Snow Shackle Havoc

What is wrong with this picture?

On April 20th we had 80 degree weather... so why is it that three days later on April 23rd there is a snow storm? Unbelievable! When I woke up for work the morning of the 23rd I was greeted by 4-5" of snow accumulation. The roads had yet to be plowed and later the schools were closed. When daylight arrived I walked the yard to survey the snowy mayhem. As one co-worker put it, the trees looked like they were practicing yoga.

It was quite alarming, not just the snow... (or winter in April shall we call it?) but the yoga the tree were doing. While it might be relaxing activity for humans (though honestly I don't know much about it), the trees were incredibly stressed out!

Hawthorn on April 23rd

Hawthorn today on April 27th

Pictured above is a Hawthorn in the yard. As you can see it is covered in foliage and when the snow came it stuck to all the leaves. The weight of all that snow on the leaves of the Hawthorn caused the branches to bend significantly.

The Hawthorn had one major branch that couldn't take the snow stress. Even though the whole branch unit has bounced back a bit, I know that it will have to be cut off.


Lilac before shaking.

Lilac after shaking.

While I knew there wasn't much to do for most of the trees, being as tall as they are and some damage being already beyond help, I decided to do a little intervention for some of the plants in the yard. Intervention meaning running around with a large garden stake beating and shaking the snow off the plants- as can be seen demonstrated above with my before and after shaking photos of a very old Lilac.

Honeysuckle before.

Honeysuckle after.

 Shaking the plants free of their snow shackles proved to provide immediate relief. For the honeysuckle pictured above the transformation took seconds.

click for enlarged image

Mega Garden seemed alright with all the snow. After all, the temperatures were not THAT cold for me to worry about my seedlings who were tucked away under the snow blanket. However, the fence took some hits in that some of the deer netting got ripped down and stake supports snapped.

Unfortunately other things snapped as it can be seen that the weight of the snow was just too much for one large tree. We lost this one poplar, which stood right next to our compost pile. It wasn't the straightest standing tree in the yard so it is not that surprising that it was lost. The alarming thing about this poplar falling over...

... was that it fell on the Ancient Apple.

I've written about the Ancient Apple before. It's like a miracle tree. I have no idea how old it is, but its got a good sized trunk- which happens to be hollow. Its hollow as in you can stick your head inside- look up and see the sky- that kind of hollow. We don't know how it remains standing!

So when I saw that the giant poplar fell RIGHT ON TOP of the ancient apple- I freaked!
As soon as I finished taking a photographic survey of the snows effects on everything. I ran back out, with pruning equipment in hand, and began hacking away at anything poplar touching the Ancient Apple. I was afraid that the weight of the poplar on the Ancient Apple might be that ultimate final blow to the old one... as if the poplar was like, 'Ha! I'm taking you down with me! Mwahahaha!'. It was quick work as I soon learned how easy it is to saw through the wood (apparently poplar is something like the pine equivalent of hardwood trees). The Ancient Apple only suffered minor injuries and as you can see below- it is as good as new... well as good as it was at least.

Ancient Apple on April 27th

The snow damage in my yard was not isolated of course. One of my friends from work said they lost 7 trees. :(

Its easy to see now why its an advantage to drop all your leaves in autumn... because you'd never make it out of winter alive!