SALT LAKE CITY — Gardeners and arborists have been working hard to make sure plants and trees make it through this latest cold snap, which brought snow to the Salt Lake Valley the last few days.
Even though it is May, Red Butte Garden looked like a winter wonderland on Tuesday.
"We have over 450 individual taxa of trees," said Charlie Perington, an arborist at Red Butte Garden.
Perington says that includes more than 2000 specimens in the botanical garden.
The spring snow caused some damage to the trees.
"We've got probably close to about 1,000 limbs that have broken and I've got six to nine cultivated trees that have completely failed," said Perington.
Perington said a handful of other trees are also in similar shape.
While he has been busy with the clean-up, Perington said it has been an all-hands-on-deck approach to make sure all the plants are holding up through the cold and snow.
"It's a lot of down at the greenhouse with our most sensitive plants that are currently like outside needing to be covered, and then the work in the garden — there are five whole different teams that all focus on that work," said Perington.
Over in Sugar House, Rita Egbert has stayed busy keeping the garden behind her home in order.
"I planted tomatoes three weeks ago," said Egbert. "I have basil and lettuce and eggplant and peppers."
Egbert is making sure all her plants are protected and safe during the cold.
"If I start hardening them off, I need to keep them covered," said Egbert. "These are the water walls I used, and when I heard it was going to snow or it was snowing, I covered with just a plastic grocery sack."
Katie Wagner is a member of the horticulture faculty with the USU Extension in Salt Lake County.
"We usually see about 10% fruit bud kill if we get to about 29°F or so, and we'll get about 90% kill at about 25°F," said Wagner.
Wagner says the things that are vulnerable to frost include your warm-season crops.
"We often times encourage gardeners to be a little bit conservative and don't plant until Mother's Day, so you give yourself a couple week buffer," she said.
Wagner says our average last frost here in the Salt Lake Valley area is somewhere toward the middle to end of April, depending on where you live.
While Egbert has several plants in the ground currently, she's hopeful her garden will eventually look like it did last summer.
"You want to make sure your plants survive and you just have to make sure, you know, what measures to take," said Egbert.
Right now at Red Butte Garden, Perington says a couple of spaces are closed, namely their north shore and bridge trails.
Marita Tewes Tyrolt, the director of horticulture at Red Butte Garden, says some of the outdoor plants may be smushed a little bit or have breakage from the snow. However, she says they should spring back or grow anew.
