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Landscape plants suffer varying degrees of winter damage almost every year. Even a relatively mild winter, such as last year, saw a fair amount of damage. There are many factors that can contribute to winter damage, and some of these can be affected by the cultural practices we all employ in our own landscapes.
Winter damage is usually divided into three categories. The most common type of winter damage is desiccation, or drying out of foliage. It is quite common on broad leaf evergreens such as boxwood, azalea and holly. A second type of winter damage is the outright freezing and death of tissue caused by cold temperatures. The third type of damage is breakage caused by ice and snow.
The broad leaf evergreens are subject to desiccation because they give off moisture through their leaves during the winter. If they cannot move moisture from the roots back up to the leaves, the leaves may dry out. Minor winter damage involves browning of the leaf margins. More severe damage may cause the entire leaf to turn brown.
However, in some cases, next season’s buds are unaffected, and the plant puts out new growth and recovers very nicely. In other cases, entire sections of plants may die. It is always best to be conservative in t^e spring, and give the plants a chance to pu„ out new growth before heavy pruning.
There are several factors that affect the amount of desiccation a plant may suffer. A severe summer drought can decrease the amount of moisture in the root system, and make plants more susceptible. It will be interesting to see if the wet fall will counteract the dry summer. It is a good practice to water broad leaf evergreens in November and December if the fall has been dry.
Wind and sun also affect desiccation. Broad leaf evergreens in exposed locations often winter damage on the windy side, where the wind whisks moisture out of the leaves faster than it can be replaced. Also, plants around buildings will sometimes dry out from heat reflected off nearby walls. Both situations can be even worse if a cold spell has frozen the soil to further reduce the amount of available moisture.
Freeze damage can also occur in several forms. Plants that are marginally hardy may do fine for years, then die back when winter temperatures fall below zero. Crepe myrtle is good example in this climate. Another example would be peaches and flowering cherries. The flower buds may be killed outright by winter temperatures in the minus ten range, although the leaf buds will survive and the tree will grow
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