January 8, 2017 – Winter Storm Damage – Mother Nature’s natural pruning.

         We had our first winter snow storm starting about 3:30 Friday afternoon and continuing into the evening and ending mid-morning Saturday.  I take a ruler out to measure the snow depth as I never agree with the meteorologists. About 6:30 a.m. I was out filling the bird feeders, doing a little bit of back step shoveling and confirmed we got 8 inches of snow.  We were lucky that it started with rain, then not much of a freezing mix as the precipitation went directly into snowflakes.  The end result was snow that was wet on the bottom when I shoveled the sidewalk with fluffy snow on top.

          I can always tell when the snow is deep enough to cover the grass by just the sound – actually – the lack of sound.  When the snow blankets our landscape the brightness and lack of sound wakes me up.  I was up at 4:15 a.m. Saturday morning and wondered around the house looking out windows checking the progress of the snow storm.  

Much to my delight I noticed movement in the snow-lit landscape.  A spike horn stag was wandering around my patio.  He was pulling a sprig of English Ivy off my persimmon tree.  He had a few munches and decided he didn’t care for it.  Then he wandered around under my birch trees next to the patio looking for something more palatable. When he didn’t find anything, he wandered across the drive and up over the hill towards the weeping willow trees searching for food.  The deer was a magnificent specimen in the snowy landscape.  I had him in my sight for about 5 minutes, I didn’t care that I was getting a chill and ended up with cold feet.  It was a splendid treat along with first morning glimpse of the winter landscape of bent over evergreen trees weighted down with snow and bare branch trees that held 3 to 4 inches snow. The snow was still coming down and I padded back to bed.

Early morning I attended to filling our bird feeders and worked shoveling the back and front steps and sidewalks.  [My husband wasn’t up to it for some reason.]  Usually it is a tag team sport – but I was on my own for most of it.

As a child born and raised in New England it was impressed upon me that you always shovel out your front and back doors in case of emergency and also be certain to remove the snow so that you didn’t walk on it to create ice packed steps that become dangerous.  As part of our possible snow/ice issue is our back patio which adjoins to our back steps and back walk.  It can easily become an icy skating rink if we don’t push all the snow off it as soon as possible.  If we were to allow it to simply just “melt” and it didn’t melt completely we’d have pools of water that would freeze quickly the next evening and become hazardous to our health.

So, when we have a storm we “dig out” as soon as possible.  Even if we are not planning on driving anywhere in the autos, we clean them off as quickly as possible so that we don’t get the partial melting and freezing again and have frozen car doors.

Today, I am a little lame in the upper arms from taking the broom to the car roofs to get the 8 inches of snow off them. But, it is good exercise and clean fresh air and I know how to properly dress in cool enough layers so that I don’t overheat, sweat and then become cold.  Good cold air in the lungs makes you appreciate the warmth of the house when you come in and stomp off your boots.

But, reviewing the landscape, we have one Leyland that is genuflecting into the hydrangea bush at the back corner of the house.  It doesn’t look like it is going to rebound and we may have to take the chain saw to it.  We will decide today – if it warms up.

Winter storms are Mother Nature’s natural pruning which is actually a good thing.  The weak or diseased are either destroyed or ruined enough that as a gardener you are forced into action.

So, a bad thing can actually be a good thing.  We had been monitoring that weak Leyland and had been dragging our feet on having it taken down.  Now, we haven’t a choice.

However, I wasn’t expecting to see a large upper limb of my “Little Gem” Magnolia to be sheared off by the weight of the snow. It is a noticeable chunk out the upper north section of my prized Magnolia tree that was planted the spring we moved into this new home.  

History about “Little Gem”

My mom sent me money for our wedding anniversary the year we built this house knowing I would be landscaping and putting in trees and bushes. We borrowed a friend’s pickup truck and went to Spartanburg, South Carolina, that spring as we had saved and pooled a large sum of money for the specific purpose of buying trees as this was an open field except for the back property line. 

I bought about a dozen large trees on that shopping trip including a special tree in celebration of my mother.  I specifically held out for one of the newer Magnolia trees that reached only 25 feet when mature instead of the 40 foot tall varieties.  Since Mom is a “Little Gem” herself, it was the perfect tree to buy with her “tree money gift”.

It is planted on the North end of the property set back the same depth as the house.  I can easily see it from my master bathroom window.  It has now attained that mature height and is one of my most prized trees.

Upon closer inspection this morning when I decided to drag the limb into the house to thaw it out and plunge it into Glycerin water in order to save the magnolia leaves to use in a future craft project, the sheared off limb is about 6 feet long – much larger than I first thought. 

In a future blog I will tell you about the process of glycerizing magnolia leaves and what I plan to do with the preserved leaves.  I dragged the downed limb temporarily to the front steps as my staging area, while I can get myself organized.  I will cut off the nicest limbs, locate a tall container, purchase additional glycerin, and glycerize the stems of magnolia leaves. 

Out of the bad can come some good.