Garden Adversity

[Schier]

I'm taking no chances here either, although this morning was the first snow,
just  a skiff.  Well, I guess I am taking a chance, I have only built a protection for
the Pinus strobus 'pendula' that I planted this spring.  The rest of this years' new shrubs
and trees will be on their own.  We don't tend to get as much of the heavy wet stuff
in the fall as in the spring.  Then it can be nasty and heartbreaking, so I really feel
for you all that were blasted with it. I'm really not very fond of snow- but I do hope that we get some before the temperatures really start to dip, and if it's going to snow, there
may as well be plenty of it - just not so much at once! ( not asking for much, am I ..)

[Nold]

Several years ago I was visiting a country club in Colorado Springs (to show slides) and noticed the columnar conifers were all wrapped with twine. It occurred to me there might be good reason for this and after the blizzard of '03 (or after some other blizzard) the spruce pictured had it branches all askew and they wouldn't grow back upright. I started wrapping it a winter or so after and have had no damage since.
So far ....
(It wouldn't be such a big deal to me if I hadn't spent so much money on a fastigiate blue spruce. I didn't look at the price tag when I picked it up and by the time I'd gotten to the cash register it was too late.)

Bob

[RickR]

Multitrunked arborvitae dominate the nursery market, a terrible trait for areas with heavy snow as the individual stems can splay apart.   But I have only seen single stemmed trees in the wild.  I have inquired, of learned people, where in the world this trait originates, but no one has been able to tell me.  Has anyone ever seen an arborvitae (Thuja sp.) in the wild that was naturally multistemmed?

[stephenb]

Sorry to hear about this severe weather, the complete reverse of last year. I remember we had snow in October and temperatures had sunk to -10C at this time whilst Mark continued to show his onions in bloom! I was struck by how different our climates were! This year, we're well into November and still not a single frost here and the long-term forecast is the same and all sorts of warmth records are being set! I remember the climatologists forecasting a few years ago that in 50 years we wouldn't have frost here until December in some years. Well, we're not going to be far off that prediction already this year! Change is happening faster than we realise... 

[Will Youngman Comrie Perthshire]

Gee whiz!! I thought we had it bad the last couple of years but nothing like what you guys on the other side of the pond have been getting.
I suppose we should be grateful we live on a relatively small island ( UK ) in the Atlantic and have a maritime climate. its been so mild +20 oC / 68f we have narcissus 3" above the ground in November? We have had our 1st frost -1 / 30f so should hopefully slow things down. if it doesn't cool down we will have Narcissus flowers for Xmas.

[McDonough]

Following up on thje damage done to Chionanthus virginicus (Fringe Tree), today was bright and mild, time to do some cleanup.  Most branches were damaged, so the best pruning approach seemed to be to cut it back drastically, hoping that in a few years time with will be able to recover.

Leaving a few long willowy branches didn't make sense, so all was cut back to short solid trunks and severed branch bases.  In the right-hand photo, the red line indicates a cut I made on a large low branch that had split under the weight of snow.



A heap of limbs cut off.  On the right, the finished pruning job. Planted under this tree are many bulbous plants, such as Fritillaries and bulbous Alliums.




I gathered up all the seed, many still hanging on thje branches, like dangling olives, many others gathered up on the ground.  I will sow these. Interestingly, Chionanthus is dioecious, my tree is male, but it has the ability to produce some female flowers and depending on the year, varying quanity of seed set.




And lest we forget, here are some photos of the plant in flower, the flowers richly perfumed scenting a large part of the yard.




Never got a change to see the fall color this year, so here's a view from 2010 (center, yellow leaves), with Oxydendron arboreum (Sourwood Tree) on the right... the latter survived this snowstorm but lost the top 7-8' with 3 leaders snapped off and some other shapely branches.

[Hoy]

A terrible weather you have had over there!

Although I experience heavy snow and broken treelimbs sometimes it has never been like that. When it happens I remove broken limbs and make a clean cut along the trunk or main branch and never leave stumps. Last time i had to do this was 3 years ago when a Magnolia soulangiana was badly damaged (by late snow in April) at our summerhouse. (A lot of mature pines suffered even worse and lost almost all their limbs.)  Now the magnolia is back to its previous heights.

Mark, the fringe tree is (or was?) a beauty! Hope it regenerates well.

[Spiegel]

Mark, I'm so sorry to hear about the damage to your oxydendron.  Is this the first time it has had snow damage?  I was planning to plant one in the spring.  It's one of my favorite trees.

[McDonough]

Mark, I'm so sorry to hear about the damage to your oxydendron.  Is this the first time it has had snow damage?  I was planning to plant one in the spring.  It's one of my favorite trees.

Ann, Oxydendron arboreum is a slow growing but a strong and rugged weather-resistant tree.  It almost never requires pruning. I can't remember its age exactly, but I'm thinking it is about 16 yrs old now, and the first time any branches broke was in our disasterous December 2008 ice storm, where the single leader snapped off, and some minor breakage lower down.

It was worse this time around, the 3 new leaders that grew in since 2008 all snapped off, and some other main branches broke, leaving gaps in the outline of the tree. But having 14" wet heavy snow in October while trees still have their leaves on is not a normal situation.  The photo below is not very good, but shows the tree as of yesterday, with the broken leaders on the grown and other broken branches already removed. It will recover, damage was not that extensive.

