Gardening: What a difference a year makes - no early outings this winter

It’s March. Last year at this time, many of us were out in the garden preparing beds and pulling the winter weeds. I was planting some lettuce and spinach seedlings I’d brought back from the coast. We were eating them by mid-April. Not this year. I recently had to shovel open my garden gate to put my mason bees back in their house before they start flying. No early greens this year.

We had enough subzero weather this winter that Mother Nature will be calling in her chips from those of us who enjoy playing the zone denial game. The warm winters over the past several years have been kind to the USDA Zone 6 plants we’ve taken a chance on. Zone 6 temperatures range down to minus 10 degrees. But not this winter. I’ve already talked to a gentleman in Liberty Lake who lost a blue atlas cedar (hardy to Zone 6) to the cold. He is going to wait until late spring to see if it regenerates new needles.

I know some of you are thinking that the recent USDA hardiness map put the Spokane region in Zone 6. However, as the gentleman from Liberty Lake found out, this is a region of microclimates and colder air from higher hills and plateaus drains down into the low spots making zone designation irrelevant for some of us.

It’s hard to tell yet exactly which plants will be hit. The needles on cold-damaged conifers will likely turn brown especially on the sides exposed to wind. In some cases, the plants may be able to regenerate some of their needles so be patient. If they haven’t greened up by the end of May, they will need to be replaced. For deciduous shrubs and perennials, you will have to wait until the plants leaf out before you can determine if they were damaged. We likely won’t have any blooming big leaf hydrangeas this year. The over wintering buds are easily killed in severe cold. A bit of good news is that the snow did provide a good layer of insulation so plants underneath it may escape damage.