Where have all the flowers gone?
The freeze took a bunch, but not every one.
"It’s going to be a fairly dull spring, I’m
afraid," said Frank Funderburk, a
Bibb County agent with the University of Georgia Extension
Service.
Funderburk said the early-March hard freeze stole some of the
brilliance from Macon’s
March 15-24 Cherry Blossom Festival.
"We had some blooms that would have been open in a few
days when the freeze hit. The
freeze killed those," Funderburk
said.
"Other blooms, even on the same trees, weren’t
damaged," he said.
Overall, he said, the freeze made the much-anticipated cherry
blossoms less dazzling
and later than they would have been.
The March freeze subdued the yearly display of spring
flowering trees and shrubs
throughout the state, Extension experts say.
The extent of the damage varies from north to south and from
shade to sunlight (even in
the same yard).
"Cherry trees here will lose a few buds, but we probably
won’t even notice
it," said Jim Midcap, an Extension horticulturist in
Athens.
Part of the problem, Midcap said, was not just the freeze
itself, but the weather
combination. A late-winter warm spell followed an unusually cold
winter. The springlike
weather sparked a flurry of plant growth statewide, and then the
hard freeze hit.
Azaleas will likely lose some of their dazzle in more
southerly parts, Midcap
said. In middle Georgia, early-blooming
varieties and plants in
sunny spots all were hurt. And in north Georgia the azalea
damage was probably not as
severe.
Japanese magnolias, or saucer magnolias, were another story.
"They were in pretty
full bloom up here," Midcap said. "The freeze left
them looking pretty
sad."
In south Georgia, the late-winter blooms of saucer magnolias
were already mostly gone
by the time the freeze came through.
Bradford pears were in full bloom in central and north
Georgia, too. "They were
all white one day and pretty brown the next," Midcap
said.
"Generally, any flowers that were open were
killed," he said.
fRoses had started growing statewide, the Extension experts
said. The untimely freeze
killed back that new foliar growth. But the damage is
temporary.
"The freeze killed the new growth, and roses will delay
a little, reallocate
resources and then force out new buds," Midcap said.
All of the freeze damage to flowering shrubs and trees should
be temporary.
"The freeze didn’t kill any trees or shrubs,"
Funderburk said. "It just
knocked some of the color from this spring’s show."
