Cordyline winter damage

[guessagain]

My Cordyline Red Star suffered terrible winter damage, the leaves were all brown. DH cut them all off, but I’ve been reading that you should cut it at the crown? So basically your left with the stem only?

I’ve lots a few plants this winter. My banana plants (Musa & Ensete) don’t look good, had to cut them to ground level despite wrapping them. All my favourites lost. Hate winter for this reason, spent a lot of money & time in the garden last year & it’s just a real kick in the gut when you see your favourite plants didn’t make it!

So should I cut the cordyline down & hope for the best?

I was listening to a Gardeners Question Time where this came up. If you put cordyline into BBC Sounds it should bring up the episode. The advice was cut it down to the ground but not until all risk of frost has passed. They said it might put up some babies but this could take a while.

The freezing temperatures have killed off all the cordylines around here, even a beautiful big, very robust looking one my neighbour had. If you feel the stem it’ll be soft, advice is to cut off all the soft stem and hope the remaining hard part will grow again.