Gauge your plant's condition
“With shrubs, trees, and woody vines, you can often begin to assess damage in a few ways,” “Twigs should still be pliable or springy. Damaged leaves should be shed naturally if the stems remain undamaged—a twig with dead leaves that do not drop naturally is a bad sign.” And a simple scratch or cut test can reveal the depth of damage. “Lightly scratching twigs or making a small cut on the lower branches on shrubs can reveal if the stem is still alive.”
Practice patience: don’t prune everything.
“If you can wait to cut back anything that you think has been frost-damaged, it’d probably be a good idea to just wait. As the plants leaf back out over the spring, you can see how far back the plants have died. By then, if the tips of a plant haven’t rebounded, you can usually cut back to healthy growth. In the meantime,foliage that’s on the plant currently, even if it’s dead, can help insulate the plant from any future freezes that we might have.”
Resource (Texas Monthly)
