You are right that’s gambling weather for sure.
I’ll do my best to never make this mistake again, but these things do happen. I’ve certainly had my fair share of failures! I just receive a plant in the mail that is good down to -15 degrees. I have to overwinter it and then plant it a year from this June. I’m planning to do that in the back yard, which has a bit of a microclimate. If it doesn’t take, well, I do love these little experiments in gardening.
Southern Tier here. Temps have been tough on our flowering trees and bushes. Our mock pears only had about 1/4 the usual blossoms, then went to leaf after only two weeks. Guessing we will have skimpy foliage on those this year. Lilacs look as though they won’t be much better. Forsythia - leaves and virtually no blossoms. Last year they were great.
I think I know what is in store for my peach tree. My apple trees have not done a diddly darn thing since planted years ago - but at least I won’t have any sense of disappointment with those.
My teeny row of snow peas is doing OK, but we can NOT plant anything else until the end of May. Grampys wisdom. One year we got cocky, and we paid for it, LOL. We can plant seeds to ground mid May, but no started plants. EVER.