:?: Last night temperatures dipped below freezing and are supposed to continue for couple nights. We have a balcony with lovely plants and this morning awoke to the damage from the frost! Need some immediate advice on recovering them. We brought plants inside the house (living room!)temporarily. Each was carefully watered. Would like to clean up plants appropriately and could use some help with each type: Double impatiens- parts of the plant are gone like "stew" and the balance is fine. Are they cut back a few inches from soil or removed? Papyrus-what is correct way of removing damage to this plant? Does cutting back stalks cause any additional shock? Bouganvia- both plants still have some flowers on top however many leaves and flowers are gone and looks very sparce. Is it cut back or left alone? Are plants ok inside until frost passes? Can any of these plants be left outside with some protective fabric? Thank you for any help! :!:
Hi there northstar and, firstly, welcome to our forums. I tend to leave the damaged parts of the plants where they are but maybe with you bringing them into the house you could cut back the damaged parts in the hope that the plants survive. Here's a website that may help you decide what to do. http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s908548.htm I hope you'll stay with us as we're a friendly bunch here and would love to get to know you.
Hello Northstar, and welcome to The Stew, I'm so sorry that your plant babies got frostbitten, but if it was just a frost and not a hard freeze that damaged their roots, then my guess is that they will go through an ugly phase and then recover nicely :-D wink: so long as you can protect them from further frosty weather). I grow all three of these types of plants, and since I'm in zone 8, mine have all suffered this same sort of damage oops: several times) when I failed to get them under cover soon enough. In fact, Papyrus is hardy in my zone, it dies to the ground each winter and grows back each spring. The Impatiens I would just trim all the way back to good healthy tissue. In my experience, they are very resilient. It should start to put out lots of new growth before long. The Papyrus can be cut back without much concern, too. So long as the base and roots are healthy, it will sprout back up from the ground. As for the Bougainvillea, I think I'd just wait and watch, at least to begin with. Chances are that it was just the foliage that was damaged, and not the wood. You can give it some time and see what happens. Now, having said that, I'll also add that Bougs benefit from pruning (generally speaking) because they bloom on new growth. So once you ascertain that the plant is healthy, you might want to prune it to keep it shaped to fit your space and to encourage more flowering. I'd suspend fertilizing all of these plants for a bit, until you can see that they have begun to recover, also remember that with less foliage, they will likely need less water than you may be accustomed to giving them.
