Have you had the late frosts and hard freezes we've experienced here in South Carolina?  The early, hardy flowers and shrubs, like the delphiniums, foxgloves, and azaleas weathered the cold without skipping a beat.  However, some of the more tender perennials that ventured up with our early warm spell did get some damage.

Take a trip around your own garden and look for more planting opportunities.  They are in the spots where something might not have survived.  Take advantage of the space to try something new.  But, have patience.  Some things will be back, even if they look like black mush now.

While you are out in the garden assessing damage, be sure to look for the wee surprises in the mulch.  I found that the ginger is full of little jugs, not quite open.  These are the flowers of the Asarum, a wild ginger, and usually are hidden under the leaves.  Right now, the leaves are just unfurling.  These will be large, heart-shaped, with silver mottling on deep green.  They make a nice low accent for shade.

The Acanthus are budding.  I moved them to our new garden two years ago and these are their first flowers since then.  Nearby, the tiarellas, heucheras, and heucherellas have sent up their dainty spikes of flowers.  These litlle lovelies like this weather.

The cold weather shut down the early azaleas, dogwoods, and cherry trees, shortening their bloom time considerably.  The midseason and late azaleas will soon be coming on to take their place.

Hardest hit are some of my favorites, the hydrangeas.  Those under tree canopies didn't suffer too much or not at all, but many have damage and probably won't be blossoming this year, since their buds were set on the ends of the branches last summer.  I do have three 'Forever and Ever' hydrangeas.  They should have blossoms, since they will bloom on new as well as old wood.  These young plants are showing very little damage.  They are fairly new to the marketplace and were developed for the northern trade.  This will be a good test.

Many of those summer Southern stalwarts, crape myrtles, have damage to their limbs.  Since they bloom on new wood, they should come back just fine.  Last year I purchased some of the dwarf crape myrtles.  I loved the lavender-purple flowers that seemed to go on all summer.  They were very late in breaking dormancy this spring.  Lucky they waited.  They have missed most of the chilling cold.

The sugar snap peas I planted almost at Christmas are just now putting on their pods.  I was late in planting the seeds.  Thanksgiving weekend is the best time to plant peas here in central South Carolina.  You colder climate gardeners can be planting them soon, if the snow ever departs.  I seldom get enough into the kitchen for a meal.  I can't resist their sweet crunch while I harvest.

The winds were horrific most of today.  A piece of one of our trees came down with a Whumph!  All I can say is that I was thankful it hit the screened porch roof and took out a corner and a light there, along with the soffits on one side.  It landed partially on the roof and wedged on the ground, missing the fountain and the fifteen-year-old weeping Japanese Maple.  Many others across the country have suffered huge losses these past few days.  My garden and I were cold but very lucky.

---Posted by Anne K. Moore  April 16, 2007---