Winter of 2018 is going to be a fun one to look back on. There has been more than one occasion where I’ve been sitting on my deck in my mountain home enjoying sunshine and temperatures that were warmer than those in Orlando. Not only were temperatures backwards, I was staring at grass on ski runs while it was snowing in Jacksonville! While this does happen (rarely), it does happen and it’s fun to talk about and reminisce on when weather returns to normal… whatever that means. The reason I think that this is important to bring up is simple: cold winters fix allot of imbalances in nature, especially when it’s been a long time since the last one.

I’m sure by now everyone saw the news reports of the iguanas in Florida freezing solid and hitting suspended animation for a short time.  Well, did you know that these iguanas are invasive and a detriment to Florida’s ecosystem? In 2010, a two-week cold snap killed off a good chunk of the population of green iguanas and Burmese pythons that run wild in Florida. This was actually a very good thing. In the last 8 years however, the populations have rebounded and this snap will likely do very little to knock them back again. I bring this up because of the importance of extended cold periods and what it does for soil, insects, animals, plants, and well… basically everything.

Out west, the Pine Beetle continues to devastate millions of acres of trees throughout the entire Rocky Mountain region. This has become a pandemic and it is heartbreaking to see the amount of destruction that these creatures can accomplish when left unchecked. According to forestry studies, it will take sustained temps of -40F to cause significant damage to the life cycle of these insects. -40…. Think about that. There hasn’t been a cold snap like this in recorded history for the Colorado Rockies. What else can knock them back? Exceptionally warm early spring temps. If there are sustained temps above 30 degrees late in the winter, the larvae can shed their “anti-freeze layer” and be susceptible to a heavy freeze before they are mature enough to weather that storm.

The Emerald Ash Borer has a similar life cycle at these temperatures, at -20F, as much as half of the bores will die, minus 30? More than 80 percent. That would be a welcome sight for many people dealing with the destruction of these creatures. But what happens in areas that are not ready for this level of cold? In 2010, a cold snap swept through the South and made Bermuda grass go dormant until July. Think about that. There was literally nothing that could be done nutritionally to snap them out, it was a waiting game, much like an “iguanacicle” in the sun, time and warmth were all that was needed for things to wake up.

Believe it or not, everything in nature needs a rest at some point. In areas where the soil rarely rests, this is actually a good thing. Letting your lawn get brown for a couple weeks in Orlando is not the end of the world and there is no need to panic. St. Augustine will go winter dormant if temps are in the 40’s and it happens fast. The beauty is, the bugs and fungus and other wintertime infestations get the crap knocked out of them too, and this includes chinch bugs for you extreme southern folks.

Plants have a survival system similar to humans; it’s the botanical version of hypothermia. In human beings, when we begin to go hypothermic, we start to lose feeling and blood flow in our extremities as the body focuses all energy toward the core, your “trunk.” If anyone has seen any of those Everest type disaster movies, fingers and toes fall off like icicles from a roof on a warm winter day. The same thing holds true with plants. We don’t like to see a late frost or winter temps in a state where you don’t think you should have them. During these weather events, plants use the same mechanics to keep themselves alive. Plants are moving at their core at all times. This just slows down when it’s cold and that movement and energy stays locked where it has the most insulation protecting the life of the plant and sacrificing some extremities.

In the soil the same thing holds true. Everything slows way down. Bacteria slow their division to a crawl, water moves slower or not at all, and nutrients sit. Why? Because hydrolysis can’t occur in the tissue if everything is asleep. Think about what happens to water in its three states, as a gas, the molecules have spread very far apart and are covering more area, in aqueous state, the bonds are fluid and closer together, in solid or frozen state, everything is packed tightly. This is what happens in all things that are mostly water when it gets cold. This is when a fire, a cup of coffee and patience is the best remedy for your landscape.

So is there damage that occurs? Well sure, plants can lose leaves and blooms, trees can lose branches, new growth and fruit can be knocked to the ground. Is life over? Hardly. As a natural cycle, any debris that is shed by plants and trees returns to the soil to become food and insulation for the next time this happens. It’s as if nature has a divine plan on how to continue life.

Now let’s talk about your cultivated landscape and how everything is so wrong and out of balance that the damage could warrant an insurance claim… look, at this point people are probably getting sick of me talking about roots but this is when you should be listening. Soil is massively insulatory. Temps on the surface can mask the air temp or be warmer with improper exposure, but 12 inches down, it takes allot to change the needle. Now, if you’d like to know how cold/warm it is 20-30’ below the surface, run a thermometer under your cold water in the shower, this is the subsurface mean temperature. Now, I am not saying that it is possible to get your grass roots that deep, or any other planting for that matter (wild grasses and weeds on the plains can do it but that’s not important right now) driving your roots down with proper nutrition and watering cycles can make these cold snaps way less damaging.

What do I suggest? Glad you asked. Moist soils, never soaked, allowed to drain and be refilled will drive roots down. Proper feeding of VERY LOW NPK fertilizers like anything in our line and micronutrients added at key growth periods will allow for your plants and turf to excel in any condition including extreme heat. Feeding with the timing and growth cycles of plants and grass are the most important piece of management and often the most overlooked. Do not over look the soil. Using humates and other carbon sources for your soil is a must. The soil is being held in place by the plants that occupy its space, not the other way around.

If you’re out west like me dealing with this unbelievable warm and dry weather, we can talk about droughts and changing programs to accommodate soils that didn’t go to sleep when the time comes. But if you are fortunate enough to have a little cold snap enjoy it while you have it, summer will be on us soon and you’ll be wishing for a cool breeze.