With many nights of freezing weather recently, some shrubs in the landscapes around the Tampa area are showing serious signs of freeze damage.  What should you do to help give your plants the best possible chance of recovery?

Here are 5 tips to get your shrubs in the landscape on the road to recovery. 

1. Avoid dramatically cutting the plants back until the risk of frost has passed.  Pruning the plants will promote new growth, and that new growth will be tender.  Remember that in 2009 we had 2 frosts in the month of March.    
2. Avoid fertilizing the shrubs until the risk of frost has subsided.  Fertilizing can promote the plant to flush new growth as well.  That new growth will be very succeptible to freezing temperatures.
3. When the plant begins to flush out new growth and the risk of frost has been reduced to an acceptable level, its time to remove the dead wood from the plant.  You can tell dead wood from live wood by looking for new growth. 
4. It is best to use sharp hand pruners as opposed to electrical or gas powered shears in order to make the cleanest cuts possible.  Clean cuts help to keep plant diseases away.
5. Unsightly, dead, and burned leaves may be removed if you want to clean up the general appearance of damaged plants. 

Here is a dwarf philodendron before cleaning out the dead leaves.

Here is the same plant after having cleaned out the dead leaves.  I just wanted to clean up the general appearance.  I only used my hand to remove the dead leaves, and there were no pruning cuts made.