Cold Weather Care for Outdoor Succulents Amazing tips

Cold Weather Care for Outdoor Succulents

If the forecast is for temperatures below 32 degrees F, throw a sheet over your crassulas, kalanchoes, aeoniums, stem euphorbias and aloes before nightfall and remove it in the morning. See how I do it in my own garden in this video, Protecting Your Succulents from Frost.

Frost that nips your succulents may turn their leaves brown and unsightly. How do you know if a plant is worth keeping? It may depend on how patient you are. Even badly damaged succulents are surprisingly resilient, but it may take months before they look good again.

Temperatures below 32 degrees caused the fluid in this aloe’s cells to expand and burst, irreparably damaging the tips of many of its leaves. Luckily for the plant, those same leaves protected its core, which is still green and viable.

If you decide to try and salvage a succulent with this sort of damage, wait until the weather warms in spring, then snip off the dead tissue. Because new growth forms from the center of the rosettes, pretty soon the old leaves will be barely noticeable.

And now you know that this is one succulent that needs covering next time there’s a frost advisory for your area. Here’s how my garden looks when temps are predicted to drop below 32 degrees F.

Notice that Agave attenuata tucked beneath the tree on the left? It’ll be fine because the tree will protect it. The plants you have to worry about are those that are out in the open, with nothing above them. I sometimes stand over a succulent and gaze upward. If there are no tree limbs or eaves directly overhead, it gets draped. (I use old sheets. Several years ago a nongardening friend, stopping by for a visit, asked if I was doing my laundry.)

How do you know if you live in a frost-free area? Your neighbors grow Agave attenuata in their gardens, and the plants look fine. In my garden, this soft-leaved agave is the canary in the mineshaft where cold is concerned.

It’s the first plant to show damage from frost in winter. A lot of succulents can handle cold below 32 degrees for short periods. But Agave attenuata will look like this the next day. This is a nuisance, but fortunately not fatal.

See the healthy green part of each leaf? Wait until spring, then use scissors to trim off the tissue-paper-like frozen tips, cutting each leaf to a point. When you’re done, the damage will be barely noticeable. By summer new growth will have hidden the short lower leaves.

What about a succulent that has frost damage only on its leaf tips? Don’t bother to trim them. It’ll lose those oldest leaves in a few months, anyway.

Kalanchoes tend to be quite frost-tender. One similar to this melted to the ground in my garden at 27 degrees, and I assumed it was a goner. Fortunately I didn’t dig up the damaged plant and discard it, because a few months later…

…it came back from the roots.

Jade plant is another widely cultivated succulent damaged at 32 degrees. The leaves turn squishy and putty-colored. This is not pretty, but if the plant’s stems are firm, it will recover and grow new leaves.

Actually, the jade plant in the photo was not a victim of frost. You know the term “frost burn?” This plant actually was burned…by a wildfire. The only indication that it wasn’t “burned” by frost is that frost tends to damage the top of a plant. This one was scorched on the side closest to the fire. (Which just goes to show, succulents cook rather than burn, but that’s a different post.)

If you live in an area where you can’t grow most succulents in the ground because it gets too cold, take heart…there are varieties that will do well for you. I recommend this excellent book: Hardy Succulents by Gwen Kelaidis, photos by Saxon Holt.

Go to my posts: Four Ways to Overwinter Your Succulents
How to Keep Succulents Happy Indoors

Frost and Succulents: What You Need to Know

Learn more in my book, Designing with Succulents (2nd ed.):
— Cold-Climate Succulent Gardens, pp. 111-113
— Cultivating Succulents in Challenging Climates, pp. 143-148

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