face ...

BTW .. most of my plantiginea hybrids.. have waned over the years.. out here in the country.. they get repeatedly frosted down.. and eventually start a decline ... i do not know why the fragrant ones.. seem to be the most susceptible to frost .. even getting damage.. at temps.. you wouldnt expect frost damage at.. whats that all about .. in other words.. they are the only ones showing damage ....

and finally.. a very light frost.. the damage might not show for a few days .. it might not have even happened the night you think it did ...

ken

I think it was wet, since others on the same table didn't have the problem. RS is the only one on the table that Cleo didn't "doghandle" last fall during her "kill hosta" rampage..

It's not getting that cold here, so it has to be frost. It's only getting around 32 just before dawn at the worst. It's up in the 50's during the day.

Thanks, I'll try ot ignore it. I keep looking at those on the table to see what comes back from Cleo's foray into gardening. So, I guess I'll move the RS. It doesn't really belong there.

bk

was it the only fragrant one on the table???

ken

Yep. I have So Sweet (x2) within 10 feet in full leaf and tey don't look like they were bothered at all. That's why I went with the wet theory.

Man, that dog is a pain. She decided to make potting soil this morning. So, she tore up 2 bags of perlite all over the yard and a huge bag of fine pine bark mulch. Then she finished up with half a bale of peat moss. I saved the slow release fertilizer before she was able to tear it open. If she had only done it all in one place, I would be happy. Well, maybe not happy, but not so bummed.

Just sayin' from my experience. At the nursery where I work, potted hostas spend the winter outside covered with remay row cover. When we dig them out in the spring and put them out for sale, they sit on the benches, watered, starting to grow in warm daytime temps, and on cold nights (low 20's) the pots freeze pretty solid, with some of them showing pretty good pips. They thaw out the next day and are fine, resume growing without a problem.(and yes, Ken, the pots do freeze solid.)

I would just leave them alone and see what happens.

Sandy

Cleo is like my wife. Very jealous of Hosta.

Don B.

THEY SAY most of our COLD is done with, but it isn't Easter yet, and that means another cool spell (at least) around then. I have several that are up looking real sporty, and most are in the plantaginea family. We had a couple of nights of rain after those pots were UNTIPPED, and as far as I can tell, no frost or freeze damage done to any of them. Wait, and I'll go for a new shot......

Well, I better wait until tomorrow to upload the new shots. More had put up little eyes than I expected and I had to water and put new soil where squirrels had dug it out, before I watered.

My first Royal Standard is up, but not much to it YET.
In the Fragrant thread or whatever, tomorrow only the good ones to upload.

We've been so busy with the house sale and DH's cataract surgery that I'm behind with gardening. (And the plans for remodel of this house in Alabama.)