Mamuang,
Take a long ziptight and secure them below the crossing branch so the winds won’t blow them off.
Tony
If I were to take a large black plastic garbage bag and cover up a limb on my pluot tree to help combat frost could it do more harm than good? I understand that many people say covering a limb does not work but it’s sort of a test for me. I want to completely cover a single scaffold and leave the others exposed. To see if there are any different in survival. Buy I don’t want to negatively effect them by covering. My plan was to take the garbage bag and slide it over a smaller scaffold and then zip tie it at the base of the bag to create a balloon type structure. Would the lack of ventilation or air have adverse effects on the tree. Even if it’s just for the night?
Tony,
I wish you told me yesterday. The wind will die down in about an hour. Right now, it is too late. Also, it is so cold with the gust. I just gave up.
Thanks for the suggestion.
I just checked. It looks like I’m in good shape for once. Of course, I could still end up with no fruit from May frosts.
It’s been a moderate winter without extreme lows or too many extreme highs. The only thing that isn’t fully dormant is my July Elberta peach, which is a lower chill peach. The buds look like they are in first stage swell. I bought it on clearance discount before I knew anything about peaches. I will stay away from low chill varieties from now on.
There are a bunch of native trees, like Paper Birch and Aspen, that have catkins hanging already. That is at least a month early. On the other hand, maple buds haven’t swollen yet. It’s a strange year already.
I have covered my hydrengias against early frost with a bed sheet and it has worked. The areas not covered were fried. But I never use trash bags.
My problem is when it is breezy. The cover won’t stay even with tie-down.
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I’m sure that if I zip tie the bag on they will stay out. But my concern is that by zip tying the bag I’m stopping ventilation. Which I’m not sure is even necessary for a single overnight.
I’ve been there…remember trying to put sheets over some trees in the past…i’d look out and the sheets are on the other side of the yard!
Advective freeze (wind+cold) are impossible to deal with… radiational freeze will be Sunday morning (calm winds/clear skies) you can try to cover…
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I’m not facing as bad of damage. My trees are behind all of yours. Last year I only lost fruit on one tree, all the rest fruited, some had no damage. See what happens this year.
Indian Free is the last to bloom for me, and it’s has no bud swell, the rest swelled a bit.
Thanks, that’s very interesting and makes me wonder why the use of latex paint on fruit trees hasn’t taken off and become a standard practice for commercial growers.
To those covering their trees/shrubs…why wouldn’t you put something that produced heat underneath the cover to keep heat in? Like old strings of Christmas lights? Does that not work?
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100 Watts like bulb work much better for a few days of low temp.
Tony
I see projected overnight lows of 1 degree for Saturday warming up to 9 on Sunday in NY Z5b south of Albany, and mid-low 20’s the rest of the week.
I haven’t been up to my place so I don’t know how awake my trees are, but 1 and 9 degrees on March 5th is not comforting.
Mike
Mike, I can’t provide you with complete comfort, but not even my apricots are showing anything but swelling-as are J. plums. I’m not quite sure how vulnerable they are at this point, but the peach blossoms looked about the same last year in Feb when we got -12F and that’s what did them in- further south the survived about -9.
I’m keeping my hopes up. If I only get peaches, nects, apples, E.plums and pears this year, I will be very happy. In more than one way, this is a season of low expectations.
Alan, after last season’s complete stone fruit washout and meager apple crop “low expectations” was not in my thought process.
Like someone else said …
" that’s why they call it farming and not harvesting".
Mike
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However, I’m not sure if in the history of my region, the peach crop has been lost 2 seasons in a row due to weather, although it is likely to have occurred at some point in the last 200 years. Nevertheless, I believe we are entering a period of extremely erratic weather and I wonder how much that will limit the practicality of growing certain species of fruit where it was practical before. It is a hobby for me, but also my living. Farming without harvesting is not tenable so I would argue that part of farming has to be harvesting. That’s why they call it farming and not exercise.
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Based on my experience with strawberries and other garden crops, I’m fully convinced that covering with plastic, whether something like a garbage bag or a plastic tarp, is worse than nothing at all. I would, however, second VSOP’s recommendation of Christmas lights underneath/inside a fabric cover. I would guess that just a single layer of plain cotton sheet with Christmas lights inside would probably buy you at least 5 degrees.
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Or…
“Fishing and not Catching” - ( I’m an expert at that one)
Mike
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Along those lines, I was listening to a gardening show once, and the host said something like, “Why are you dressing your tree in a windbreaker to prevent cold injury?! It doesn’t produce its own heat!”
It made me laugh, and I’ve always remembered that line.
I think the host’s point was that the “windbreaker” is important to prevent desiccation during a long winter and maybe to prevent frost from settling, but if it’s just a matter of temperature, I think you just need a heat source…plain and simple.
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It might be useful to have warm-“blooded” trees, though.
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Eric,
Are you suggesting we do some “genetic engineering” to get a “warm blooded” tree. 
.
Now that is some GMOing I could really get behind, but, I can just hear the…*&$#@$
Mike
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