Fruit trees resiliency??

Hi, last summer I planted a dwarf fruit tree orchard atop a huglekulture 'windrow' I made.  Everything looked great going into autumn but we had record temp. drops and snow falls.  It appears that the cold got the best of the little 3 ft. saplings.  I learned later that if I had stopped fertilizing (or not at all) mid way through the summer it would have given the tree a better chance of hardening up to prepare for the winter cold.  Is there any chance that the tree can go dormant if I leave them in and spring to life next year?  (One of the tree appear to have some life at the base although none of them have any green shoots.).  Also wondering if atop the huglekulture mound made the tree more susceptible to the cold temp. because of not being planted directly in the ground??  Thanks for any feedback.  Cheers

That's the sad bad.  So, if it's from the root stock the shoot stock might be dead.  But,  I've had sticks come to life months later after a rough start.  One way we can tell if it's time to give up on a stick is if it yanks out of the ground easy. We have a rather active soil so dead sticks rot fast. Some people scratch the bark for green,  but I don't like damaging struggling seedlings to see if they are dead yet.

Best not to plant on a hugelkultur, rather plant the tree beside the hugelkultur.  The mounds shift and collapse so much it can disturb and damage roots.

Tyler Ludens wrote:Best not to plant on a hugelkultur, rather plant the tree beside the hugelkultur.  The mounds shift and collapse so much it can disturb and damage roots.

Or Hugel around a planting mound of soil.

Thanks everyone.  It looks like some of the fruit tree are still alive but willl remain dormant this year.  I am leaving them in the bed for another year and hoping for the best.  In between them I have planted filbert nut trees.  Also a risky endeavor to survive our winters.  Cheers

It has been my experience here that no matter what I do, it takes about 3-5 years on average for a newly planted fruit tree to really take off and do anything. I never fertilize my trees.
Patience.