We’ve had some really unpredictable spring weather the past couple of weeks, and I got caught out on one big change. My dahlia plugs arrived along with lots of other seedling trays (strawflowers, salvia, herbs I’m trialling for foliage this season, etc.). I always struggle to get plants in the ground promptly, so I thought if the weather was looking good, I’d plant the dahlias first. They are the most expensive of the seedling plugs, so I figured they were better in the ground than risking them drying out and dying in the trays if I got delayed on planting.
I checked the long-range forecast and it all looked great. The lowest temp was showing as 5 degrees overnight. Dahlias don’t like frost, so I needed to avoid that. I went gung-ho and planted out all 420 seedlings. And then that night I checked the long-range forecast again, and the BOM had dropped a bomb! The overnight for 3 days time was now showing -3 degrees! Gah!
I did what I could. I sprayed the dahlias with a plant-based frost protection spray we have for our young proteas, I rigged up some frost protection covers. I watered everything in to make sure it was as prepped as possible. But even though the forecast rose a degree, we still had our coldest overnight temp for the year. We hit -0.6 degrees on our weather station, which would have equated to about -1.6 degrees at ground level. And the dahlias froze from the air temp. Unfortunately the frost protection spray didn’t have enough time to kick in and the frost covers weren’t enough. Our beds of beautiful green plants went to blackened, soggy mush overnight. Even some of the plants cocooned under buckets fried. There is still some green in the base of some of the stems, and a few plants have leaves with green, so I’m crossing my fingers that some of that 2k investment will come through. Keep your fingers crossed for us!
Luckily our other plants seemed to have managed ok through the cold, and the warmth has seen some beautiful growth in the seedlings. We’re getting some lovely spring colour coming through. Come and visit us at Capital Region Farmers Market on Saturday mornings to see our range of spring colour. See you there! :)
