what a mess!

[mindymom]

my poor yard looks like it has been battered. we've had almost 3 ft of snow here, where 8" might be considered extreme. my trees and shrubs don't know what to do with all that extra weight. i have a butterfly bush that is maybe 10ft tall - i can't see it anymore. it just got pulled down under all that snow and disappeared. we lost at least two big tree branches and at least two good-sized evergreen shrubs from the front - one of them i can see broke in half. ugh. at least nothing hit the house. yet. praying for sunshine...

[Erinz]

ugh! I spent 5 winters in Maine so I know your pain.

mantra: it will be over soon it will be over soon it will be over soon

And in the heat of summer you'll wish you could stick your head into today's outside if just for a moment!

[goldfinches]

I'm moving back to MD next week and have been wondering how the plants in the area are faring. I am glad I don't have a house there with plants already or I would be so concerned for them.

I used to live in Illinois, where we got lots of snow. I had butterfly bushes, large russian sages, rose of sharon bushes, forsythia. They all fared well through the storms, not really losing branches.

[Ruthiegirl]

Oh Boy. Another Marylander here.

Our poor trees suffered. I had lined up a guy to come and take down a couple of the oldest trees -- we have a few really old, brittle trees and they took a big hit with all the heavy snow. Looks like we will have to take down a holly tree too. It split down the middle and lost about a third of its mass.

Honestly, I am kind of thrilled to finally have a concrete reason to do some big tree removal. We have been thinking about it for ages and dh was not totally on board. Now we are going to have much more room and sun for all of the fruit trees I have been wanting.

I don't know what the garden looks like yet -- it will be a few more days till the snow melts enough to see anything. I planted 10 new blueberry bushes and I swept enough snow away to see that they are looking good. Nice fat leaf buds.

I also transplanted about 40 kale starts a few weeks before the snow and am anxious to see if they made it through. Kale is tough stuff so I am hopeful.

I checked on the flowering shrubs -- I have a couple of tree hydrangeas that look fine. And the star magnolia looks good too.

Things grow so fast here, that I think most everything will recover. A few months from now, we will be sweltering in humid heat and thick, luscious gardens.

[Ruthiegirl]

Originally Posted by goldfinches

I used to live in Illinois, where we got lots of snow. I had butterfly bushes, large russian sages, rose of sharon bushes, forsythia. They all fared well through the storms, not really losing branches.

I have lived with a lot of snow before too -- Massachusetts and Vermont. This mid-Atlantic snow is really wet and heavy by comparison. Crushingly heavy on plants that are not accustomed to withstanding weight.

I was surprised to see what a difficult snow storm this was for everything. I have seen a lot of big trees come down this week. Power lines snapped and my neighbor's roof collapsed on his garage. Just heavy, heavy wet snow everywhere.

But! This is a 'once-a-century' storm, so your good to go. Come on over and enjoy life in Maryland!

[goldfinches]

Originally Posted by Ruthiegirl

I have lived with a lot of snow before too -- Massachusetts and Vermont. This mid-Atlantic snow is really wet and heavy by comparison. Crushingly heavy on plants that are not accustomed to withstanding weight.

I was surprised to see what a difficult snow storm this was for everything. I have seen a lot of big trees come down this week. Power lines snapped and my neighbor's roof collapsed on his garage. Just heavy, heavy wet snow everywhere.

But! This is a 'once-a-century' storm, so your good to go. Come on over and enjoy life in Maryland!

That's true, I did forget how heavy and wet the snow is. The trees there grow so spindly, I'm sure there are quite a few holly type that are split

I was there for the snow at Christmas. DH, who is from the midwest, thought it was nothing. I tried to warn him about the black ice, but he didn't take me seriously...until he slid a few hundred feet on it!

[mindymom]

Well the melt is on. Go, sun go, go ,go!
Now that the snow is shrinking a bit I found another broken bush up front, but the butterfly bush is perking back up a little.