There is always something, most often minor nuisances that temper the gardener’s glee. Just as he should expect an occasional April freeze, the gardener must also expect damage to the garden that is mostly unavoidable. Trees and shrubs are tarped or otherwise covered with great difficulty in a one acre garden, but there is surprisingly little damage to flowers and fresh growth following several nights of frost and two that dipped to thirty degrees (Fahrenheit).

With a freeze in the forecast, I was most concerned about two tender mangaves that made it through with slight protection and no problems, but also with Japanese maples with newly emerged leaves. A few of the maples suffered minor damage, but ‘Twombly’s Red Sentinel’ (above) will require pruning of branch tips that have withered from the cold’s damage. Fortunately, the tree is of manageable height that all tips can be reached, and I expect that the maple will look good as new in another month though it will lose several inches of the season’s primary growth.

In recent years new growth of toad lilies (Tricyrtis) has been nipped by frosts and freezes (above), and again some top growth has been damaged. In another week or two this will become brittle and I’ll pull off the damaged leaves. I’ve seen that this barely slows the toad lilies’ growth.

I was slightly concerned about newly emerged leaves of several trees, including redbuds (above), but thankfully there is no evidence of damage.