Dead or not.

[Paranoidandroidmarvin]

Nearly all of my plants in my garden are looking like this. Dead or not? This seems to be the result of the terrible frost.

Mine are looking similar! I'm going to leave until spring and hope for some sign of life before they end up in plant heaven.

What are they?

Top growth is dead. Many plants are designed to do that; they spend effort during the growing season storing food in their roots so they can grow afresh next year. So some of them may come back in spring.

If there’s woody growth, you can usually tell the difference between dead and alive, but if not, remove a tiny sliver of bark - a live twig will have a thin layer of green under the bark

It depends entirely on what plants they are. Most hardy perennial plants will be absolutely fine, and grow again next year. Ones slightly less hardy may have suffered more, but wait and see. Anything tender will have had it.

Anything that is an annual will have died but perennials should sprout in the spring. So it depends on what type they are.