I'm crushed. I lost all four of my favorite landscape plants, my beloved bottlebrush shrubs. I used freeze-protection covers, and watered well prior to the freeze, because I'd read that moist soil insulates plants better than dry soil.
I think if I cut them back in the spring they might come back but what can I do in the future to pervent this? Something heavier than these lightweight covers? Maybe a towel, then use the cover to secure the towel in place?
I'd be grateful for any advice!
by Buy_me_a_taco
6 Comments
It can be hard to tell what actually dies during a freeze versus just losing the leaves. I’d not write these plants off for another few weeks, to see if they recover. If you scratch green on the stems, it’s still alive.
All the same, this is the risk of using non-native plants for landscaping. If all else fails, some red yucca or flame acanthus might be nice in its place.
Hopefully these beauties will come back!
I had a lot of luck this year insulating my plants with random things I found in my garage that were waiting to be thrown away/donated-procrastination worked in my favor for once:)
I used HEB bags to cover plastic nursery planter pots, then double stacked them upside down over smaller plants. One pot wrapped in a bag, then covered with another pot and topped with some landscaping stones to hold everything together. I used Lowe’s plastic buckets, an old salad spinner bowl, and old mop buckets wrapped in trash bags on larger plants. All of the plants I was able to wrap this way look great and some even looked better than before the storm which was a weird surprise!
On some larger plants, I wrapped blankets around tomato cages, and covered in plastic wrap. If you have to use a method like this, I found it really hard to keep moisture off my plants. They’ve all pulled through, but had some mold/soft spots on parts that I’ll have to cut back. If I were to need to do it again, I might try to wrap in garbage bags under the blanket layer.
In years past, I’ve had success with surrounding lower to the ground plants with taller pots (planted or empty, and then covering the grouping with blankets and plastic wrap. This kind of solution might work well for your bottle brush, as the diameter looks decently wide and you might have trouble containing them under a pot/bucket.
My parents have those plants, never cover them during a freeze, and they come back every year. They even survived the 2021 freeze. They are perennial and will come back from the ground. Don’t prune until early March when all chances of freezing temperatures have passed. Last year, we had a warmer winter so many plants didn’t die to the ground when they should have, so they should even be well established now.
I’m sorry for your loss! I had similar experiences with bottle brush and unfortunately none came back. At this point, I’m no longer planting or recommending it. The last five years have taught me to really focus on cold hardiness as much as drought tolerance.
When covering for freeze, you don’t want to “lollipop” the plant as shown on the product page. You want to “tent” it so that heat from the ground can move up to keep the foliage warmer than the outside temp.
I stopped planting bottle brush for this reason. I had several varieties and all died in a hard freeze and did not regrow.