Cold Damage – Wait To Determine

Q: My mock orange plants are a bit brown after the big freeze. What should I do now, if anything?

A: (written after 6 degree cold in 2014) All you can do is wait. On several shrubs (Indica azalea, pittosporum, fatsia, etc), much damage may show up as dead branches after the first warm spell of spring. This is due the to bark splitting that I predict happened during the severe cold.

When the weather warms, the split will open and fungi will invade, causing the branch to die. There’s not much to be done to prevent this. Prune out the damage as seen.