By Rhonda Stansberry
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

Many plants that took a beating from wind and hail in June are making a good comeback.

From roses to rudbeckias, shrubs and perennials have put out new leaves and blooms. Even the intense heat of the past week hasn't stopped hardy plants.

The oakleaf hydrangeas, with large leaves that resemble an oak's leaves, are among the stalwart survivors in Addie Kinghorn's yard. New leaves already have started to emerge.

Everything needed a little extra TLC, however. Kinghorn, a horticulture professor at Metropolitan Community College, provided badly damaged plants with a half-strength shot of fertilizer and enough water to soak through to the roots.

"I didn't want them too wilted or too far into stress,'' she said.

On a larger scale, Lauritzen Gardens has come back, too.

The north side of the property -- the area of the rose garden, arboretum and Garden in the Glen -- took the hardest hit.

Staff and volunteers quickly cleaned up debris, trimmed broken limbs and branches and replanted some 1,800 annuals. Pruning and other tree work will continue through next year, said Sara Straate, a plant records curator at the botanical center.

Within a few days of the storm, the gardens hardest hit were tidy but pared back, looking more like early spring than early summer.

Roses are still small compared with a usual year. But Straate said the roses sent out new leaves, and the blooms quickly followed.

Large-leaved plants like hostas were shredded but have rebounded with new foliage and blooms.

"With a lot of the hostas, we left the leaves on so they could put out new growth,'' Straate said.

Kinghorn said hostas may take longer to recover than other plants. Some in her garden lost 75 percent of their leaf surface.

Plants with wide leaf surfaces generally suffered more hail damage than plants with narrow, spear-like leaves because broad-leaved plants make a bigger target. Many plants with narrow leaves, like butterfly bush and butterfly weed, are covered in blooms now.

When hostas and other large-leaved plants are stripped of their leaves, they have no place to store carbohydrates to make new leaves. Such plants will come back, Kinghorn said, but maybe not this year.

Fragile ostrich and cinnamon ferns beaten to rubble also may be a lost cause this season. Kinghorn suggests cutting off the damaged branches and waiting for a better show next year.

Kinghorn said the hardy natives that normally bloom in July and August -- purple coneflowers and black-eyed Susans -- are doing well.

"It gives us pause,'' Kinghorn said. "It makes us look at what really is tough and hardy, and what we ought to be planting. But even the best took a lick.''