Person:Andrew Srna (1)

Craig Srna, Bureau of Telecommunications Voice: 785-296-7714 craig.srna@@da.state.ks.us.

CRAIG SRNA

It isn't over Topeka Capital-Journal, The, Apr 21, 2007 by Lisa Sandmeyer

By Lisa Sandmeyer

Photographs by Jake Gatchell

THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL

Tulips gone flat? Hostas gone splat?

Don't despair.

The freeze that knocked the tops off almost anything that was flowering two weeks ago likely won't have a lasting effect on most plants in the garden, say those who grow.

"The freeze didn't kill the plant, it just killed the bloom," said Leland Heifner, of Heifner Nursery and Garden Center in Topeka.

Plants that hadn't flowered before the freeze seem fine. Craig Srna even has some daffodils blooming in a bed with colorful creeping phlox.

Srna's hostas are another story. Most of them look like mush.

Not to worry, Heifner said. Hosta roots are shipped frozen to the nursery and have to be thawed before they are potted and sold. He thinks many will rebound.

The reason the foliage looks so bad, he said, is because the freezing process explodes the cells in the plant leaves. He compared it to putting a head of lettuce in the freezer.

Srna was seeing some comeback with the mild temperatures this week.

"A lot of the stuff that was frozen, it's already re-sprouting," he said.

His azaleas - 300 or so - were budding out when the freeze hit.

"They really got nailed," Srna said. They look more scorched than frozen, with buds turned brown and dry. Advertisement

Still, on the same plants covered with brown buds are fresh, red ones.

"On perennials, it's almost better to wait and see," Heifner said. That is, don't start chopping off branches just yet.

He even thinks Japanese maples may survive.

"If it was a fairly healthy tree to start with, it will leaf back out," Heifner said.

The Japanese maples in Srna's yard look skeletal. He was also worried about the pines that had started candling with new growth.

But the candles that were mush 10 days ago have started firming back up, Srna said.

The daylilies in the front of Srna's home, though, were still weepy.

Steve Amy, who has 565 cultivars of daylilies in his garden in Wamego, spent this week cleaning the dead foliage off the plants.

"They are looking bad," Amy said. "The freeze stunted them."

His outside thermometer registered as low as 12 degrees during the freezing weekend of April 7.

But he isn't counting the flowers out yet.

"The bloomscapes may not be as tall," said Amy, who is a vice president in the American Hemerocallis Society's Region II.

Some of the blossoms that do open may be deformed, he said. But most will recover, bloom and spend this season regrouping for a full recovery that will be seen next year.

He recommended that gardeners remove any foliage on daylily plants that has turned white or brown.

Then, it's a matter of waiting and giving plants some time to recover.

"I'd be patient just a little more and live with it being ugly just a little longer," Heifner said.

Lisa Sandmeyer can be reached at (785) 295-5619 or lisa.sandmeyer@@cjonline.com.

Copyright 2007 Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.

1. ↑ St. Wenceslaus Roman Catholic Church, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. St. Wenceslaus Chruch Records 1871-1976.
2. ↑ St. Wenceslaus Roman Catholic Church, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. St. Wenceslaus Chruch Records 1871-1976.