Valley nurseries take measures to protect plants during cold stretch

TULARE COUNTY, Calif. (KFSN) -- Some plants at your home may be worth covering, but others are more cold tolerant.

If you're unsure, it's probably best to ask a professional

But even the professionals are having a difficult time protecting their inventory during this stretch of cold weather.

Just ask Larry Espinoza, manager at Luis' Nursery in Visalia, who found out some plants that were supposed to be displayed at the home show this weekend were damaged by the cold.

"It's a perennial plant that can handle a pretty good amount of cold and they had flowers on them and looked good last week when I got them in," Espinoza said. "We got pretty cold, that's what it says. And it just goes to show that the frost can damage a lot of things..."

The more cold-susceptible products, including houseplants and succulents, take shelter in the nursery's new temperature controlled greenhouse.

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Across the street, the nursery has hothouses, which aren't temperature controlled, but provide the best cold defense for things like tropical plants and citrus trees-some of them will be used for decorative purposes at the World Ag Expo next week.

Espinoza had planned to start deliveries to the show on Wednesday, but it's just too cold.

"We have a lot of flowers and different things ready for the show that are in controlled environments, and I'm having to delay taking them to these shows because it's too cold," he said. "They will (be) like what happened with our coreopsis plants that just got damaged."

So he'll wait for it to warm up.

But he knows winter isn't over yet, and there could be more cold snaps to come.