What worried gardeners should know ahead of a snowstorm
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Version 0 of 1. Dire predictions don’t always turn into dire results, but it’s reasonable to expect some damage to garden plants as this weekend’s monster snowstorm rips through the area. Whether the effects are slight or severe, the gardener’s response should be pretty much the same. Stay calm and be patient. What is often clouded by the shock of snapped and broken branches is that plants are their own best healer. Beyond the obvious measures of securing or bringing in pots, furniture, trash cans or anything else likely to be blown around in a blizzard, you can take some steps in advance of the storm to protect trees and shrubs. This is only worth it on precious specimens, and even then, only those within easy reach. No plant is worth falling off a ladder for. If I had a prized, decades-old English boxwood I would take the simple measure of wrapping it in a garland of twine — burlap is nice but unnecessary. Tie the string to the base and then wrap it around the shrub in a simple spiral up and down, tying the end near the original knot. Make it neither too loose nor too tight; the object is to hold the branches against the splaying effect of heavy snow, not to truss it. But a modern hybrid boxwood should be fine, and is best left alone as the snow falls. Weeping specimens such as pendulous Japanese maples, cherries and hazels are inherently at a disadvantage because they can’t shed snow like a straight-trunked version. One option is to create a tepee around them with bamboo sticks or plant stakes, tied securely at the top where the poles are gathered. This simple structure will help to deflect snow. Evergreens — broadleaf and needled — are more prone to damage than bare-branched woodies. Apart from ice storms, which can be enormously destructive to trees and shrubs, snowstorms can be particularly damaging if the snow is wet and heavy, if there is a lot of it, and if it is windy. Unfortunately, the approaching storm may fit that bill. [High winds, about two feet of snow forecast for D.C. area] Some evergreens are brittle and can experience branch damage — Virginia cedars and Southern magnolias, for example. If you have an urge to knock accumulating snow off an evergreen, use a broom and brush branches in a gentle upward movement from below. Do not attempt to aid branches coated in ice; you will do more harm than good. Most evergreens that are flattened by snow will spring back in time. Trying to extricate branches will undoubtedly risk breaking them or damaging spring buds that have already formed. If your beloved azalea (or anything else) is smothered in a snow drift, do not seek to “rescue it.” Once the snow is long gone, you can assess any damage and decide whether trees or shrubs with broken limbs can be redeemed. Even traumatized trees can spring back. This is a picture of a Southern magnolia tree in my garden that suffered mightily in two successive snowstorms several years apart. In the first, the central leader was broken, reducing the height of the tree by about a third. I cleaned up the splintered wound with an angled cut just above the highest lateral branch. This branch then turned skyward on its own and became the new main leader. This succumbed to the second storm. I removed the stub and allowed the next branch to turn into the new trunk. The tree has lost some of its desired shape and mass at the top, but it has repaired itself and filled in. I am hoping it will make it through the next storm, but if the top breaks again, the root system is so established that another side branch should grow in robustly in a year or two. After the first break, when the tree was small, I came close to cutting it down, but I’m so glad that I decided to take the long view. [For some Washington area gardeners, paradise lost] The other consideration is salt, which damages the leaf tissue of evergreens and also degrades the health of the soil. Be as sparing as you can in applying it to paths that are bounded by plants, including turfgrass. When the time comes to brushing off salt and sand, collect and bag it; don’t push it into plant beds. A hedge or screen next to a salted highway will often suffer damage from salt spray. As bad as the foliage may look in March, the spring flush of growth will look as fresh as a daisy by the end of May. Ideally, such a screen should be planted from the start with salt-tolerant plants such as Japanese black pine, hydrangeas, Red Hollies, yaupon holly or rugosa roses. While we’re thinking about plant selections for future storms, consider the large, attractive and much underused limber pine. Its branches are highly flexible and take blizzards in their stride. Or as the plantsman Michael Dirr writes, they “can be tied in knots.” More from Lifestyle: Blizzard checklist: How to prepare your home for the impending snow Retailers are jumping the gun by stocking seeds. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t buy some now. Warm winter tricks some plants out of their much-needed hibernation What the mild autumn means for your plants |