Rewilding My Lot

Technically, the first frost of this winter season was early morning 12/11/2023. I didn’t have a thermometer here then, but I think the lowest temperature was maybe 30-32 degrees F. There was no precipitation overnight, just a light coating of frozen condensation. The plants here showed no noticeable reaction to that light frost.

However, a major cold event is forecast for several days soon (mid-January 2024), and this warranted some extra preparation here in my young garden.

I am not concerned about most of the native plants here. They should be established enough that even if they do freeze back, the roots will remain alive and produce new growth. The one that I consider most vulnerable is the newly planted Mexican Plum tree, which still has a very thin trunk and was only planted a few weeks ago.

We’ve had some good rain in the past few weeks, so the plants here are quite well hydrated already. Nevertheless, I gave each of the trees and shrubs a heavy watering. This also helped with the next task…

Both rain barrels were full and I was concerned that in an extended freeze the pressure of expanding ice might crack them. So I emptied them as best I could without disconnecting them from their overflow pipes. (Some people, especially in colder climates, will remove their rain barrels entirely for the winter and store them elsewhere.)

I took another trip to our free city mulch supply to gather a car-load of mulch and used that to cover the ground several inches deep around trees and shrubs, especially the ones I considered most vulnerable. As soon as the freeze event is over, it will be important to scrape back any mulch that is touching the trunks to expose the root flares again. The two examples below are Mexican Plum and a tiny Flame Acanthus.

The other things that I did to prepare outside for the freeze was to add extra covering to the outside faucets, and move potted plants indoors.

As time goes on here and plants get established, I will need to worry less about freezes here. I have chosen native plants that tend to be cold hardy, and if above-ground parts do freeze back, that’s just part of their natural cycle and an opportunity to trim the garden back every few years. It’s all part of what nature does. The difference this year is that I don’t know how resilient the root systems are yet.