Snowmegeddon: The Garden Damage

The snow storms over the past two weeks have not been kind to the garden. At first, I was philoshopical about this. Okay, I might lose a few plants, but hey, it is just nature's way of cleaning up the garden. I would just use this as a chance to introduce some new plants to my yard.

Then, I saw the damage to my white pines (cue the Psycho music). My white pines lost some major limbs! Now I can see my neighbor's swing set! AGHHH!

Now I know, rationally, that white pines are not the most exicting plants in the garden. And, if I was being rational about it, I would also realize that I planted a second row of white pines, and they will eventually grow up and block this gaping hole that now exists. But still! I was hoping the second row of white pines would provide an extra screen against the noise of a busy street. Instead, they will just replace the current screen. I thought I was making forward progress, but I was really just standing still.

Okay, snap out of it. Many people had a lot worse damage than I did. The full extent of the damage in my yard will not be evident until the snow melts but as of right now, most of the damage seems to have been sustained by evergreens that were weighted down by snow and ice. Some, like a cypress, was on the decline before this happened. A few of the bushes I always thought were ugly anyway, so they won't be missed. And some will no doubt recover, like my ice covered euonymus (For those paying close attention, these are different euonymus than the ones with crown gall that I blogged about last week. The former owners loved euonymus!). Unfortunately, there is a also large evergreen near my driveway that lost several limbs, and I am not sure if it can be saved.

In addition, with more than 3 feet of snow, the guy who plows our driveway had no choice but to put some of the snow on a row of hollies that are next to the driveway and enclose a small garden. Since the pile of snow is more than 6 feet high, it will be a while before we know what damage these sustained. But I am not hopeful. In previous winters, they have been pushed by the plow, but we have been able to push them back upright in the spring, and, although worse for it, for the most part they have survived. But this one might have been too much.

The Washington Post had a good article about how to deal with plants damage by the snow storm. Last week, I blogged about my garden projects for 2010. As a result of these storms, I may need to add to or revise this list.