Potentially dead Wisteria.

[karigan]

Hi all. Sorry for in advance for any daft questions- I am.a complete gardening amateur but ive found its something I really enjoy so I thought i'd go to more knowledgable people for advice.

I moved in September to a house with a large garden. I stripped back a load of debris and dead stuff from a corner border bed in late October only to discover that the final fence section is a make shift job held up by a pallet (presumably as the gap is about a 1/3 of a usually fence section)
Anyhoo- pallet does the job but looks awful. So i thought that I would plant a wisteria in front of it with the idea that the pallet would be a useful trellis whilst it was establishing and then i'd have something pretty to conceal it.
So I bought a wisteria (was about a foot high) which I planted right at the end of October (possibly a stupid time but it was still warm at that point and I was overexcited) One week later there was three days of frost and I am afraid I might have killed off the wisteria before I've even begun. The leaves have dropped off however the actual stem appears to have grown about 6 inches in the last two months. How do I know whether it is dead? If I've only half killed it, how can I help it along so it survives until Spring?

They do look pretty dead in winter to be honest. We've had ours three years and it looks like a load of old twigs at the moment. I'd give it a few months and see.

The leaves always drop off in winter. There should be small leaf buds on it.

I planted one last year too, mines about 5 feet high though. I really hope it lives! It's looking well dead now but I'm hopeful about the lead buds!

Just been out and checked. There are leaf buds! :D (I'm so happy!)

Thanks for the answers.

Final question- my dad is an amazing gardener and is always outside doing something a tad random looking. He's currently got a load of his plants wrapped up to protect them from frost. Is this meant to be only for specific plants that don't handle cold well?- if so would this be something that would be included on seed packets/plant labels?
Or is this a bit of garden faffery you can skip? (as context he used to have me measuring distances between bulbs with a ruler so he's pretty set on 'the correct way to do things'

Thanks again!

Yay!!

I think it depends on the plants, and where you are. For instance, I have some hellebores which are normally very hardy, but I live in a very windy spot and they're almost dead now so I'm going to put something round them to hopefully revive them.

Gardening is so addictive!!

Hmmm. I'm in north Lancashire so it's not especially warm but on the edge of a nature reserve so there are loads of trees which seem to form a pretty effective windbreak.

Basically, all you need to be doing now is pruning. If you know the names of specific plants, you can check on the Royal Horticultural Society website (brill!) to find out how hardy they are.
I live on south coast, so not much wrapping plants in burlap for me

Awesome. I'll go and check the website. Thanks!