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[HulGil]

It became unexpectedly cold for my zone and that coupled with severe sunburn caused all my kratom's leaves to fall off. There is some green at the node and the stem and roots seem to still be alive. Will the leaves grow back when it gets warmer?

[BubbleCat]

Perfectly possible, the bigger and healthier the plant was before defoliation the better the chance.

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[JMZ]

Last spring I was surprised by the resilience of kratom. Most of mine appeared to be dead sticks, and all but one bounced back in the spring.

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[Psylocke]

As long as you still have some green left in the limbs it should be fine. Below about 40F they start to get significant damage. Definitely below freezing is potential to kill even a larger plant especially if the roots get that cold. Otherwise the leaves just fall of and will grow back next spring.

[SoulGrower]

These guys are reported to be deciduous outside of the tropics.  There are some claims that they may even be able to tolerate short frosts..

I've got one about 7 ft tall and maybe 2" diam at the base.  Overwintered it last year in a hoop house.  Couple of nights lost heat and probably dropped to about 50 F.  Never lost its leaves.  I live in the sub tropics so I was going to put it in the ground this year but waited to long.  I'm going to go ahead and leave it in a pot where I intend to plant it and only bring it in for a frost/freeze (which we get rarely and when we do, typically only for only a couple of hours).  And plant it next spring.

What is unexpectedly cold?  Your plant looks fine    It should grow leaves back no problem

[HulGil]

What is unexpectedly cold?

About 40-50 degrees. I think you're right in that that amount shouldn't be enough to kill the kratom, I think it was more of the sunburn that made the leaves fall off. But thanks for the help.

[Toxicodendron]

I chop mine down to a stump & keep it in the garage over winter. Its been flushing back out for years now.

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[HulGil]

I chop mine down to a stump & keep it in the garage over winter. Its been flushing back out for years now.

That's good to hear!