I would advise planting this tree, it's one of the most beautiful and elegant trees.  It is also tap-rooted and very late to leaf out, so it provides an ideal plantable home to bulbs underneath.

[RickR]

A terrible weather you have had over there!
When it happens I remove broken limbs and make a clean cut along the trunk or main branch and never leave stumps.beauty! Hope it regenerates well.

When pruning, the general rule is not to leave stumps so as to preserve branch integrity, but I don't think it applies in this case.  

When all the sprouting that will occur will originate from latent or adventitious buds under the bark, I don't see an advantage.  The whole reason for the branch integrity rule is that when branches grow from normal buds produced at the twig stage, their attachment to the base stem is knit deeply into the structure of the base stem wood, making it strong.  Latent and adventitious buds begin at the wood's surface, and so are "pasted" onto the base stem, rather than having a deep anchor that is part of the base stem's internal structure.  

Thus, the area where the new branch attaches to the old stem becomes the weak link in the new branch's integrity.  Witness how young water sprouts (that arise from adventitious buds) in a fruit tree's canopy easily snap off at their base.  (Water sprouts are often erroneously called suckers.)  This demonstrates their weak attachment to the base stem.

However years down the road, the overall branch structure could (and probably would) look better with less initial stubs.  But because the new branches originate from latent or adventitious buds, technically, the smaller the caliper of the base stem, the more sound the branch attachments would be that arise from that stem.  And certainly, as new branches grow, the parts of the stubs that remain stubs should be cut back.

[Hoy]

Rick, I don't disagree with you. When I said stumps I am talking about something shorter than let's say 15cm depending on the thickness. If a "stump" is as long or longer than that and additionally have twigs I cut back to a sound twig. However branches damaged by snow almost always break or are teared off at or near the stem.

[McDonough]

Optimism springs eternal... if my devestated Chionanthus virginicus tree doesn't spring back from such a drastic pruning, there is always seed!  I know I sowed the seed too thickly, but if I get a few trees out of it, then I can rejuvenate my affair with the beautiful Fringe Tree.  Actually, this past spring 2011, 3 self-sown seedlings appeared; I can pot these up next spring and consider planting them out or offering up at a seedling sale. 

I wonder... my Fringe Tree is male, but evidently it sometimes produces female flowers and I do occassional get some of the dark blue olive-like "fruits" (very hard seed with a thin-layer blue pulp and skin on the outside), I wonder what percentage of male/female seedling trees one will end up with.  May never know, I don't have that much space to grow them on.

[McDonough]

Garden Adversity - Squirrels



While I have great admiration for oaks (mostly red oaks in my area, Quercus rubra), a major downside to oaks in New England are armies of gray squirrels that spend every living moment of daylight burying acorns in my garden; they're particularly attracted to soft freshly planted beds, so everyday beds of hybrid Epimedium seedlings look like a meteor-riddled lunar surface, with collateral damage of seedlings uprooted and languishing about. Of course in spring, the squirrels are at it again, incessantly digging little potholes EVERYWHERE in search of their beloved acorns, digging millions of holes with failed attempts. For the rest of the growing season I pull out oak seedlings by the hundreds if not thousands... until autumn returns and the cycle repeats.  



Oak seedlings are strongly tap-rooted and difficult to pull out, even in the early stages of emergence. I often find the seedlings popping up in pots, seed flats and even in troughs (I now cover all seed flats with wire mesh).  As I write this message on a laptop and staring out my dining room window, several squirrels are jumping about madly digging and buying acorns in a new hybrid Epimedium bed that I made this summer, each planted acorn ritualistically patted down these infernal rats with fuzzy tails >

I haven't even begun to rant about chipmunks yet!

[James McGee]

The biggest problem I have had with squirrels is they like to pull over my oriental lilies and steal the flowers when they are in bud.  The worst part is they break the oriental lilies off at the base when they pull them over.  After this occurs the oriental lilies do not resprout during that season.  I am hoping they will have enough energy to come up again next year.

I have actually been allowing certain weeds like chenopodium to grow in this bed because I think the squirrels avoid the thicker vegetation.  They probably realize the neighbor's cat might be hiding in such a place.

I have learned to cover my seed trays.  I also cover bulbs for a few weeks until the smell of dug earth has dissipated.  This smell is what draws the squirrels to freshly planted bulbs.  The squirrels are very eager to discover what kind of treat you might have hidden for them.

My best humane suggestion for dealing with the squirrels is to use a live trap to catch them and relocate them to some distant woods.  I have been told that some people put a little spray paint on the squirrel's tail to determine if any relocated squirrels have returned. 

It seem that everyone loves them and enjoys feeding them in my neighborhood.  The result being, I cannot relocate them.  I also have to deal with an artificially increased population of these garden menaces.

James

[RickR]

Nearby neighbors have Ohio buckeye, Black walnut and Butternut tees.  Their seedlings are even worse than oaks, in my opinion.  (I've had a lot of experience with oaks at my parents' house, too.)  But there is really only one squirrel that frequents my yard and that's plenty enough.  How do I know there is only one, and not just one at a time?

Well, one day this happened:

              

The poor thing was stuck there for hours.  I was hoping a raptor would swoop down and snatch him.  We have many that reside here at the edge of farm country.  But alas, he finally freed himself and limped away.  I had no squirrel visits for about two weeks.  That's how I know there is only one.