Should I protect early buds on Larch and Dawn Redwood?

Temps are dropping this weekend, and I'm going to bring my budding Maples & repots in the garage on Saturday. Do I need to bring in budding larch or dawn redwood? I took the larch out of it's dormancy location and moved it into the sun two weeks ago. I can bring them in the garage, but it could be a few weeks without sun, or me two stepping. Are the buds going to keep popping, or will the cool down slow them down?



The Larch buds.



DR buds that hasn't seen direct sun all winter.

I would move my larch in if they re pushing. im actually in a similar position, my larch are popping and it’s going to get down to 34 tonight

Yeah I wrote this post running out the door for an overnight trip, I really was just wondering if they could survive the low temps tonight, I'll find out tomorrow afternoon.

I can't see why you'd need to move them. They are both good down to at least zone 4. They can take short stints down to 27F in the spring. Otherwise they'd never survive in the wild in those zones.

andrewiles said:

I can't see why you'd need to move them. They are both good down to at least zone 4. They can take short stints down to 27F in the spring. Otherwise they'd never survive in the wild in those zones.

Click to expand...

pretty much what I intended to write.

Do keep in mind that if you protect your trees in winter from frost, they will be very sensitive in spring. From a health perspective I find it better in mild climates to not protect from frost. But I am considered a little off

Larch need no protection, ever, in my experience. I have over 250 of them, if that helps...

Should be ok for both a little overhead cover, like under a deck or something might help. If these were Bald Cypress it would be a completely different story. DR is hardy to zones 4-8, larch even colder.

I’ve learned the hard way that if I have to ask just err on the side of caution.

I just put mine on the ground and they can take it. However I do move them into the garage if any root work or repotting has been done. I treat both Japanese and American larch the same.

jeremy_norbury said:

Larch need no protection, ever, in my experience. I have over 250 of them, if that helps...

Click to expand...

I disagree with the no protection, "ever". I have had collected Western larch here that were is a cold frame and started to bud out so I put them outside where the weather was pretty decent. The buds got a lot longer and along came a cold night or two. I don't remember the temps, but all of the new growth was fried and the trees went down hill from there. They did not do well at all after that and I only saved 2-3 out of 10 or so. I have also seen wild larch, huge ones and smaller ones get fried with cold weather after budding out for awhile and then cold weather showed up for a night or two. Driving up the Mt road after this one can see the trees affected because their new buds are all white. All the wild ones did seem to recover but I would not advise leaving larch that have large buds. I think the smaller just green buds will survive.