Snow damage

Oh look, it's the obligatory snow post.

A tale of Winters past

When we had big snow the other year, several things in our garden got a bit of a battering. Worst hit were the blueberries in the yard. When the snow slid off the house roof, it landed all over the pots under the kitchen window, & a number of the long, thin, woody blueberry stems snapped under the weight of the onslaught. Bugger.

The blueberries survived their ordeal though. They were long overdue a prune anyway, so I snipped off the damaged stems. No real harm was done, to my relief.

New Year, new snow

This year, the blueberries have been spared, but the big hebe in middle of the garden is looking a bit overloaded.

As with the blueberries, the hebe could've had a bit of a haircut in the Autumn, but I figured I'd do it all in Spring instead. The hebe is a bit of a beast, & when you prune it hard you're left with a lot of tough thin grey stems - not a very pretty sight all though the Wintertime. My reasoning was:

Prune it in the New Year, then it will put on new growth almost immediately & so be ugly for much less time.

See, not just my usual procrastination & crapness - there's some genuine thought & logic going on here for a change.

But, the hebe has now caught an awful lot of snow. It was quite windy after the biggest blizzard of the week, & that was enough to knock the settled snow off most things... but like the rest of us, the hebe has hung on to its hat.

The hebe's snowy toupee

S'pose I'd best leave the warm snug comfort of the sofa & leap to the rescue, then...

What's the damage?

Once out there I can see that the base of the hebe's snow cap is now ice - not good. Extra weighty, & extra pointy too. Fortunately the ice hasn't trapped any of the stems - everything's sitting on top, which is great as it comes off the plant quickly in fairly big chunks. & that's fab cos like a muppet I've come out without my gloves on & my hands are now FREEZING!

Bit of a hole top right, but nothing broken

 

With the snow off, I can inspect for damage. The hebe's quite a bendy soul, & whilst it's now a little out of shape up on the top, there don't appear to be any breakages. & if that hole up in the top right of the picture doesn't close up as the plant rebounds, the Spring haircut will sort it right out.

Now bugger this for a game of soldiers, I'm off back indoors!