COLD GIVES GREEN THUMBS THE BLUES FULL FREEZE DAMAGE APPARENT IN SPRING.

Byline: JULIA M. SCOTT Staff Writer

A week of frigid weather has left Ventura County growers with losses of $105 million, home gardeners anxious over mushy plants and local nurseries scrambling to replace thousands of plants and trees that succumbed to the cold snap.

While professional growers will be assessing the damage this weekend, home gardeners may be tempted by the return of temperate weather to replace dead or frost-bitten plants

But experts advise fighting the urge to trim and pluck and waiting until spring to revive your garden.

``It may be weeks or even months before you will know if things are salvageable,'' said Jon Tsuchiyama, owner of West Valley Nursery in Tarzana. ``The problem with cutting things back now, you're exposing the rest of the plant to more frost.''

Tsuchiyama lost 10 percent of his plants and had to replace dead stock in the greenhouse with those taken from the showroom. For plants that survived, he plucked off leaves burned by the cold.

Local nurseries expect big crowds of gardeners hoping to replace damaged plants this weekend.

Green Thumb Nursery and Hardware in Canoga Park has already fielded dozens of calls from anxious gardeners wondering what to do, said employee Cal Wright.

``It started at eight this morning and hasn't stopped,'' Wright said.

Irma Minghetti was getting an early start Friday afternoon at Green Thumb, where she searched for a green or purple gladiolus bulb to plant with others already in the ground.

Minghetti, 69, of Tarzana lost a young citrus tree and a few orchids during the cold snap, but came out ahead.

``We are lucky,'' she said. It was cold enough ``that we lost (plants), but it killed the diseases and bugs.''

Regional growers were also hurting from the freeze.

At Enchanted Way Nursery in Simi Valley roughly 100 plants died, about 15 percent of its crop, according to salesman Jay Snebold.

The nursery moved in July to a bigger location, but it does not have a greenhouse, he said. Without that protection, sensitive annuals faced the chill next to hardy plants like roses.

But they won't raise prices because of competition.

``If we raised the price the people will just go to some place that will get plants from where there's hothouses that were protected,'' Snebold said. ``We would lose business.''

The chilly weather affected hundreds of growers north of the Santa Clara River, on the Oxnard Plain and in portions of Las Posas Valley, said Ventura County Agricultural Commissioner Earl McPhail. Several thousand workers lost jobs and losses are expected to climb significantly.

``We had some very low temperatures for long durations,'' McPhail said.

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Low-temperature tips

How to keep your garden alive when the mercury takes a dive:

Don't prune the dead portions of plants until warm weather returns. Pruning now would expose still-healthy plant tissue to the cold.

Leave dead, mushy leaves alone. They will protect living ones from frigid weather.

Wrap delicate plants in old blankets or burlap, or build simple protective mini-greenhouse structures covered in plastic.

Bank earth around tropical trees such as citrus and avocado, covering trunks about 4 to 8 inches above the base.

Protect saplings with a mini-sprinkler left on all night. A 32-degree coating of watery ice serves as a protective covering since the danger zone is several degrees below freezing.

Don't fertilize. That stimulates growth, but green buds will be killed if chilly temps return.

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Photo:

(color) Tony Ortiz looks at the frostbitten leaves on an aloe plant Friday at the West Valley Nursery in Tarzana. Several plants suffered as a result of recent cold weather.

John McCoy/Staff Photographer

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Low-temperature tips (see text)