Freeze and drought death

I worked almost all morning clearing out my Pollinator garden.

At some point maybe in March or earlier, we had 70-degree days and then a freeze.

The Mr. Lincoln rose had leafed out and now is dead as is my Blue Sage.  The lower garden where wild Mealy Blue Sage had decided to take out residence has survived.

All my seeds are really old though I went through what I have of Marigold, Tagetes patula.  The newest packet is dated 2019.

I am attempting to use the paper towel method to see if the seeds will sprout.

Has anyone used the paper towel method to sprout Marigold seeds?

Has anyone else lost plants due to this funny weather?

Hi Anne,
As I've mentioned before I've got the same climate you do.  And yes, that one cold night last month it went down to 29*! I lost some cauliflower and 5 Romanesco broccoli seedlings. This hasn't happened to me before. Luckily I still have 5 more Romanesco because this is the first time I've gotten them to grow and I can't wait to see how they turn out. I have lots of shrubs and hardy hibiscus trees and crape myrtles that had been leafing out and all that new growth turned black and died but they are now leafing out again. Could have been worse, I guess.

I do the paper towel thing whenever I have seeds that refuse to germinate. I think it's a great way to tell if they are any good. But I haven't tried it on marigolds. Last week I roughed up a patch of unused ground, roughly 15' by 15'. It's not great dirt but it's not Sedona cement either. And then I broadcast all my older seeds on it, squashes and cucumbers and amaranth and a dozen other things all mixed up and covered it with an inch of shredded leaves. I'm going to water it every once in awhile and see what happens. I tried this 5-6 years ago but I didn't water it at all and I got nothing.

I have files of weather data for Sedona from Weather Wunderground going back to 2007. It looks like we hadn't had a hard frost below 32* in March since 2010. I will pay more attention from now on. But we had another ridiculously dry winter this year. The last couple of days I have been out trying to turn beds. Not tilling them, just turning over the top 10” or so to incorporate some fertilizer and sulfur to get ready to plant next week. But the soil is so dry that every time I turned the shovel the wind kept blowing all my good dirt away! I have to water it well and then wait for 24 hours so the dirt stays where I want it. Go figure.

But I imagine you don't have this problem because you have all that awesome Oak tree leaf mold to plant into! I bet you can grow anything/everything in that stuff! Happy gardening.

Debbie Ann said, "But I imagine you don't have this problem because you have all that awesome Oak tree leaf mold to plant into! I bet you can grow anything/everything in that stuff!

Yes, I have lovely oak leaf mold and lots of it.

When I was digging in that bed yesterday, I was admiring the beautiful color of the soil.  Yes, that bed was made with leaf mold.

You are probably right that we live in similar conditions,  If I remember correctly, you have red soil where I have gray caliche. While I don't really know I feel that red soil has some mineral in it.

Though my gray caliche does grow beautiful wildflowers, like blanket flowers, bluebonnets, and mealy blue sage.

Best wishes for that new patch of ground.

Sorry to hear about your garden. Fresh marigold seeds should sprout very quickly, maybe you already see them coming up.

Are you going to sow other flower seeds for your pollinator garden? Zinnia, sunflower, Mexican sunflower are all very easy to direct sow and are huge pollinator magnets too.

Spring weather here had been like a rollercoaster, warming up and raining for days then dipping to freezing temperature again. Since the ground holds lots of heat, wildflowers or self-seeding plants were largely unaffected. But some of my transplants lost leaves up to 5 inches above ground on a cold night with frost warning ( low temp still at 38F).

Hopefully your garden plants will catch up soon and attract lots of butterflies.

I was going to just use the marigold seeds because they will usually come back every year from the dropped seed heads.

And also because of deer, hoping to save the remaining rose bush with smelly marigolds.