Why I Oughta...

Posting this photo in the garden diary as 'something to watch' come Spring:  the boxwoods that we have planted out front are currently weighed down by some heavy snow.  I've cleaned them off in other years and one of them suffered some die back in an early year we were living here, but this year, I'm just going to leave them be.  I'll let this snow melt off and then we'll see if there is any serious splaying that occurred and any long-term damage to the shrub.   These Boxwoods have NOT thrived, but I'm fairly confident that their lack of really taking off is related to the Norway Maple that I took down last Fall.  With less shade and the root system not having to compete with the mat of Maple roots, I'm hoping they will hit the gas pedal this season.  This area is VERY MUCH my #1 priority for the year , so the outcome of these boxwoods will factor into what I decide to plant here and/or move around.  

This year's snow totals were pretty high - in particular the month of February.  I posted a photo showing the big pile in between our driveways and mentioned how many thing had gotten buried under the snow.  In most cases, I figured that being buried was going to be fine.  But, there are some instances when the splaying from the weight of snow caused some concern.  In particular, the Gold Cone Junipers - which have a history of splaying - and the boxwoods.   For the Gold Cone Junipers, once the snow melts, I'll get out there and see what the state of them is after the long, hard winter.  I un-wired them , so I'm concerned about the snow.  Here's a look at the boxwoods just about a year ago showing that they had seen some winter burn , but no branching issues.  And, in particular, the boxwood closest to the front walk had a pretty large gap starting to show up that I'm concerned will only get worse with Winter splaying.   As for ...

We had a weird Fall this year - with some warm temperatures then cold temperatures then back to warm.  And then there was the early November snow event that came when many of the trees in our neighborhood still had almost all of their leaves on the limbs.  That caused a bunch of snow damage including taking down a good-sized major limb from one of the big Oak trees in our backyard .  When I say 'good-size', I'm talking about 40+ years old.  Check out the photos in the post to see the growth rings . But that tree damage was just one part of the lasting impact on the yard.  The other you can see in this photo above.  When the snow arrived, I did like I do pretty often:  created a little path out back for Lizzie.  If I don't make her a little path, she doesn't get out in the yard to do her business very easily.  Yes...she's a wimp.  Through and through. And...I also normally cut or shovel a path that gets us to our bird feeder so we ...

A couple of weeks back (the day before Halloween), we had a snowstorm that came on while many of our trees had almost ALL of their leaves on the branches and limbs.  The photo at the top shows some of the trees and how there are still TONS of leaves on them.  It also shows a big limb that came off of one of the big/mighty Oak trees that we have in our yard.   Those two things go hand-in-hand.  The heavy, wet snow on trees that were still carrying all of their leaves caused a bunch of tree damage in our neighborhood.  I worked hard to clear as many of the low trees as possible of the snow (using my blower), but this is the damage that we incurred.  Some of our neighbors lost similar branches and I saw one tree crack right in half up the block.   That limb might not look like much, but after the snow melted I started to cut the thing back up so I could get it out of the yard.  It was all alive and therefore HEAVY.  Full o...