How much damage is this snow and cold doing?

My nice rotund hebe's have been turned into pancakes. I think my Jasmine is dying too.

Don't despair yet. I should imagine you may have lost some weaker ones. I know we may lose some older established plants, but we won.t know untill Spring. I am sure Adrian Thomas will reply to you. He became so involved with your hedge. How are the spare hawthorne you heeled in a patch in case you lost any.

Good point. Still there, I think

I am so sorry, as I remember the work you put into your garden, not to mention the cost. Plants can often surprise us and start shooting from the base again. Our garden is still under a foot of snow,so we can't see the full damage yet, but we can see tall bushes are flattened by the weight of the snow and one has been uprooted. We have not had  -14 though.

I wouldn't be too concerned about your shrubs, I have three patio apple trees in pots that were neglected last winter (the advice was to wrap them in bubble wrap but I never got round to it) and they survived fine despite instructions saying two of the species meant to need extra protection in winter.  Will have to wait and see if they make it through this winter because I've not wrapped them in their winter woolies yet again - I am such a bad tree owner!

You won't know if they have survived until the spring, and even then there is no way of knowing if it was the cold or something else that killed them.  If you are wanting to offer some extra protection try putting down bark chippings around the area where the trees are if you haven't already as this is meant to provide a bit of protection to the roots or something like that.

But then, I'm not a very good gardener, my attitude is very much survival of the fittest when it comes to gardening!

Hi Brenda

I think it is just looking for the best with our plants

Lots of Bubblewrap/similar around the most important plants etc...

We take a lot of our lives looking after plants that cannot cope with the cold or climate changes.

We need to be prompto and observant in what we do to save them.

All part of nature and the plants in our garden

Regards

Kathy and Dave

Unknown said:

I am so sorry, as I remember the work you put into your garden, not to mention the cost. Plants can often surprise us and start shooting from the base again. Our garden is still under a foot of snow,so we can't see the full damage yet, but we can see tall bushes are flattened by the weight of the snow and one has been uprooted. We have not had  -14 though.

Whoops sorry KaTtai we crossed posts

Regards

Kathy and Dave

The thing is Kathy, he did everything by the book and took expert advice, even to the leaf mould he used for such a big project. I just want his hedge to be a success for him. We are keen gardeners and accept that there may be losses and I am sure he does.  

Hi AQ and all
Sorry I've not been able to engage with any of your forum posts for an age - but I have been so extremely busy with my urban work. You can thank our web team for drawing this to my attention. Seeing your post, I can understand just how upsetting this is for you. We've had it light here compared to further north.

The saving grace for your hedge is you got it planted at the right time (there's is a tone of envy there - you will realise why when you get further down my post). I think you will be OK. You may loose a few, but you have the replacements heeled in. You also mulched it - more insulation for the roots. You have used native plants - they are as tough as old boots and so resilient to anything our weather extremes throw at them.

You may find when it thaws you'll have to go and do a bit of re-firming and uprighting with the heel of your boot, otherwise I would expect there to be a very high survival rate. If any do appear to have died, there is also a good chance they may shoot from the bottom.

I'm actually envious of your hedge planting. I ordered mine in September and have been messed about since and still haven't even got them!! That means when I do get them in (whenever that'll be!), I'm expecting a high mortality rate due to drought. I can see you smugly sitting there reading this knowing now in your heart of hearts yours will make it.

Good luck and don't despair
All the best
John