Few things are as pathetic as trumpet daffodils trounced by a snowstorm. A week ago, for the first time, their cheerful yellow clumps naively proclaiming that spring had well and truly arrived — although nothing could have been further from the truth.
The following morning I awoke to a sad sight. Snow had triumphed over cheer. Daffodils sprawled face down in the dirt, their stems broken, their flowers as appealing as balled-up wads of tissues.
It took only one inch of snow to wreak such havoc. Hardiness isn’t the issue. Daffodils can take freezing and most will survive subzero temperatures. The problem is that daffodils originate in places where seasonal weather is not as capricious as in the high plains of Colorado, where warm days are frequently interrupted by hit-and-run cold fronts. It’s not as if this particular storm hadn’t been predicted. I’d had ample time to cover the daffodils, at least a few of the larger clumps.
I did cover some alpine plants, which very likely did not need any intervention, with Christmas tree boughs saved from December for this very purpose. I also protected emerging sprouts of eremurus, a.k.a. foxtail lilies; newly planted succulents from South Africa; semi-hardy cactus; the pale green flowers of Fritillaria radeana and budded spikes of Fritillaria persica, a showy beauty with dusky purple bells.
I shielded the fritillarias from the cold blast by sticking a tomato cage over the plant and then throwing a square of frost blanket over the top. To prevent winds from blowing away this lightweight fabric, it’s a simple matter to attach it to the tomato cage with clothespins. The result is a snug little customized temporary greenhouse that takes possibly two minutes or less to construct, and comes off with even less fuss after the front passes.
Tulips, except for the tallest, corpulent-flowered varieties of late spring, don’t need any kind of safeguarding. Originally from the high plains of central Asia, with aplomb by closing their flowers into snow-repelling points. When the sun and pollinators return, tulips reopen.
Hyacinths are also weather-resilient — the hyacinth’s stocky build resists breakage. The checkered lilies, Fritillaria meleagris, despite their spindly stems, bounce back without damage. And nothing, but nothing, bothers grape hyacinths.
There might have been more casualties had temperatures dropped below 26 degrees. Plum and cherry trees had unwisely started their spring show only a few days before the storm came through, but were unscathed even though fruit-tree flowers tend to be extremely fragile and routinely killed by spring freezes.
Alas, this early in the season there are still plenty of opportunities for damage to the plum and cherry, and an apple, hawthorns, viburnums, a chokecherry, sand cherries, a clove currant, brooms and a lilac. All have been victims of frostbite in previous years.
At one extreme, some gardeners attempt to save fruit tree flowers by stringing them with strands of Christmas lights. At the other end is the survival-of-the-fittest crowd who argue that if it doesn’t endure our weather, it doesn’t belong here.
While both arguments have merit, on the morning after the storm, my only thought was, “I wish I’d remembered to cover the daffodils.”
Marcia Tatroe’s garden in Centennial is a Humane Society Urban Wildlife habitat, Audubon Habitat hero wildscape and a Xerces pollinator wildlife habitat where wildlife (and wild weather) are encouraged and tolerated.
