METAIRIE, La. — For those of you mourning the loss of your plants following the freeze, dry those tears.

At Perino’s we learned that looks can be deceiving.

Catherine Perino, a manager at the nursery, says although the icy weather came as a surprise, there are ways to tell if your plants can survive.

“We haven’t had cold weather like this in probably over 10 years so none of us were really prepared. Our plants weren’t prepared, so there was a lot we had to get done before all of the ice came,” says Perino.

“A lot of people don’t know before a freeze you want to water your plant in thoroughly, you don’t want a plant with a dry root system going into a freeze. They actually will freeze easier that way.”

Besides watering the plants, you also need to cover them up nice and snug.

“Cover your plants. If you didn’t last time, cover them again if we have a freeze. It’s also really important when you cover a plant, you want that cover to go down to the ground because you are using that bottom heat to keep the plant warm,” says Perino.

Whenever you do uncover your plants, don’t be alarmed if they look brown and, well, dead.

“The best thing to do is just wait a couple of weeks until we get past this cold weather and then cut them down and those are actually going to come back from their roots. So that is something that is going to look really terrible, but if you be patient and give it a little bit of time it is going to come back in the spring and look beautiful,” says Perino.

There you have it.

Cut down those dead plants and play the waiting game, because springtime might just surprise you.

Perino says the more leafy plants like elephant ears and gingers are more than likely to survive.

One of the least likely is hibiscus plants.