Q: My oleanders look terrible! I have noticed that there are many around town and they looked just like mine. Do they have the plague? I just moved here two years ago and I have never seen anything like this before. My plants went from green and healthy to nasty brown in a matter of weeks. I usually wouldn't write into newspapers, but your column has been very helpful in the past.

A: Oleanders have been suffering from cold damage. The reason you didn't experience this last year was because of our mild winter. We are at the northern limit for oleanders and some years they will get damaged by the cold weather. There are many plants in the landscape that have been damaged by the cold. Chinese Hibiscus, Mexican Heather, Cassia, Holly Fern, Banana Plants, Sago Palms and many other perennial plants have been nipped back by the cold.

If you can delay pruning until late March, then you will see the new buds on the plants and you will know how far to cut them back. The old wood will help insulate them against further cold.

Plants like Cassia and Oleander have a hollow stem that water can get into and freeze, further damaging the crown of the plant.

If you have any plants that were cold damaged near your front door or sidewalk, you may want to prune them now.

In this situation, aesthetics would over-ride horticulture practices.

Since you are new in town when you are out there with your pruners, be sure not to prune any spring flowering plants like Azaleas, or Gardenias or you will be pruning off their flower buds.

You could thin out any trees with any rubbing branches, except spring flowering trees.

Pre-emergent time is rapidly approaching so start getting your yard ready for spring.

(Bill Lamson-Scribner can be reached during the week at Possum's Landscape and Pest Control Supply, 481 Long Point Rd in Mt. Pleasant (971-9601), or 3325 Business Circle in North Charleston (760-2600). Fax your questions to 406-2700 or e-mail them to your newspaper's editors. You can also call in your questions to the Garden Clinic, Saturdays 11 a.m.-noon, on News Radio 94.3 FM (721-TALK).