I photographed this sunrise scene a few weeks ago when temperatures dropped to around 10 degrees. The white frost on the tree is referred to as hoar-frost and its very hard to predict when it will appear.Bitter cold is one factor,but I have seen it brutally cold and no sign of it. I lit the tree with flash to help show it off in the pre-dawn darkness. A little info on hoarfrost from the net

Hoar frost (also called radiation frost or hoarfrost or pruina) refers to the white ice crystals, loosely deposited on the ground or exposed objects, that form on cold clear nights when heat is lost into the open sky causing objects to become colder than the surrounding air. A related effect is flood frost or frost pocket^[2]which occurs when air-cooled by ground-level radiation losses travels downhill to form pockets of very cold air in depressions, valleys, and hollows. Hoar frost can form in these areas even when the air temperature a few feet above ground is well above freezing. Nonetheless the frost itself will be at or below the freezing temperature of water.

Hoar frost may have different names depending on where it forms. For example, air hoar is a deposit of hoar-frost on objects above the surface, such as tree branches, plant stems, wires; surface hoar is formed by fernlike ice crystals directly deposited on snow, ice or already frozen surfaces; crevasse hoar consists of crystals that form in glacial crevasses where water vapour can accumulate under calm weather conditions;depth hoar refers to cup-shaped, faceted crystals formed within dry snow, beneath the surface.