Disaster In the Making

We've got some nasty weather happening and I'm expecting to start hearing the cracking of broken branches. We're fully hoping for the best, but half expecting the worst. It's currently dropping a heavy slush onto them, which is starting to stick and dragging the branches down. Not to be melodramatic, but this could be the end for the White Pine in the back yard. OK, that might've been a bit melodramatic. Still, it's going to be stripped to a bare pole pretty quick if this keeps up. I really dislike ice.

We lived through it last night, I presume part of the same system heading your way - tornado in the adjacent town, but just thunderous hail here. My wife was driving home from work in the hailstorm, afraid to see what the car looks like in daylight. House made it through OK, I think. Hope you escape unscathed! These storms are fierce!

Weerobin, that sounds awful. My daughter is driving up from Tulsa this morning and I'm hoping everything goes well. I tried to talk her out of it last night, but you know how that goes.

The pines are straining under the load, but no damage yet. I took to propping up a couple of large lower branches on the damaged White Pine, which will likely provide amusement for some. I'm not sure it prevented further damage, but it didn't hurt. The branches on ground are from a storm in early winter.

Oh man, you're having some ugly weather out there. I saw on the weather channel yesterday that parts of upper MN and WI were supposed to get 12". The bad storm we had this winter resulted in mega damage to white pines. We have a Pinus Taeda in the back yard and it was completely bent over touching the ground. Quite flexible apparently. I went to put a ladder under it in the morning but it was too heavy for me to lift it with one hand and slide the ladder underneath with the other. It's about 2" caliper and I was pretty impressed with it's flexibility. I don't think the white pines can get away with that.

looks like you made it through the storm without further damage.

hard for me to understand the concern over a white pine - they are a weed tree here - when we moved in here 15 years ago we had over 70 100' tall pines taken down by a local lumber company to have a back yard. wish now I had them get rid of the dozen or so out front removed as well.

The only thing I can say to that is to each their own. I agree it would be apretty dark environment to live in a pine forest, but I likely would've left a few to admire up close.

I think living in a pine forest would be awesome! So many cool things to do with that.

I will agree with to each his/her own :) my collection of Japanese maples is a fine example

Haha...funny how that works as I dislike JMs and I'm sure there may be many things in my yard that you dislike. It's like I always say, garden for yourself, not others, and plant what you like to look at! If you've accomplished that, then who can say anything negative?

i am at a loss of words if you seriously do not like JMs and the kaleidoscope of spring and fall color :)

I tend to admire what I can't grow, which is the gardener's curse. Even though I've got an A. p. 'Viridis' that has survived a couple of winters without damage, they're not considered hardy up here. Many have tried, but long-term success is elusive. It's still too early to tell if it survived this winter, but pretty unlikely.

Wha: for me, I prefer a large, forest type tree, not a decorative ornamental. Plus JMs are way too common here. I think it has something to do with my childhood. My parents were very anti tree and we only had two JMs that were planted when I was 3. I longed for a nice fun tree that I could climb and have fun with and we never had that. Now in my adult life, I planted the types of trees that I longed for as a child and kept out JMs :)

Pseudo, I so know what you mean about longing for plants that are just out of our zone. For me, I'd love to have a loropetalum chinense but they are just out of my zone. I could probably grow one for a few winters but long-term success would not be possible.

S-4 ~ You've probably seen a number of pictures being posted from midwest conifer collectors showing extensive damage. I've seen a few where their garden is pretty much a complete brownout. I'm sure someone like Resin is getting a good laugh at all of us crying over the winter damage to plants we had no business growing in the first place. As you've said, these marginally hardy plants perform nicely for a few years, but when that harsh winter finally hits, which it will inevitably do, the results are rather predictable. I've had much better luck with z5/6 deciduous woodies than I have with conifers.

Here's a few more pictures of damage to young conifers from the recent heavy, wet snow. In order: Jack Pine, White Pine, and Red Pine. The top of the Jack breaking off (?) isn't a big surprise, but the other two doesn't happen that often.

That stinks...there's no real saving it after that unless you want it to turn into a freak tree. I'm not surprised about the white pine.